Pocket PC, Smartphone and the Feature phone

Tweet

Do you know how easy it is to upgrade yourself and how impossibly tough it is to downgrade (for want of a better word) to an older version - of whatever you are using? Well, to be more specific, I am talking in terms of gadgets. For a little while, I had the good fortune to experiment with a Pocket PC and then today I tried a similar operation in a Smartphone.

A little gyan in case Pocket PC and Smartphone are new(er) terms in your vocabulary:

Pocket PC (PPC) and Smartphone(SP) are the handheld versions of your Personal Computer(PC), that run Windows Mobile operating system and generally do a lot of things that a normal PC does, with the added advantage that you can carry it around in your pocket, and insert a SIM card and use it as a phone. PPC is the one with a stylus (on which you sometimes make do with the tip of your nails if the stylus is not around). SP on the other hand is a smarter version than the ordinary feature phone, but still less smart than the PPC! SP does not respond to touch, you have to explicitly give directions using the keys. SP typically has more number of keys, in some cases the entire QWERTY keyboard. The PPC may have a couple or no keys on its surface, and if it is not switched on, you may not even be able to tell whether you are holding it upside down! There is a virtual keyboard that you can invoke on a gentle touch on the screen once it is switched on.



So as I was saying, PPC was a luxury. Touch the text on the screen and your job is done. Then suddenly I was given an SP. My fingers could not easily forget luxury and they returned to the screen. SP refused to respond. Then I realized my mistake and sheepishly led them to the keys.
When I came back to my own old Nokia feature phone which can do nothing more than call and text message, and I felt as if I am thrown in a desert with no habitation nearby.

Tweet