Motorola predicts smart phones replacing Laptops in two years?

[cbn]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...GHz_processor_coming_to_Android?taxonomyId=15

Jha also said that companies would start giving their workers smartphones instead of laptops in two years. Smartphones will have "faster and faster access to information," Jha said, according to Conceivably Tech.

Many analysts and some IT executives have questioned why workers need a 1 GHz processor, let alone one with 2 GHz, for access to enterprise applications and e-mail, although the speed could come in handy if the smartphone was truly replacing a laptop.

So I did some checking and products like Dell Streak apparently work fine with a full size Bluetooth Keyboard, but not a bluetooth mouse due to lack of cursor support in the Android OS.

If Motorola is really planning to replace laptops with phones I would imagine cursor support would be a must. (if the phone is used in conjunction with a 1080p monitor)

How about support for external devices like printers/optical drives/HDD? Is this possible? Or is it already happening?

 

[MrX8503]

I think smartphones will replace laptops sometime in the future but I don't see this happening in 2 yrs. For the most part phones are a "consumption" device not a "creation" device. For those reasons alone I don't see it replacing work on a laptop.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I dunno, with HDMI, keyboard, storage, mouse and printing support, many people could replace netbook class pc's with the current generation of smartphones.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Smartphones would have to catch up to the capability of laptops VERY quickly then. When I can compute something just as fast on my smartphone as I can on my laptop, and run all of the same programs without any flaws, I'll consider it. They'd also have to find a way to pack enough peripherals into a small and light package that a laptop currently occupies - larger display, keyboard, pointing device, speakers, batteries for all devices etc. - and with minimal cable clutter.

I don't see all of this happening in a two year period. In five years, maybe; ten, probably; but not two. I think it was 2004-2006ish when I heard people talking about how in a a couple of years, no one would use desktops anymore - we'd all be using laptops. That hasn't happened yet, and I give it another solid 5 years before desktops are all but dead in the average consumer space.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Smartphones would have to catch up to the capability of laptops VERY quickly then. When I can compute something just as fast on my smartphone as I can on my laptop, and run all of the same programs without any flaws, I'll consider it.

Let's keep this focused on the work environment for now...

Assuming you can hook your smartphone up to a keybord/mouse/etc, then log in to the network, couldn't you just remote connect to a more powerful machine if the task at hand required more juice than your phone could provide?

 

[gsaldivar]

Is this possible? Or is it already happening?

It's happening as we speak...

 

[Bateluer]

Motorola's prediction is blatantly false. So long as you cannot install your own OS on the device, or uninstall software you don't want, I don't see it happening. There's a lot you can do with a smart phone, but the capabilities of a laptop are so far beyond a smartphone, it isn't even a comparison.

 

[dwell]

Newsflash: Smart phone manufacture predicts smart phones will replace laptops. In other news, Yankees fans predict Yankees will win their next game.

 

[dguy6789]

I don't see it as a terribly outrageous claim. Laptops are replacing desktops as we speak. 2 years might be pushing it but it's definitely possible depending on how things go. Smartphone technology is advancing faster than every other consumer electronics category right now.

The modern smartphone already has the power needed to do pretty much anything you would do on a laptop with the exception of compute intense applications(Don't know anyone who uses a laptop for system intensive applications either). Web browsing, email, docs, power point, and all software in that genre is entirely possible on a modern smartphone, let alone one in 2 years.

The only advantage a laptop has over a smartphone aside from processing power(which is a non issue for the most part) is a better user interface for productivity. If the future smartphone has the proper connections such as a docking station that allows it to hook up to a mouse, keyboard, and monitor at a desk, it could come very close to replacing a laptop.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Phones and tablets will take over the bulk of causal laptop time. Things like facebook, email, news, etc will see a lot of traffic routed through these new devices. Other tasks such as Word Processing, Content Editing, or pretty much anything moderately complex will remain on laptops and desktops.

 

[trmiv]

I can certainly see it for casual use. I use my computer for a lot at work, so it wouldn't fly, but at home all I do is browse the web. If smartphones and their OS's continue to evolve like they have I could see myself using one instead of my laptop. If there was some kind of laptop shell dock that I could plug a smartphone into that gave me a full laptop keyboard, 15" widescreen and increased storage I'd be fine most 95% of the stuff I do at home.

 

[zerocool84]

It's already like this in many other countries. My brother lives in Japan and more people have "smartphones" than laptops or computers.

 

[exdeath]

I can see it. The last trip I took 3g was faster than the hotel wifi and my droid x is faster than the crappy loaner laptop I had. In fact if not for droid x root being released while I was on travel the notebook would never have come out of it's bag the entire two weeks.

 

[tommo123]

well, i want an android tablet to replace my little netbook ( that i love for vacations btw), but it needs 4 things

1 - battery life at least equal to the netbook = 5 solid hours of video playback. doable.

2 - be able to backup photos from my camera. i almost lost all my photos in china and now back em up to my netbook.

3&4 - on an evening with an hour free, i want to be able to do a little work with (1) image stitching. on my netty i have microsoft ICE. nothing like this on android market yet. (2) i want to do some hdr type stuff. i use photomatix on my netty. again, nothing like that on the market and the comp behind photomatix said they have no plans to do it yet.