Android PMPs

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> writes:
>
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Benjamin Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:43 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
> > <rozzin at geekspace.com> wrote:
> > > (Oh, and: is there a better shorthand than "PMP"? I keep reading
> > > "android pimps", and it just... doesn't sit right...)
> >
> >   PIMEED.[1]
> >
> > -- Ben
> >
> > [1] Portable Individual Media Experience Enablement Device.  Now
> > available with Genuine People Personalities!  Only from Sirius
> > Cybernetics Corporation!
>
> MID - Mobile Internet Device.  See SmartQ, CrunchTablet, even the Archos
> devices.
> 
> PMP is a Portable Music Player.  Most MIDs can do music.

Seems like the market is big on synecdoche, right now--pick one
random capability, and name the device by it. It's like people
just can't handle the notion of `portable computer' yet.

I remember someone being dumbfounded by the sight of a Nokia tablet,
last year, apparently having difficulty with it not being a smartphone.
The guy trying to explain it to him seemed just as dumbfounded,
struggling to find any kind of straightforward terminology for it--
eventually settling on: "It's a computer. It's basically a very tiny laptop".

When I went into Radio Shack to buy an Archos 5", last night,
the salesguy there said:

    Nobody *ever* buys that GPS--it's got way too many extra features.

D'oh.


> If the Palm PDAs had WiFi, they'd qualify as MIDs.

Turnabout: what does my *netbook* qualify as, if it *doesn't* have Wi-Fi?


> They may not have had the functionality of today's Android devices,
> but they got the price point.  I'm not sure I'll ever buy a $400
> tablet.

The smaller ones are more like $100. http://www.archos.com/ says that
even the 10.1" one is `less than $300'; but maybe that's what you mean--
`I'm not sure I'll ever even *see* an Android tablet as expensive as $400'?

(I don't remember how Palm Pilots were priced, back in the day...)

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."