We're getting closer. Years ago, must have been 7 or 8 by now, I was talking with a friend @ Microsoft, and he was going on and on about how the phone was going to be the computer. "This Phone" and he'd hold up a generic GSM flip phone.
My objection then was UI, both on the input and output side. In a way, wifi and bluetooth have solved a lot of that, as they can offload the heavy duty stuff to wireless sometimes connected displays and keyboards.
At some point, we're likely to have enough power in a cellphone to run most of what you'd want to do for day to day stuff. And do it all day on a charge. Couple that with always on networking and the availability of machines in the cloud for bigger jobs, you start to be able to have the phone/tablet be most of what you need.
This is exactly the point and where the future is going because of Moore's law and all the various others ways ourt gadgetry gets cheaper and faster every year. Remember when laptops were too expensive and underpowered to serve as a geek's main machine? Now that's the norm. In a few more years, all the computing power, storage and connectivity most people will need will be inside a phone. The Motorola Atrix may be ahead of of its time but I think it is a harbinger of things to come.
My objection then was UI, both on the input and output side. In a way, wifi and bluetooth have solved a lot of that, as they can offload the heavy duty stuff to wireless sometimes connected displays and keyboards.
At some point, we're likely to have enough power in a cellphone to run most of what you'd want to do for day to day stuff. And do it all day on a charge. Couple that with always on networking and the availability of machines in the cloud for bigger jobs, you start to be able to have the phone/tablet be most of what you need.