There isn’t an industry definition of a “smartphone,” nor is there an industry definition of “super smartphone,” but the implication with both terms is clear—these are devices that do more than just facilitate communication via the phone lines. In some cases, we’re talking a lot more. One characteristic of a smartphone is that it has an operating system complete with an interface for developers to produce applications to run on that system—hence the term “app phone”. Others may characterize a smartphone as a phone that can perform tasks similar to their computer—read and send e-mail, access the web, read e-books, view and edit documents. When the lines between phone and computer blur in this manner, one might ask would you rather have a super smartphone or a netbook when it comes to ultraportable devices, and that’s a good question to ponder if you’re in the market for such a device.
I am always on the lookout for ways to maximize my own productivity through portable devices; over the years it’s been necessary in my job for me to be in contact with the office and able to access the Internet no matter where I go. I would carry the laptop wherever I went, then the netbook, and sometimes both. But I never managed to pull the trigger on a super smartphone purchase until recently, although I have been thinking about it in a serious way for almost a year.
It is not the intention of this post to provide a head-to-head comparison (or smackdown) of super smartphones, nor is it intended to foist upon you a super smartphone when you do not want or need one. Instead, my goal is briefly to document my thought process and the considerations that led to my own super smartphone purchase, and describe some of the ways in which my choice has increased my own productivity even in the short time I’ve owned it.
Step One, in which the iPhone 3GS becomes hard to resist
Since mid-2008, I knew I wanted a super smartphone. But I’ve also been around the block long enough to know that I don’t want the first generation of anything, let alone such an important purchase as a super smartphone. So I waited, and then waited some more, and then my boss got herself an iPhone and I finally got to hold one in my hands and fiddle with it. It was (and still is) a beautiful machine. Its specifications were top-notch, and it is an aesthetically pleasing device with a hefty set of applications available for download.
Unfortunately, AT&T has an exclusive deal with Apple, and I was not an AT&T customer. The fees for breaking my contact with my existing carrier would have been steep, and rumors about my existing carrier (Verizon) getting the iPhone were still going strong. I couldn’t justify the expense, or the shift to what I (and others) consider an inferior company with serious 3G coverage issues.
Step Two, in which I was ready to purchase an iPhone
After some time had passed and the release of the iPhone 3GS was a success, and despite my reservations about the AT&T 3G network, I walked in to an AT&T store [it's 250 miles to the nearest Apple store] and was ready to purchase an iPhone 3GS and switch to AT&T on the spot. There was a lot of travel in my future, and I wanted a device that would enable me to be more connected and more productive but without the need to carry the notebook or even netbook all the time. But when I visited the store all I could do was order an iPhone 3GS, and wait a few weeks for it to arrive.
I took that as a sign that it wasn’t the right time for me to purchase a super smartphone.
Step Three, in which I consider what is important to me
After my thwarted attempt to purchase an iPhone 3GS, I remembered something very important about myself: in the Mac vs PC commercials I’m John Hodgman. I’m the PC. Actually, if there were a Mac vs PC vs Linux commercial I’d be whomever they got to play the part of Linux. Probably a Finn.
Open source software, and in this case the Open Handset Alliance and the Android OS, is very important to me. All things Google are important to me because my contacts, my email, my documents, and my calendar (among other things I’m probably forgetting) reside in Google’s cloud. Put those two important things together and you get steps four and five: shopping for and then purchasing an Android phone.
I spent a lot of time researching various offerings from HTC. I paid attention to the rumors about which Android phones were going to which carriers. I compared data plans and realized no matter what I ended up with, my phone bill would just jump $30 for the data plan that would sit on top of the amount I pay for minutes. I knew the Android app marketplace had less applications in it than the iPhone app marketplace, but I also knew that would start to change. I also like the idea of a marketplace that is designed and continually improved by by its developers rather than a single corporation.
Then Verizon launched the Droid Does advertising campaign, which hit me right smack in the middle of my robot-loving heart, and I knew that the Motorola Droid was the super smartphone with my name written all over it. This was confirmed when I drove over to the Verizon store one day, said “I’d like to hold a Droid, please,” played with it, asked questions, liked the feel of it, and promptly took it home. I am thrilled with my purchase and know that I made the right decision for me. I like having two virtual and one physical keyboard. I like options.
Since then, I’ve watched with interest the reviews of the Droid, including posts such as “Zealotry sucks, and so does the Droid” and “Droid Doesn’t: It’s Not Ready For Prime Time”. If you are in the market for a super smartphone, you should read these two posts as well as anything else you can get your hands on—a super smartphone purchase is a serious commitment to a powerful device, and its operating system, available applications, and functionality should be considered in terms of what is important to you. I agree that zealotry sucks, and I am certainly not trying to do that here, but I do want to say that I have experienced none of the issues brought up in either of those two articles. It’s almost like they’re using different phones than the one I have. But that’s neither here nor there—let me tell you how I use my device for productivity.
My Productivity with a Super Smartphone
I’ve already mentioned that Google products are fully integrated into my life, and as they’re fully integrated into the Droid (and any Android-based phone) I’m always one click away from everything I could possibly need: e-mail, calendar, contacts, chat, documents, maps, GPS/voice navigation, voice-activated search, and so on. With Facebook integration my contacts list offers me several different ways to contact a user with one click—phone, message, chat/instant message, e-mail, Facebook message. I use Twidroid for Twitter, and with their new application plugin structure I expect to be able to tweet at my contacts with one click as well.
I currently have 63 different Android applications installed, and not once have I said “oh, I’d like an app that does X” and been unable to find something to fill that need. With an application like Documents to Go, I’m able to open a wide range of documents—including Microsoft Office 2007 files—and review and edit them. For instance, I was sitting in the airport the other day as my students were turning their essays in via e-mail. I was able to get their e-mailed document, and open the document and begin editing/commenting on their work within a few clicks. I can use the 5 megapixel camera to scan documents and turn them into a PDF with Scan2PDF Mobile, then e-mail that PDF to someone else all with one or two clicks in an interface that offers help and options along the way.
I know iPhone apps exist to do similar things—I’m not trying to imply that they don’t. And my Droid, as well as my friends’ iPhones, perform many other tasks than the few listed here to increase productivity and connectivity. A super smartphone, or app phone, or little bundle of electronic joy, could change your life for the better. Or it could not—it depends on how you are already oriented to an online/always-on lifestyle. But you can save money with a super smartphone (everything in that article holds true for iPhone or Android-based phones), and use apps in education as well as your everyday life.
Gideon Burton asserts “Scholarly Communications must be Mobile.” You have many options for shifting scholarly communication to your pocket, and as you consider taking that step, please do consider all of the options and do research so that you can find the device and platform that best fits your needs. If you have questions about specific devices and operating systems, leave the questions in the comments section—ProfHacker writers use a range of super smartphones and will give you an honest opinion on our experiences with them.
[The image in this post is by Flickr user tnkgrl and is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Tnkgrl has a great set of collections related to mobile devices, such as Unboxing the Motorola Droid, Unboxing the HTC Hero, and Unboxing the Apple iPhone 3G, among others.]
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18 Responses to Using Super Smartphones for Productivity
Amy Cavender - December 4, 2009 at 1:35 pm
One last note on cost: yes, it can get expensive, and for some people, it just isn’t worth it. But for those who are considering a move to a smartphone, it pays to shop around. It also pays to ask your carrier about educational discounts, even if they’re not advertised. I’ve managed to find a plan that gets us 750 shared minutes for three phones, plus unlimited text and data for the two that are smartphones, for roughly the cost of three individual voice-only plans.
Pat Gehrke - December 3, 2009 at 5:50 pm
The iPhone is a smart device but not well managed by Apple and on what is likely the worst major carrier cell network in the US. AT&T consistently does poorly on customer service ratings (JDPower, Consumer Reports, etc.) and has a dropped call rate in most areas of 20-30% for all calls over 5 minutes or so. That makes for a horrible user experience. Likewise, AT&T has a pretty poor 3g data network both in terms of coverage and total available bandwidth. Their excuse for not expanding the 3g coverage is that they have good 2.5g coverage, but the 2.5g network is horribly slow compared to 3g. Put all this together and, quite honestly, even if ATT was half the price of Verizon, I would never switch over. Verizon is by far the best network and consistently ranks in the top two (often on top) for customer service and satisfaction (note that cell phone customer service has a pretty low bar to be ranked highly so that does not mean it is great, but it is much better than ATT). T-Mo and Sprint are good networks, but a bit more limited than Verizon. Still better choices than ATT in my opinion.
If you truly need GSM international coverage, don’t hesitate to still get a Verizon phone. Just get one of their world phone models. They have a very nice BlackBerry Tour world phone, a couple decent WinMo world phones (look for winmo 6.5 or later os), and I expect in the next four months will release at least one if not two Android world phones (this is a rougher patch, honestly).
Also, a large number of colleges and universities have discount programs with Verizon for their monthly voice and data plans. You can check if you qualify at http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/employee/emaildomainauthentication.jsp — I am scoring 19% off my monthly bill as a Univ. of South Carolina employee.
I don’t mean to shill for Verizon too hard, but if you want to get productivity from your mobile computing / telephony device, you need a network that can support you and provide connectivity. I can be in the mountains of Colorado, on a farm in Tennessee, or in the heart of NYC, and I always have a good data connection. My friends with iPhones cannot say the same.
Julie Meloni - December 3, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Thanks for giving me a segue to talking about the network. :) I currently live in the middle of nowhere, and commute twice weekly through the wilds of nowhere. There’s only a 30 mile stretch not covered by Verizon 3G, while there are some parts of the actual college town I live in that can’t get a 3G signal from AT&T. The strength of the Verizon network really was a factor, as I do spend a lot of time driving through “blank” areas on maps.
Brian - December 4, 2009 at 11:22 am
I thought carefully about buying an app phone and associated data/phone service, and quickly came to the realization that although I wanted to be able to run the applications, this wasn’t enough to justify spending $100 a month for data service.
I do carry a cheap “pay as you go” cell phone with me so that I can make calls while I’m away from home or my office. I end up spending about $20 every two to three months to keep this service going- it’s vastly cheaper than any monthly plan. One way in which I save money is to use the Google Voice service- when someone calls my Google Voice number it rings all of my phones and I only answer the cell phone if I’m not near one of my land line phones.
As it happens, every building on my university campus has Wifi, there’s Wifi at my favorite coffee shop, and I’ve got Wifi at home. I’m not a very frequent traveller, but when I do hit the road it’s usually to go to conferences or visit other universities, and in most of these cases, Wifi is available. Since my commute to campus takes less than 5 minutes (on foot!), the number of minutes each day that I’m out of range of a Wifi hot spot is very small. Thus I don’t really need that expensive data service.
Of the three major app phone platforms (Apple iPhone, Google Android, and Palm Pre), only the Apple iPhone has a companion model (the iPod Touch) that leaves out the cell connection and just uses Wifi to connect to the internet. There are some other differences between the iPhone and iPod touch (no camera and no GPS in the iPod touch), but these weren’t big issues for me, since I have other cameras and GPS units that I use for various purposes.
Unfortunately, the iPod touch requires that you use itunes software on a Windows PC or Mac to install software upgrades, do backups, etc. I’m a Linux user, so I was not very comfortable with this, but in the end I opted to buy an iPod touch. As it turns out I only rarely connect the device to my wife’s Windows machine to do software upgrades- I can do everything else (including buying applications from the itunes store) over the Wifi connection. I’ve been very happy with this purchase, and I’d encourage others in a similar situation to consider the iPod touch.
I would be very interested in seeing a similar device that uses Android and has a more open approach to interfacing with computers so that I could connect it to my Linux systems. If the device also included a good camera and bar code scanning software, that would be a big plus. GPS with onboard maps would also be nice to have, but obviously not quite as useful as having real time access to maps and traffic data through the cellular data network.
Julie Meloni - December 4, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Just a few clarifications for people who might be coming in reading the comments as part of making their decisions regarding to smartphone or not to smartphone…first, data plans are not $100. Data rates average around a $30 add-on to the talk plan with your carrier. So, if you have a 400 or 500 minutes plan for $39 and you want unlimited data transfer with a smartphone, it’s $30 on top of that for a total of $69+taxes. May think I’m splitting hairs here, and $70 and $100 are still large amounts of money, but cost for plans was part of my decision process early on. I had heard (before really looking) that an unlimited plan with AT&T would run me $129 or something. Given that I was paying a third of that for my voice plan with Verizon, that wasn’t something I wanted to deal with. But then I saw that the unlimited AT&T plan was unlimited voice and unlimited data and there were many other options before that. When I realized all we were talking about was a $30 add-on for unlimited data, that changed things.
Now, if you’re on a pay-as-you-go plan, it will be a heck of a bigger switch to a fixed monthly price for minutes plus data. I know plenty of people who are in that situation and the usefulness of a super smartphone for them is not worth the $30 let alone switching to a fixed monthly payment. I’m not a big believer in buying something for the sake of it. Sooooo many of my students have iPhones and use them for nothing else than texting. To me, that’s a total waste of an expensive super smartphone and the minutes plus data plan.
To the point about software updates and other comments you made particularly about software and connectivity (here I’m just talking about Android specifics so that people know the info):
* Android phones have updates pushed to the phone for OS and apps (notification the user action required to apply update).
* Android connects to Linux machines just fine via USB; your distro will ask via the phone if you want to mount the SD card like a drive on your machine. From there, it’s just a drive.
* The Droid in particular has a 5 megapixel phone plus a built-in flash. I still marvel at that.
* There are a lot of barcode scanning apps (that then hook into various other tools) for Android, in part because there’s popular open source code that people leverage in their apps.
* GPS and maps are a big part of Android because of Google, and there are several offline (onboard) maps apps.
All of this is meant to say that you could go to your store of choice (like Best Buy or whatever), purchase a Droid (I don’t know about other Android models), not purchase a voice or data plan, and use it purely as a wifi device just like an iPod Touch. Obviously people don’t talk about that because the phone has “Verizon” stamped on the back of it… But since it’s totally possible to do that now, and some manufacturers are trying, it wouldn’t surprise me if you saw an actual Android Touch-like device within 6 months.
Brian - December 5, 2009 at 10:54 pm
I am intrigued by the idea of getting a Droid and simply not getting a cell plan to go with it. I’m told that although this can be done some things (particularly the GPS which requires an assist from the cell network) would not function.
This evening I found out about the forthcoming Camangi Webstation, which is “slate” that runs Android and has a 7″ screen. I’m not really tempted by this because it’s not in the form factor (fits in your pocket) that I’m looking for. It also appears to not include a camera. On the other hand, it seems to have a GPS that would work without access to a cellular network.
Heather Whitney - December 3, 2009 at 11:31 am
Thanks for this post! I’m a Verizon customer too but have been getting my super smartphone fix through an iPod Touch. I’d love to have a Droid but am just not ready to heft up the data fee. Maybe soon, though, after reading your post!
Julie Meloni - December 3, 2009 at 11:41 am
You’re welcome!
To be clear, for you or any others, because there are a couple different numbers floating out there and sometimes used incorrectly by competitors…. On Verizon, the additional data fee is $29.99 for unlimited data transfer. You might also see something that says “5 GB limit” — that’s for when you use your phone as a mobile broadband modem tethered to your computer. The other fee you might see is for syncing with Exchange. I don’t do that, and I don’t tether, so truly the additional fee is just that $29.99 plus whatever plan you’re on.
Justin M. - December 3, 2009 at 11:44 am
Nice job on integrating the Droid into your productivity. There are some things to point out about the Droid, though, regardless of any technical problems one may encounter.
For my part, I thought the Droid’s physical keyboard was terrible when I tried it out. Flat keys with no beveling or texture for purposes of telling where your fingers are, plus the fact that my thumbs kept hitting the bottom of the screen when I typed letters on the top row of keys, makes the Droid a no-go for me. It may as well just have an on-screen software keyboard like the iPhone. The keyboard on a BlackBerry is much better. But BlackBerry has its own issues, the biggest of which is the BlackBerry OS itself. It works, but it’s pretty slow compared to the iPhone OS and Android; it doesn’t allow for the kind of excellent apps that the iPhone and Android have; and the web browser is just awful. But if you need an always-on connection to your email, then a BlackBerry is a good choice.
Another problem with the Droid is that you cannot take it overseas. Verizon and its network, which is incompatible with the standard that most of the world uses, has seen to that. If you travel to conferences in other countries regularly, or are going on a visiting professorship and want to take your phone with you to use on a foreign carrier’s network, the Droid is very likely not what you’d want to be carrying.
Obviously those are just Droid-specific limitations. Other Android phones wouldn’t necessary have those issues. But there is a general Android issue to worry about, and that is data preservation. I love Google stuff, especially Gmail, but I am wary about being totally dependent on cloud-computing, which is what you’d have if you go with most any of the Android phones. There have been enough high-profile losses of data in the cloud lately that it should be transparently clear that local hard drives and local backups are necessary.
Julie Meloni - December 3, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Hi Justin – people are mixed on the physical keyboard, to be sure. I have small hands, so I don’t have a lot of the same issues that others do — in fact, I can actually feel a difference between keys. However! That doesn’t mean I use it all that much — I don’t, in fact. I spend most of my time using the virtual (on screen) keyboard in the vertical orientation, then secondarily in the horizontal orientation. I only use the physical keyboard when I’m doing a lot of writing and I have the phone sitting on a hard surface.
Since I don’t do a lot of international travel — none, actually, except to Canada, where Verizon has coverage and even a plan that lets me use it up north without roaming fees — that’s not a big deal for me, but as with all devices if international travel is common, then there’s a whole other set of considerations that do deserve careful research, you’re right.
As far as data preservation, for phone-specific data, I have a couple different things that I do. First, I back up to the SD card, and I also have a backup program that will backup a package to the web. So I have a couple different redundant backup systems in place just for the phone. Then with all my Google-related stuff that regularly sits in the cloud, I back that up to my local machine regularly, which then itself is backed up regularly. I agree that working wholly in the cloud is not optimal, so…I don’t! :)
Other things I didn’t even mention — because I didn’t want to do a spec comparison — is talk about the differences between what’s stored on the Android devices, what’s stored on the SD cards, how the cards can be swapped, how the battery packs can be swapped, and so on. That would have gotten me talking more about iPhone vs non-iPhone and hardware considerations, sustainability, and so forth, which isn’t what I wanted to do. But there are plenty of considerations there, too, such as swappable/upgradable elements that don’t require you to give your phone back and get a new one (SD upgrade, new battery).
There’s really a lot to consider, and I really hope people do go into their super smartphone purchase with a lot of information behind them, to make the best decisions for themselves, for sure.
Amy Cavender - December 3, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Jason’s brought up a point that’s worth mentioning: carrier matters. In my own household, there are just enough of us who travel overseas just often enough that GSM technology is essential. There’s nothing like being able to unlock a phone, and pop in an overseas carrier’s SIM card if that’s what will give you the best deal (depending on the length of stay and frequency of use of the phone, sometimes just paying the international roaming is just as good a deal). So for us, AT&T and T-Mobile were the only viable options among the big four.
We went with T-Mo, for a lot of reasons that made sense for us. That limits our range of handset choices. I’ll admit I’d have been really tempted by the iPhone if it were available for my carrier. I have an iPod Touch and love it.
But I’m also loving the smartphone I settled on: the MyTouch 3G/HTC Magic. It’s working very well for me (for reasons similar to what Julie had to say about the OS on the Droid). And, as much as I love the iPhone’s OS, Android has the advantage of not being tied to a particular carrier. The Droid isn’t an option for me, but I still have a decent range of choices for an Android handset that will work with my carrier.
Justin M. - December 3, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Hi Julie — I agree that there is a lot to consider, and that was the point of my comment. Sorry if I sounded overly critical of the Droid – I only meant to air some of the specific factors that might tell against it, depending on your situation.
Just a follow-up on the keyboard comments. Part of being productive on your device is being able to smoothly use your device, and that’s obviously going to differ greatly from person to person. In my case, I don’t have particularly large hands/fingers, but even my hands/fingers were large enough to have the problem of hitting the bottom of the screen that I described. And because the Droid has an off-center keyboard, thumb-typing on it was awkward for me.
The buttons, moreover, need to be large enough that you can hit them successfully, and auto-correct software isn’t a complete substitute here. I think that Android software keyboards are, or tend to be, slightly smaller than iPhone/iPodTouch keyboards, and those millimeters matter. BlackBerries solve the problem by being physical keyboards and having beveled edges on the keys. But they don’t have auto-correct software (at least, my BB Tour doesn’t). Android phones have auto-correct software, but software keyboards need large keys. I think the iPhone/iTouch keyboard has the edge over the Androids in this area, but again, I only speak for myself on this point.
That’s a fairly dry and nerdy point to make, I know! But again, it’s just a matter of usability, which is different for everyone. And speaking of usability, AT&T’s network is a usability issue for the iPhone for sure, but I won’t go there in this comment. Thanks again for the excellent post, Julie!
Julie Meloni - December 3, 2009 at 11:02 am
The full list of apps on my Droid (including standard system apps): Absolute Fitness, Alarm Clock, Amazon, Amazon MP3, Android Lightsaber, ASTRO, Barcode Scanner, Bartender, Browser, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Car Home, CB Blackjack, ColorNote, Compass, Contacts, Corporate Calendar, Currency, Documents to Go (full), Email, Facebook, Find Starbucks, Flashlight, FlightStats, Free Dictionary, Gallery, Gmail, Google Sky Map, Google Voice, Listen, Maps, Market, Messaging, Movies, Music, MyBackup Pro, NewsRob, OpenTable, Palringo, Pandora, Phone, Photoshop.com Mobile, Places Directory, Power Manager, Scan2PDF Mobile, Settings, Shazam, Solitaire, Starbucks Card, Stopwatch, Talk, Tetrominos, The Weather Channel, Twidroid Pro, USA Today, Visual Voicemail, Voice Dialer, Voice Search, WikiMobile, wpToGo, YouTube
Julie Meloni - December 3, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Justin! No, I was truly in agreement with the things you brought up, and they’re all important. There was just so much I didn’t say in the post that I plan to use the comments to expand on things. I think what we’re all saying is that there are so many considerations with every phone that the key is really to take advantage of playing with them, feeling their heft, trying the keyboards, etc.
You’re right about the Android virtual keyboards being just slightly smaller than the iPhone virtual keyboards — I had an iPhone side by side with my Droid last night and each virtual key is about a mm smaller all around, and it does make a difference.
Mary Ann - December 3, 2009 at 12:42 pm
After considering an iPhone for quite a while, I was turned off by the monthly expense, the acknowledgment that I don’t really need 24 hr access, and the fact that my town doesn’t have a G-3 network. So I stayed with my current dumbphone and bought an iPod Touch instead. It uses all the iPhone apps and was a onetime cost (plus the price of apps, of course). Although it requires a wifi network to get online, after setting up connections in my most common locations (home, school, church, community center), I can be online most of the time. I have to carry two small tools but I am very satisfied with my decision.
Julie Meloni - December 3, 2009 at 12:44 pm
And you’ll have even more choices soon, because I read something recently about a near-flood of HTC Android devices coming on the market soon, and many to T-Mobile!
Amy Cavender - December 3, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Ack–that should have been Justin, not Jason. Sorry!
Billie Hara - December 3, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Thanks for this post, Julie! I got the Droid just a few days ago, and with one (fairly significant) exception, I’m loving it. I have downloaded many of the apps you have and I find that they are things that will aid productivity. As I noted on Twitter earlier today, I’m loving the 5mp camera with flash. I’m tired of carrying around the Nikon D-90 all the time. The Droid doesn’t produce images the quality of the Nikon, but they aren’t bad. I actually downloaded a FX app this morning that allows the images produced by the Droid to have special effects: polaroid frames, Warhold 4x images, fisheye, and my favorite the Holga toy camera mimic. OK, the FX camera app is not a productivity app, but it’s fun.
The only downside I’m seeing so far– and this has been discussed extensively elsewhere– is the keyboard size. I have big hands (man hands, I suppose), and the keyboard is difficult to navigate. I might just have to get used to it after having a Blackberry-type keyboard for so long.