To each his own ---- I am amazed by the number of people who rely totally on their mobile phones ---- lose them ,smash the screen.flat battery and panic sets in .
From my view I have a Sony Ericsson K750i which has an FM radio,camera ,talks to my car hands free unit , exceptional battery life,music storage,sends texts. oh and makes phone calls .
I had to contact EE last week and was asked for certain security details --- the only details I could give was when I last topped up the phone ------ £20 back in July .

The mobile phone system and internet could close down tomorrow and I couldn't give a fig ---

As I said --- to each his own .
Regards

Pokemon Go?..... 100 million downloads in the last 5 months.

Not a fan myself, but yes people do, the same as the other lists of things I named on the previous page.

The poster I was responding to was saying that more things can be done online with smartphones but most of the things you've mentioned are not online functions. Don't need the internet for a GPS receiver to work, the gyroscope is a sensor and NFC (for Android/Apple pay) is a communication technology. There's no technical reason why augmented reality and real-time camera translation of signs can't work on a laptop with a webcam, it's just that these apps are only on smartphones due to them being more suited to those devices.

I'm probably taking what that poster said too literally, they most likely meant that smartphones have more functionality due to the all the extra technology they have on board, in comparison to a laptop.

They are online functions, you can't play Pokemon offline as far as I know. Try playing it from a desktop PC, think about that for a moment!!

Google Maps and navigation uses GPS, but the map data, live traffic and routing is all done online typically (you can cache the maps offline but that's not default). Again, what are you going to do on your desktop PC, print off little cards ahead of time and then flip them over when you're in the car at every turn?

The internet is the same through a web browser when accessed on a PC or a phone in the palm of your hand from anywhere, what is different is the phone has the other sensors and apps made for them which means the phone uses the internet to power things which desktops don't. Just having all that information where you need it, cable free, to carry with you is what makes the experience great vs sat at a desk plugged in.

Though I think it's also good to occasionally untether yourself and go without... as amazing as it all is (and it is), the human brain (perhaps some more than others) needs a break from time to time!

BIB - That was the point I made in my last paragraph and the whole post addressed a poster who seemed to be saying that smartphones can specifically do more online.

All smartphone apps could be used on laptops (never mentioned a desktop PC as that obviously need plugging in), the online functionality would be identical, it's just the lack of other technology (GPS, NFC, etc) which would mean they wouldn't function properly. If my laptop had GPS and a gyroscope, I could charge it up, attatch a webcam facing outwards, then go out with it to play Pokemon (if the area was covered by publicly accessible wifi). This would be cumbersome whereas smartphones are an ideal device for this kind of app and that, along with having an inbuilt camera, gyroscope and GPS is why they're used, it's not because smartphones can do more online as that's not true.