Mobile phones go scalp hunting: The Red List

26 July 2010
Last week we walked with dinosaurs. We followed phones in their search of the perfect size and shape. We’ll now take another step away from our usual routine and look back at the gadgets that lost or are about to lose in the survival of the fittest. Mobile phones are no longer a commodity – but a necessity...

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  • h
  • hoang
  • RGH
  • 27 Jul 2010

great , very interesting story .

someday , the credit card will join the victims list .

    • i
    • ipo
    • mZs
    • 27 Jul 2010

    Nice article, maybe GSMArena should start a regular section of columns on communication/gsm/tech. It would be interesting an article on the relationship between mobile communications and privacy, maybe with a glimpse into what the future might bring.

      • T
      • Thorgar
      • iEP
      • 27 Jul 2010

      Good article, I almost forgot about the pager even though I had one myself back in the day.

      As reply about the calculator: people would still be using them cause it's so much easier to type blindingly on hardware keys than on a touchscreen.

      For FAX you can also use your phone nowadays, I've got an app on my android handset to scan a page and convert it to a pdf file which I can e-mail. I can let my provider add a fax number to my contract so that I can even receive a fax. With this fax number I can even send that pdf file as a fax.

        • T
        • TC
        • 0TX
        • 27 Jul 2010

        I think Netbooks will be able to kill the most advanced mobile phones because the phones are alredy beginning to get to big for pocketfriendliness, bigger and more impressive screens, while they still are to small, screen and batterylife, for any real powerusing. More students... find that Netbooks are really easy to carry in the backpack and netbook batterlife last more than a full day of extrem poweruse, while phonebatteries dies after only very few hours and phones still can not handle even flashcontent on Internet without problems. Netbooks will kill mobilephones as more students... uses Skype... for "free phonecalls" and there is no point in carring mobilephones because their small batterylife and relatively small screens makes them far from really mobile for any poweruse.

          • C
          • Cfox
          • PB7
          • 27 Jul 2010

          Good article... I believe in near future laptops will also feel the heat...

          I think the article missed the portable gaming consoles..

          By the way.. What could bring end to the Era of Mobile Phone.. ;-) any ideas..

            • s
            • sunny
            • vww
            • 27 Jul 2010

            i dnt agree wid calculator part every home has one

              • T
              • THE ULTIMATE MIND
              • pT2
              • 27 Jul 2010

              HELLO
              SO good Article really its good to know that how the phones progress to be like nowadays monsters BUT one thing missed and that is back in days where i got a hand atari(gaming console) that there was only 2 or 3 games onbord (mostly Tetris And its kind) is over now and every one got a Nintendo DS or A PSP ,AS for the phones look where APPLE is going with those good iphone games Oh it was last night i was playing NFS undercover , MGS Touch , ANd some kinda Guitar Hero like Game THat it WAS Metallica (Then i played Hero of sparta and Ninja assassin that this later game have nothing to do with its movie) SO i think its a quiet Revolution in portable GAMEing So stay on and lets see What is the next big SHot in mobile phone (better SAy Mobile things) industry . .......................................THE ULTIMATE MIND................................................

                • V
                • Vikash Kumar
                • vxf
                • 27 Jul 2010

                It's good to these kind of article.

                  • M
                  • Mad_Duke
                  • 3qJ
                  • 27 Jul 2010

                  The thing about landlines is simply not true.
                  1. FAX It is quite needed still.
                  2. DSL Or if you like also cable operators giving triple play services like Internet, TV and phone will be around for quite some time. I don't see flat rate etc. coming any time soon to mobile phones at anything near the speed and affordable price. Especially concerning that if you had flat rate you could use VOIP for free to speak with people and send messages.

                  And almost everybody that has a phsical line for internet also has a phone connected to it. Why. Sometimes because you don't pay anything and it is cheap as hell to call other people on phone lines and the other when you reall can't choose because the ISP makes it obligatory to have the phone as a requirement for example DSL.

                    • a
                    • anonymouse
                    • w4e
                    • 27 Jul 2010

                    Aluwani, 26 Jul 2010Rewrite the story, REWRITE THE STORY! You forgot portable g... morei was surprised that GSMArena forgot portable gaming consoles... we hardly have any these days...

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • ibc
                      • 27 Jul 2010

                      Landline will still be around for a while although the usage my be dropping significantly simply for the convenience of FACSIMILE (FAX) application. Until some form of new technology comes up, I cannot imagine how we could fax a sheet of paper through the handphone.

                      Calculator might be put obsolete by the handphone - but only to the man in the street or women doing shopping wanting to compare prices! For office work, the efficiency of using a "desk top" calculator still cannot be matched by the handphone!

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • uEB
                        • 27 Jul 2010

                        Ali, 26 Jul 2010Definitely disagree about both watches and calculators. Wa... moreGSM arena failed to give us the number of how much watch sales have been lost due to the phone...

                        I found on other web site that tell how much %%% lost due to phone sales:
                        http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/01/what-to-call-the-past-decade-has-to-be-the-nokia-decade-heres-why.html

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • uEB
                          • 27 Jul 2010

                          nice article
                          about the same as Tomi Ahonen article about the nokia decade...
                          http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/01/what-to-call-the-past-decade-has-to-be-the-nokia-decade-heres-why.html

                          PS: you miss a portable game consule market that start to strugle fighting the phone industry

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • tAy
                            • 27 Jul 2010

                            Kean, 27 Jul 2010I Beg to differ about calculators. I conduct training all t... moreI agree that calculators are far from obsolete. Mobile phone cameras may be good for the occasional one or two calculations but not many phones can match the CAS capabilities or the Ti nSpire or the Casio Classpad.

                            I agree with pretty much everything else though. The wristwatch is more a fashion accessory than a timekeeping instrument to me nowadays. And what about portable gaming device? I here nintendo are being threatened by apple's gaming platform on the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad.

                              • X
                              • Xis
                              • YTL
                              • 27 Jul 2010

                              Almost all of the comments here disagree with phones replacing/pressuring point and shoot camera. And they all say that it's the quality of the lens and size of the sensor.
                              .
                              Well, i think they've never heard of nokia N8, it's not yet released but everything about it's camera is written in detail here in gsmarena. The sensor is larger than most point-n-shoot camera and the quality of the lens is top notch from reputed manufacturer.
                              I don't remember the last time i saw my wrist watch.
                              .

                              I live alone because of my job and it's easy to see what the phone replaced when you live a simple life. I don't have a calculator, i have an unused wristwatch, unused alarmclock, no camera, an mp3 player which never leaves my room, although i do use my psp a lot. I'd like to see when psp is under threat from a phone.

                                • K
                                • Kean
                                • tVq
                                • 27 Jul 2010

                                I Beg to differ about calculators. I conduct training all the time and some of my subjects require the use of calculators. Even though I keep telling my trainees to use the calculator feature in their handphones, most still prefer the big chunky calculators with big buttons. Apparently they still prefer to press big buttons to touching their touchscreen phones when it comes to doing simple calculation. So nowadays I have a box of calculators that are still very much welcome in my workshops.

                                  • B
                                  • Barry
                                  • PTr
                                  • 27 Jul 2010

                                  "each and every mobile nowadays can give you better organizing features than the best of the electronic organizers in the past."

                                  This isn't even close to being true, as any former PalmPilot user will attest. Most smartphones struggle, and basic feature phones aren't even close. I've given up on my PDA like most other people, but like the camera in most smartphones, the organiser functionality on smartphones is a compromise, and can best be described as 'rudimentary'.

                                    • S
                                    • Stadtionalist
                                    • mG1
                                    • 27 Jul 2010

                                    "SMS was first used in December 1992, when Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old test engineer for Sema Group [2] (now Airwide Solutions),[3] used a personal computer to send the text message "Merry Christmas" via the Vodafone network to the phone of Richard Jarvis.[4]" -> WikiPedia

                                      • A
                                      • Ali
                                      • jZ7
                                      • 26 Jul 2010

                                      Definitely disagree about both watches and calculators.
                                      Watches are still a fashion accessory, and it's also much easier to simply turn your wrist and see the time than pulling out your phone. At the least, you'll see watches as a fashion accessory and at best, you'll see regular wrist watches.
                                      Calculators are also gonna be important. It'll be years before phones are easy and natural to use at a TI-84 or any other graphing calculators.

                                        • z
                                        • zoran
                                        • 3nq
                                        • 26 Jul 2010

                                        what about FM radio and USB?