Nonsense...a smartphone is supposed to be smart....its expensive for a reason...if you want simple games and apps,if you quite happy with a wvga screen, if your not bothered about 1080p this of 'HD' that...fine theres no problem with that, thats all catered for with a cheaper feature phone..no worries,just don't ruin it for the rest of us.
However, if your the type of person who wants the best stuff,(me) the best apps/games/cameras etc..then your unlikely to buy a wp7 device ATM...that bares out in the sales...people aren't mugs
We'll stop here.
A smartphone doesn't "have" to be expensive or powerful. Just like a computer doesn't "have" to be expensive or powerful. A smartphone runs apps. Apps that a person can buy. As opposed to feature phones which are limited to apps that are pre-installed and generally only available from the manufacturer.
Similar to computers not everyone needs or wants an enthusiast level computer with 4-8 CPU cores, dual GPUs, etc... Netbooks were quite popular despite being hugely underpowered compared to most notebooks available at the time.
The vast majority of computer users haven't got a clue how fast their processor is, how many cores it has, what GPU it has, or even how much memory they have.
Why would the vast majority of smartphone users be any different?
Just like most computer users only use the computer to browse the internet, play media, read e-mail, use productivity applications, and play casual games, so do most smartphone users.
And in both cases, if given a top of the line uber X-core machine with super dooper Y GPU, they'll likely use less than 10% (or some other low number) of its processing and rendering resources. Sure WP7 with its single core 1.4 ghz CPU might be operating closer to full useage of those resources, but if it still provides a smooth, attractive, feature rich and easy to use experience to those users, then that's all the really matters.
So. Does WP7 as a smartphone "need" that uber hardware. Obviously if it wants to run something like Infinity Blade and run the stuff a small minority of consumers want to run but won't be able to run due to processing demands, then it's certainly not the phone you are looking for.
If it wants to provide everything the vast majority of consumers will end up actually using the phone for, it's generally perfectly fine.
Obviously you're in that top whatever % of users that might need the resources for the Crysis version of a game on smartphone. And that's fine. It just means that WP7 isn't the phone for you. Doesn't make it any less capable of offering a great experience for the majority of consumers, however.
Perhaps Apollo will address the "enthusiast" phone users. Or perhaps that will have to wait until WP8. Either way, WP7 was created to be a reasonable compromise with regards to a standard BOM that wasn't too expensive for manufacturer's to make that would at the same time offer a smooth experience with the vast majority of tasks a smartphone user would put it to.
Personally I don't think including higher performing hardware is going to do anything to increase the market penetration of WP7 whether it had happened in the past or whether it happens in the future. That is all going to depend on the marketing push it gets and how receptive consumers are to that.
AT&T and Nokia have shown, at least with current pre-order sales, that with the right push and the right price you can get people to give it a chance in the face of the entrenched positions of both the iPhone and Android positions.
Whether that momentum is only a blip or whether AT&T and Nokia can sustain that momentum remains to be seen.
Regards,
SB
