Take a look at that list of devices again.

You have a pocketPC and a Mini tablet/micro laptop.
You could go for the pocket PC as the next step. It would certainly handle the video side of things (with a 3.5″ screen and a video output.) But remember that the mobilephone device is missing advanced-intermediate input (emails, docs, blogs, real-time IM) so, with the pocket PC, you’re only going to satisfy one more requirement.

We’re also missing a device with Advanced output – (long-term video, browsing, doc creation) – 5-7″ (say 800×480) and advanced input.

Think think think again. A pocket PC isnt really going to cut it here. The overlap with the mobile device is too great. The only extra functionality you get is: 3.5″ screen but you get no extra input mechanism.

So, take the next step up – what do you get? We’re talking about needing a 5-7″ screen for long-term video and a mini qwerty keyboard. We’re into Mini Tablet and mini laptop territory. This is a blurred category of devices. Lets take a deeper look.

A nice venn diagram would show us exactly where we can put all our technologies.
I’ve done that here at home but the results are simpler to show in text form.

We start with our mobile device. We want everything possible on this device and we have a device no bigger than 3″ with a numeric or thumb keypad so you can forget video and decent input mechanisms. Efficient browsing is also out of the question.

You can put the following on your mobile phone device:
Mobile phone voice
Mobile phone non real-time Instant Messaging (SMS/MMS)
Calendar
Contacts
Reminders/To-do
Digital Camera (2mp with good optics is the entry point for useable photos)
Document storage (local, up to 4gb today.)
Music playing/recording.
Simple video clip recording/playback.
GPS navigation.
Device control – (Consumer infra red) (although I havent seen this on many phones)
Data gateway. (Bluetooth with GPRS/UMTS is the most sensible choice but wifi is also bossible.)

Before we migrate all our technologies on to the mobile phone, i’m going to put another parameter in the mix – Physical constraints.
That is, for each function, are there any physical contraints to be applied. The simple example is – input. Its the holy grail of mobile devices, getting an efficient input mechanism to work on a small scale. And up to now, no one has achieved it.
Thats why we now have a range of input mechanisms. From voice to thumb. Lets list the physical constraints here:

Basic input (SMS and short emails – non real-time) = numberpad
Intermediate input (emails, blogs, notes, tasks, calendar, IM) = thumbpad
Advanced-intermediate (emails, docs, blogs, IM) – mini qwerty keyboard for two-finger typing on stable surface.
Advanced input – (everything) Normal qwerty keyboard.
Other inputs – voice, projected keyboard – not yet proved useable.

Basic output – (SMS, notifiers, small emails, WAP) = basic 2″ screen
intermediate output – (emails, notes, vid clips, small pics, simple navigation) = hi-def 2″ screen (say, 176×208 pixels)
Advanced-intermediate output – (video, document reading, low-level browsing, advanced navigation) = hi-def 3.5″ screen (say 320×240)
Advanced output – (long-term video, browsing, doc creation) – 5-7″ (say 800×480)
Best output – (all methods) – Normal PC screen.

Interesting to note that advanced browsing requires more screen size than video despite videos containg many more times more information. (A picture is really worth a thousand words)

As for physical contraints, i think thats about it. Lets assume we dont have to carry aerials, spare batteries and cables with us.

The functions mentioned before need to sit on a device. Ideally just one device.
Buit today, we use many different devices.
Here’s a list of portable device categories we have in use today along with a guideline size (smallest first) and an example device.

Mobile Phone (3″) – E.g. Nokia 6280
Smartphone (3″) – e.g. Nokia N70, HTC Tornado
Pocket PC (4″) – E.g. DELL Axim
Mini Tablet (5-9″) – E.g. Nokia 770
Mini laptop (10-12″) – E.g. OQO
Tablet (8-15″) – E.g. Pepperpad + Windows tablets
Laptop (12-17″) – Many variants from 1kg-3kg. Many examples.
Desktop PC – All sizes!

One of those devices is becoming the ‘always-there’ device and a lot of technologies are migrating towards it. The mobile phone. (including the smartphone)

What we want is to put the most functionality on the ‘always-there’ device. By doing that we get the most functionality with us as much of the time as possible. That makes sense to me.

I want to make a short note about the smartphone/pocketpc combo device. Its a sub-segment of phones that have bigger screens and often thumboards. I’m not ignoring these devices, I just see them as a specialist device aimed at the business user. Besides, you’ll see in my later posts that even these devices cant really offer complete convergence.

The title sounds a bit technical but all it means is: whats the most technology functionality you can possibly have on the thoeretical device. The perfect ‘all-in-one’ device.

Check the date of this post becuase things could change very quickly.

Basically, its everything you use a PC for:
Writing (doc emails blogs websites)
Calculations
Real-time chat (electronic)
Talking (live phone)
Recording (storing voice/image)
Creating (imaging, music,)
Location Guidance (gps based routing and location/timetable information)
Reference (public and personal document access)
Connectivity – Access to common data/voice networks. Device control.
Syncronisation – If you cant do it on one device – you need to sync!

Thats a lot of categories that translate into the following common functions:

Mobile phone voice
Mobile phone IM (SMS/MMS)
Calendar
Contacts
Reminders/To-do
Digital Camera
Document creation (typing)
Document retrieval (doc reading)
Document storage (local)
Music playing/recording
Video playing/recording
GPS navigation
Web browsing
Email creation
IM Chat.

..and the following common connectivity methods:
GSM,GPRS (2G), UMTS (3G), Wifi variants, Bluetooth, IR
I’m going to leave out WiMax for the time being.

The simple fact is that you’ll never get everything on one device. It wont happen until we evolve better eyes and smaller fingers.

You cant watch a video for any length of time on anything under 3.5″ across.
You cant type at an efficient speed on anything less than a mini-qwerty keyboard.

So why bother trying to cram it all in to one device? i guess the marketing people can answer that question and its probably something to do with customer perception.
If you do buy the all-in-one device though, I can guarantee you wont get the best out of it.

I’ll go into a few details in the next post about what I consider the optimal convergence to be and what ‘all-in-one’ means. Some convergence is definately possible but becuase of device overlaps, physical constraints and a tendency for many technologies to evolve towards the smartphone, a new device segment is being created.