Smartphones aren’t everything

Smartphones may be still the hottest computer-like digital devices around, but they aren’t everything. Some would like to convince themselves that a smartphone is powerful enough, big enough for most tasks. It is not.

There are countless instances where only a real large screen, combined with a mouse and a full-size physical keyboard, would do. And no, phablets and tablets don’t really qualify. Large screen is understood as 16-inch and bigger, much bigger — dimensions that definitely are not in the tablets league.

For all those who want to be working comfortably, sitting properly at a desk, monitors that are between 22 and 24-inch large and that you connect to a laptop or a desktop computer, have become the norm. It is not just a matter of comfort or pleasure. It is about speed and productivity; it is about work done better, about achieving better results.

Last week I found myself working on a 100-page technical document, and having to compare and to analyse its two versions, the English and the French one. I connected two 22-inch monitors to my computer and displayed the English text on one and the French on the other, simultaneously. This is possible thanks to the dual display functionality that Windows provides. Working then with the texts shown side by side, clearly, easily legible with large fonts made a huge difference.

Although Adobe Photoshop has a trimmed-down version for smartphones called Photoshop Express, I can’t imagine editing photos without the “real thing”, being a large screen and a laptop or a desktop — and of course the full version of Photoshop!

Several apps found on Google Play store wants you to believe that you can record and then edit the recording using your smartphone. American legendary music producer Quincy Jones once said about making music with too small, inadequate devices “it is like painting a giant airliner with a Q-tip cotton swab”. Sure you can try doing it this way; but how long will it take, and what would the result look or sound like in the end?

Even tasks that apparently are simpler than the above aren’t always fun to handle on the typical five to six-inch screen of a smartphone. We all check our e-mail on these mobile devices, it’s understood, but how many times have we found the text of the message to be too large to be read without constant scrolling up and down, left and right, or are unable to open and properly view the attached document? 

This is not to diminish in any way the value of smartphones. I for one confess my addiction to the device and consider that I am a heavy or power user, as they call them. I recognise the importance of the features and all that the device lets me do. This being said I also know where to draw a limit and when it’s time to move to full-size screens and computers.

Given the huge scope of applications of all kinds today, we certainly need all the devices, from the smallest to the biggest and every model in between. However, moving from one to the other, and choosing the one that is most adapted to the task we are about to perform would be the wise way to use technology. It is a matter of comfort, of time saved and of better results achieved. Not everything has to be mobile and pocketable.