Author: Alastair Scott
Date: 13:16:13 09/13/03
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On September 13, 2003 at 15:05:12, Christophe Theron wrote: >On September 13, 2003 at 13:32:51, Alastair Scott wrote: > >>On September 13, 2003 at 09:05:27, Bob Durrett wrote: >> >>> >>>There has been much discussion here about handhelds. >>> >>>Would someone please summarize "the bottom line" on this topic? Has this forum >>>reached a consensus on which handheld and chess software is best? >>> >>>What about the latest and greatest Dell handheld? Palm? Whatever? >>> >>>I have been toying with the idea of having something to assist me while reading >>>hardcopy chess books away from home. The idea is to load [before leaving home] >>>the games being discussed in the hardcopy book from a large database and then >>>experiment with different ideas against the computer while away from home. >>>[Playing my own chess games against the computer does not interest me at all.] >>>Obviously, at home there is no need for a handheld. >> >>1. There is no consensus, fortunately, because the two principal platforms are >>so different. >> >>2. For your use a handheld is a bad idea because the screen is much too small >>for viewing and choosing from text. Despite all the desperate attempts at >>marketing it, email on a mobile phone or handheld is almost unusable for the >>same reason. > > > >That is YOUR opinion. > >A handheld is very useable for playing chess and even for reading and writing >emails. > >A mobile phone screen is too small, yes, and this is why I believe the >convergence between handhelds and phones should not result in a phone with the >features of a handheld, but should result in a handheld equipped with a phone. >Because a handheld's screen is big enough. > >Or this convergence should simply not happen: I have both a phone and a >handheld, I can use the phone as the modem for my handheld (by Bluetooth), and >this works very well. > >Anyway, chess on a handheld is a very pleasant experience. As a registered owner of Chess Tiger for Palm I am not going to argue with that. However, something like the database views in Chess Assistant or scid ... no way! From the 3G phones I've seen it looks as though things are going in the opposite direction from your suggestion (and my preference); they are definitely "phones with handheld features". I read somewhere that Motorola's first (relatively large) 3G phone was very much a first cut and it wanted to make subsequent ones smaller :( Alastair
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