Smartphones - smart?

[Alessandro Rubini]

Daniel Pocock:
> Ok, so "smart" is convenient marketing but if we want to refer to such a
> phone, as distinct from a legacy mobile, just using the word "mobile"
> may not be sufficient
>
> Is there any other terms that could be used?

I personally just say "telephone" or "phone", and people just
understand what I mean.  I always felt uneasy about calling them
"smart", but I don't think inventing a different word is really good
policy. We did it several time, and none of our special,
politically-meaningful name hit the masses.

Using strange words makes the talk weaker.  Using "phone" sounds
perfectly normal.  Sometimes saying something like "the typical modern
telephone" helps making the context clear, but at least where I live
everybody has a clear idea of what is the "phone" in their pocket.
Sometimes I show mine that is older, but sometimes I refrain from
this, because it may damage my credibility more than it helps my
discussion.

"mobile device" includes a lot of stuff, from tablets to gps loggers.
People who talks about the mobile market usually are concerned about
power consumption; reusing the clause to talk about phones can be
confusing with some audiences.  And explaining "when i say mobile I
mean high-level telephones" puts the speaker in a bad corner: anybody
who needs uncommon language to make a point, can't make a strong one.

/alessandro