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>> Point: Why smartphones will replace laptops

As someone who gets in trouble with his partner for being too attached to his laptop it may seem strange that I would argue that smartphones will replace laptops. However, I think it is not a question of “if” but rather “when.”

My central argument is that if you could offer someone a smartphone that would do everything a laptop does, then the switch to smartphones would be almost instantaneous because of the portability advantages. Three things are required for this to happen: smartphones need to get more powerful in terms of processing power, they need to have displays that enable people to work and view movies and web clips, and they need to have user interfaces that allow control of the device that matches laptops. So let us look at each of those in turn.

First, everyone knows the progress that has been made in processing power and miniaturization that has led to smaller and more powerful mobile phones. These sorts of advances are going to continue. At the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, GE CEO Jeff Immelt revealed a portable ultrasound scanning system that is the size of a smartphone. In the video of the presentation, he describes how the device has the same power and image quality of a full size ultrasound machine of two to three years ago. The developments in processing power and miniaturization will not come just from the mobile phone market but from developments like these increasing the speed of the trend. With increased processing power will come better operating systems and operating system performance. If we take the example of the Android mobile operating system, early developments were hindered by the sluggishness of the system on poor hardware. We seem to be beyond that phase now and appear to be on the verge of an explosion of hardware choices.

Second, in terms of displays there are a few ways that the smartphone may move. There are lots of developments going on in micro-projector technology and embedding projection technologies into smartphones, and you can now buy mobile phones with projectors in them. In October, 3M announced an optical film setup that will allow true 3D vision using mobile phones. However, the most likely technology, in my mind, is new augmented reality systems. Researchers at Columbia University have been working with the U.S. Marine Corp using these systems for mechanics. The system includes an augmented reality headset and an Android smartphone attached to the mechanic’s wrist. Significant reductions in time taken to find and begin a maintenance task have been reported.

Third, user input systems are likely to be a combination of voice activated commands, touch interfaces, and virtual keyboards which allow flexible inputs that suit an individual user and do away with the need for a keyboard. All of these products are available in various forms already. (For instance, I have written this column using a voice recognition software system.) None of them are at the stage where they can really replace keyboard operations but ongoing developments will ensure that change is rapid.

Will smartphones replace laptops entirely? My answer is no, and this is why.

Fat Fingers and Loud Voices

To build a phone that is compact and light, manufacturers have shrunk the screen and keyboard. Having to continually scroll to read on a phone screen or type text on miniature keys with normal adult-sized thumbs can cause productivity to plummet. A smartphone just does not function as well as a laptop for creating or consuming content like graphics, spreadsheets, and large reports or documents.

Power users who continually send text and email are likely to develop an injury. Repetitive stress injuries related to using your thumbs to type on a smartphone keyboard (“BlackBerry or Treo thumb”) are already becoming commonplace in doctors’ offices. In the most serious cases, thumb tendonitis can develop into arthritis causing hand pain, swelling, decreased strength and limited range of motion.

Recent improvements in speech recognition have made “talking to your phone” easy and relatively accurate.

Interacting with the phone by voice can avoid the thumb injury problem. But, in an open space office, employees all talking to themselves out loud would turn the company into the Tower of Babel.

For occasional use, for brief tasks that do not involve much data input, smartphones are ideal. But they cannot replace a laptop with a full size keyboard for office tasks.

The Incredible Exploding Battery

Lithium ion cell phone batteries pack an incredible amount of power in a tiny package. Unfortunately, they are sensitive to heat, pressure, and overcharging. After reports of incidents of overheating batteries causing injuries from fire and explosion in 2004 and 2005, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (USCPSC) ordered a huge recall of cell phone batteries. They worked with the wireless industry to develop standards for battery design and performance. They also authorized labs to test that batteries met these standards, and to certify compliance.

The amount of battery energy contained in a given device is currently limited by size and weight. Even if some new technology provided 10 times the energy in the same size and weight, it might not be wise to include it in a personal device, since a battery failure could be lethal or cause severe damage. No one wants a phone to explode like a grenade (even if the work is saved to the cloud).

A better solution is newer, more energy efficient electronic circuitry, such as optical technology replacing the current silicon technology. This new technology is still in research and development. It will be several years before it can be implemented.

To fill the gap right now, wireless carriers are offering netbooks with connectivity built in. Most netbooks are about the size of a trade paperback – easy to carry, better productivity, better ergonomics.

Brains on Microwave

Your cell phone uses frequency ranges similar to your microwave oven, although at much lower power. A new study from the Environmental Working Group indicates that a long term (over 10 years) cell phone user may be at risk of brain or salivary gland tumors. 

The difference between a smartphone and a laptop with connectivity is that the transmitter antenna in the phone is very close to your head, while the laptop antenna is further away from your body. For workers in sales, field service or other phone intensive jobs, a laptop or netbook with a service like Skype may be healthier and more productive because they can use CRM or other business applications while they talk to the customer.

Smartphones will continue to evolve and grow in importance as more consumer and business apps are developed for them. Here at Aton International, Inc., we enjoy working with smartphones and building apps for them. But, we are keeping our laptops.

During his 20+ year career, Charles Wilde, CTO and Chief Software Architect of Aton International, Inc., has worked with Microsoft Windows Phone, Windows CE, Android, iPhone and other embedded systems. Wilde is author of the e-book, Porting Native Code to Android.