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Can gadgets be too small, cheap and feature rich?

13.11.2009
Everybody knows mobile gadgets get smaller, cheaper and more feature-rich over time. But at what point are they too small, cheap or functional?

Too small

Netbooks are tiny. That's the whole point. But can they be too small? The answer is: Yes.

A Chinese company called uSmart showed off at the Hong Kong Electronic Fair a netbook with a 4.8-inch screen. The gadget is powered by an Intel Atom processor. It even has HDMI support for audio and video, something most laptops don't even have. So what makes this a netbook, rather than a PDA? It runs Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Linux!

Small and portable netbooks are great. But if you can't see the screen, and can't use the keyboard, the netbook is just too small. Users complained about the cramped screen and keyboard of netbooks with 7-inch screens. There's no way a 4.8-inch screen netbook running Windows can be anything but miserable to use.

Even devices without screens and keyboards have become too tiny for their own good -- USB thumb drives, for example. The iDisk Diamond offers 256MB of storage for $39.99, and it's literally about the size and nearly the thickness of a fingernail.