There’s been a bit of talk over the last few weeks, about mobile phones starting to appear which have Windows XP running on them. I’ve spoken about the two that have popped up so far, the ITG xpPhone (which I call ‘the slidy one’) and the ViewSonicVPC08 (‘the flippy one’), on the pages of this very blog. And so far, I’ve been pretty scathing about them, and I’ve been pretty sure that the downsides will outweigh the benefits.
But I wonder… is it possible that what we’re seeing isn’t a waste of time, and is, in fact, the future of mobile phones?
Hmm, that’s an intriguing question, so let’s take a look. I know a lot of people (myself included) have said that phones like this are a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death, for those who didn’t know) waiting to happen, but is that really the case? After all, if they’re running on decent processors, then they’re not going to be a million miles away from netbooks, in terms of power, and netbooks seem to do alright for themselves. My first main concern with them is not the processing power, but the battery, because if there’s one massive, key difference between phones and laptops, it’s battery life. Put it this way, my laptop gets 2 hours from a full charge, but if my phone was only getting 2 hours standby time off a full charge, I’d be distinctly annoyed.
Of course, in future, that may change. Remember that blog post I did about paper batteries? Hmm, lighter weight, with a potentially higher capacity, and they’re much more efficient. Intriguing. That could solve the battery problem. And if it did, and a phone running Windows XP got the same battery life as a normal phone, that could be rather alluring. And if we’re talking apps, just imagine how many programs you can run on your PC that you can’t run on your phone. The desktop version of Live Messenger. The desktop version of Office. Hell, the desktop version of PhotoShop, if it comes to that. Imagine having a phone that literally can do everything your home PC does.
Ah. But… therein lies the biggest problem with phones that run on Windows XP. Size. Ironically, these phones are just too small. XP is designed to run on a decent sized screen. If you’re running it on a 4.3 inch touchscreen, it’s going to be fiddlier than trying to thread the eye of a needle, with the leg of a spider that doesn’t like what you’re doing with its leg, wearing mittens, in Jupiter’s immense gravity well.
You may also be wondering why I said the word ‘ironically’ up there, when I said about them being too small. Well, take a look at this video of an xpPhone being powered up:
See? It’s too small for me to imagine XP running properly on it, while at the same time, it’s effing ginormous! I mean, it’s truly vast; imagine holding that up to your ear.
So, that’s my main concern, even over the battery problem, because I can see the potential for the battery problem being solved. I just can’t yet imagine a way for the size problem to be solved, because at the moment, what we have are phones that are, bizarrely, too big, while at the same time, being too small. Plus, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, we already have a mobile version of Windows. It’s called Windows Mobile. If you want a phone with a 4.3 inch screen, get the HTC HD2. It’s kind of an inverse of the average XP-powered phone; they’re “massive body, small screen”, while it is “massive screen, small body”, which is a much nicer alternative…
So, back to the original question: are XP phones the way of the future? Well, no. I don’t reckon so, because I can’t see a way round that size problem. But here’s another question. Are phones like that, which are a proper cross between a phone and a PC, but optimised to run on smaller screens, the way of the future? Is that the place that things like Windows Mobile and Android are evolving towards?
Oh hell yes…
XP phones – waste of time, or the way of the future? Leave us a comment and have your say!