Excerpts from featured article in Gulf News

Ten years ago, the smartphone was so restricted and rarefied that it was deemed a Wall Street icon. About four years ago, it became omnipresent on streets around the world, when a slew of models allowed users to check email. Most contemporary models now allow reading and working with Microsoft Office documents - a new generation of super smart phones feature accoutrements that are more suited to a computer.

By some estimates, global laptop sales are on schedule to outpace the sales of personal computers (PCs). While a vehement lot defend the laptop, it is worth remembering developers of mainframes who scoffed at PCs throughout the 1980s. On the other hand, handheld phones have already surpassed landline phones in many countries.
Since more people use phones than computers, is it not logical to ask when smartphones will overtake laptops?

The sharp growth of smartphones and the growing number of PC-like features are fuelling a global theory that this bit of tech candy it is becoming the new laptop – a theory is not without reason.
Raising the standard features

The most ordinary mobile phone offers email as a standard feature. While some require considerable effort to type, most mid-tier models offer QWERTY - the standard computer keyboard. Some smartphone brands offer larger keyboard attachments that connect to the phone. Another standard feature, Bluetooth, not only allows the phone to communicate with other phones and computers quickly and efficiently, but also enables effortless file transfer.  Most ISPs offer smartphone subscribers web browsing services for a monthly fee, while sites such as Google and MSN format their pages for easy phone reading.

The biggest threat to the laptop thus far, though is its price. A premium smartphone still costs only about one fourth the price of a premium laptop.
Recent developments in the smartphone industry also augur the arrival of a new breed of computer users – people who have never owned a PC. "We are entering a new generation where you will be able to use Windows from the small screen to the biggest screens," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer declared when the company demonstrated its Windows OS on ARM chips, the energy-efficient but lower powered architecture that most smartphones are based on.

Cyrus Roche, Marketing Manager at SIT Distribution, clarifies how the phone is just not a phone anymore. “The smartphone is a device for communication, entertainment and news, and for many, it is the first touch point to today’s world. It is not far - fetched to call it a mini-laptop, or even a temporary substitute for one.” SIT is the GCC distributor and service provider for smartphone manufacturers.