grelmar - 2:11 am on Sep 30, 2011 (gmt 0)

I certainly couldn't do any design work/coding on one, I certainly wouldn't even attempt shopping with one, I simply find them horrible to use with a netbook smashing them into the next universe.

I've had a couple of netbooks, and they're equally useless for doing any kind of "real" work - at least for me - same as laptops. If I actually need to get work done, aside from telnetting into a server to do a couple of quick edits with VI or VIM (the first person to mention EMACS gets hurt), then I'm going to sit down at a real computer, with a real monitor and keyboard and mouse.

Which is the point I was trying to make. For "portable computing" I just want something for quick text editing, maybe be able to read/slight edit a spreadsheet or word document, catch up on some emails, surf the web, etc - and my tablet handles all that just fine. No heavy lifting, but a bit of light work and entertainment, which is all I could get out of a laptop anyway.

cell phones were getting smaller and smaller, now its turned back around to bigger and bigger.

Couldn't agree more. For the longest time cel phones progression was about a smaller phone with a longer battery life. Now the next gen of "smart" phones are looking at coming out with the quad-core Kal El processor [crave.cnet.co.uk], with 4 - 5 inch screens, and they'll probably just eat their batteries.

To heck with that. Give me a phone that dials out, rings, has good voice quality, a long battery life, and acts as a portable hotspot for my tablet, should I be in the mood to bring that along with me. And make it SMALL, please, as in, smaller than a moto-Razr (remember those?)