While at least some of its coverage seems to urge “smartphones later,” CrunchGear’s Smartphones Now series recently posted a tabletastic first-time buyers’ guide. While the site admits that there’s “no official definition” for smartphones, it notes that these handsets are, generally speaking, “a combination of a cellphone and PDA.”
Yet, in its guide, the site notes that it’s omitting Blackberries and Sidekicks as they are “communicators” even though two posts earlier it includes the Blackberry Pearl in the “Smartphones Now” series. How can the industry resolve all this? It may not be perfect, but I like the idea of defining a smartphone as one that has an operating system that enables users to install their own applications outside of those offered by the carrier in the case of proprietary OSes such as the one the Sidekick uses. Under that definition, the Blackberry would be a smartphone.