Photograph taken with digital camera.

This is my mobile phone. I take it everywhere in case someone needs to contact me or I need to contact someone.

And like all mobile phones today, it isn't just a phone. Among other features, it can also be used for taking photographs, listening to music and playing games.

But despite those additional features, I still carry and use my digital camera, portable music player and DS Lite. These single-function devices perform their single functions far better than the equivalent features on my phone.

Photograph taken with mobile phone.

My camera has millions more pixels with which to render photos, and those pictures, unlike those taken with my phone, tend not to be grainy. With a (not included) 2-gigabyte miniSD card my phone can hold about 500 songs, but that's nothing compared to the 10,000 songs (on an internal 40-gigabyte hard disk drive) my standalone music player can carry; and while I haven't tested it, I doubt using the phone regularly as a music player would give me anything close to the 26 hours of play per battery charge I get with my music-only portable music player.

I hope the day a mobile phone can replace my digital camera and portable music player comes soon. Now that tight clothing is fashionable, carrying so many gadgets in pants pockets restricts movement. And even with loose pants, fewer objects in them is still better.

But keep games out of mobile phones.

Games require more interaction and more varied interaction than other mobile phone functions. Doing games well requires enough (but not too many) well placed buttons that can be hit while looking at the screen and not looking at the buttons. And, to prevent cramps, something big enough to hold in two hands for long periods of time.

You make a mobile phone weighted, sized, and shaped well for games, and it's too big and heavy to use as a phone.

 
Try hitting the correct buttons in an N-Gage game while looking at the screen.

Hold a DS or PSP to your ear for several minutes to find out for yourself. Painful, isn't it.

So add everything else to and improve the functions already in mobile phones, but let games continue to have their separate portable devices.