MatthewHSE - 6:51 pm on Jul 19, 2010 (gmt 0)

I've often suspected that smartphones would replace laptop computers in the near future. As you say, the technology exists to just add productivity-related peripherals such as a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and the phone merely works as the CPU and storage space. I also have no idea why a phone couldn't sense when it was connected to an external monitor and either auto-select a high resolution, or automatically prompt for a selection to be made.

However, the problem I see with all this is, why would I lug around a case with all that stuff in it, just for the "convenience" of having my phone as my computer? It would be easier to carry and use a netbook or even a laptop.

You could always have public areas set up with monitors, keyboards and other input devices just waiting to pair with a phone via Bluetooth, but that seems like a security nightmare waiting to happen and "productivity stations" for smartphones seem like a long way in the future to me, at least in any kind of quantity that would make them ubiquitous enough to really be useful.