What is a smartphone?

Share of 2010 Q1 smartphone sales
 to end users by operating system,
according to Gartner.

A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic 'feature phone'. Smartphones and feature phones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated within a mobile telephone, but while most feature phones are able to run applications based on platforms such as Java, a smartphone allows the user to install and run more advanced software applications ('Apps' eg Android Market) based on a complete operating system such as Google Android, Symbian, Blackberry RIM, Apple iOS, Microsoft Windows mobile or Linux. 

Simon - the first
Smartphone in 1992

The very first smartphone was designed by IBM in 1992. This phone called 'Simon' contained a calendar, address book, calculator, note pad, e-mail world clock, games and fax with a touch screen instead of buttons. 

So what can be called a smartphone? A smartphone can be defined as:

“a mobile phone that provides additional information accessing features. Any mobile telephone that combines voice services with e-mail, fax, pager or Internet access is called a smart phone” (by CEVA). 
or


"Electronic handheld device that integrates the functionality of a mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA) or other information appliance". 
or


"a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality. There is no industry standard definition of a smartphone. ..." 

Acer Stream
runs on Android

Today’s smartphones have Internet access, high speed downloads & uploads (High-Speed Downlink & Uplink Packet Access - HSDPA & HSUPA) and Bluetooth connectivity. They also enable you to edit your information on-the-go including presentations. An Adobe Acrobat Reader is installed so you can view PDFs. That is just the tip of the iceberg, with many note taking & recording applications also available.

Archos 5 Internet Tablet
runs Android OS also
used in Smartphones

Current smartphones also go beyond simple information access, and into the realms of entertainment; some of the larger-screened phones are almost akin to dedicated portable media players such as the Archos 5. Many smartphones also include games pre-installed on the device, or available through an application market after sale. Video and audio playing applications are present on most phones these days, so you can have your phone, mp3 player and work documents all on one handy device.

Smartphones are, in essence just super mobile phones. You can call and text just as you can on a normal mobile phone, but there is so much more available. With the added functionality and the dedicated operating system also comes customisability which is just not possible on a conventional phone – the look and feel can be changed completely, as seen in our blog ‘What is Android?’

Sound good? Have a look at the range of smartphones available from Datamind.

What is Android?

Android is an open-source mobile platform based on the operation system Linux, developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. The world's first Android-powered phone was announced by T-Mobile on September 23^rd, 2008 with the G1 available to consumers on October 22^nd. The Android source code was made available on 21^st September 2008. Obviously, Android is a fairly new operating system (Windows Mobile appeared in 2003, and Symbian OS 6 was released in 2001) however this does not mean it is inferior. Quite the opposite, as the platform has been built from scratch to work with the newest touch screen devices.

Android Inc. says “it was built to be truly open”, allowing developers to create their own applications and make them available on the Android Market and which can be downloaded direct to the phone. Since there are more than 70,000 apps currently available on Android Market; with Android you are spoilt for choice. Also, being created partly by Google means that Android integrates easily with all of Google’s own products, such as Gmail and Maps.

In addition to the huge array of apps, the open-source nature of the platform means that new technologies and features can quickly be added to the system and taken advantage of. The newest version of Android is V2.2, called Froyo, and from the improvements we can see just how useful this open-source platform is. Announced updates include:

• Up to 5x faster than Android 2.1 (Éclair)
• Dedicated shortcuts on the home screen
• Multiple keyboard languages
• Portable Wi-Fi hotspot capability

So you have a mobile platform which is getting better all the time, with more apps than you could ever need. What else? Well, one of the problems with conventional mobile platforms is that everyone’s looks the same. You can change the colour, maybe change the desktop wallpaper. However, with Android’s open-source system if you’re not happy with something then chances are someone, somewhere, has come up with a fix. A quick search reveals that you can completely change the feel of your system, get new themes or even down to getting a new style of clock on the home screen.

Android say on their website:

“With devices built on the Android Platform, users are able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialler, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favourite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos”.

As you saw in our previous blog, Android is expected to rapidly increase their market share and with the features, apps and advances of Android it is not all that surprising!

Acer Android Smartphones & Archos Android Tablets

Acer Smartphones with Android | Archos 5 Internet Tablet & Archos 7 & 8 Home Tablets | Compare specs Android Acer v HTC Smartphones v Archos Tablets (xls file)

Portions of this page are reproduced from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

Archos 7 Home Tablet and the Android Market

Android Summary

Android is Google's operating system for mobile devices based on ARM architecture. Android is a competitor to the Nokia Symbian platform, Apple's iOS for the iPhone and Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone for mobile devices all based on ARM architecture.

Android Market Share

Smartphone Market Share for Android (wikipedia):- By Q2 2009, Android had 2.8% market share of the worldwide smartphone market rising to 3.5% in Q3 2009, 5.2% in November 2009, 9% in February 2010 and 13%  in May 2010, only 0.2% behind Microsoft. Android's Q1 2010 US was 28% share surpassing the 21% iPhone share. In June 2010 Android was getting 160,000 new users per day up from 100,000 per day in May 2010.

In October, 2009, Gartner Inc. predicted that by 2012, Android would become the world's second most popular smartphone platform, behind Nokia's Symbian OS, BlackBerry would fall from 2nd to 5th place, iPhone would remain in 3rd place and Microsoft's Windows Mobile would remain in 4th place. 

Android also competes with Blackberry for use in smartphones, tablets, portable media players and book e-readers.

Archos 7 Home Tablet (now in stock at DataMind.co.uk) has an Android 1.5 (Cupcake) operating system - released by Google in April 2009. Android 2.1 (Eclair) released January 2010 has support for more screen sizes and resolutions.

Richard asked DataMind.co.uk today "Do you know if Archos 7 Home Tablet 8gb can be upgraded to android 2.1 or if there's a way of getting marketplace onto it?"

Android 2.1 Eclair

Android 1.5 Cupcake

The Android Market is an online software store developed by Google for Android devices (wikipedia). An application program ("app") called "Market" is preinstalled on some Android devices and allows users to browse and download apps published by third-party developers, hosted on Android Market. Android market emphasis is on smartphones. Minimal hardware requirements for submissions include : GPS, compass, 2-MP autofocus camera, 3-axis accelerometer and 9 physical buttons. 

Android devices are listed in Wikipedia including Smartphones (Acer, HTC etc), Tablet Computers incl. PMP (Archos 5 IT, Archos 7 Home Tablet etc) & E-Reader devices.


AppsLib is for Archos devices and tablets that are running Android. AppsLib has Social, Games, Multimedia etc applications.


ArchosFans post Operation Unbrickable: The quest for Google Apps has information about running Android apps on Archos 7 Home Tablet (A7HT) including Android Market, Gmail, GMaps, Google Talk and Google Calendar but Abobe Flash will not work.