I had this shower thought earlier and I actually wanted to post it in that community. The name I came up with was SmartWalkman, but later I realized that Walkman is Sony specific, so I doubt other companies would’ve gone for that name, but I didn’t want to let this shower thought slip so here I am now asking you guys.
I feel like palmtop, as derived from desktop and laptop, has a shot here
We had some computers called palmtops for a while! They were sort of like early tablets that ran Windows and had keyboards. Some were pretty cool, and they definitely played a similar role to smartphones for a bit. Although they were overly expensive. Here is one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO
These are making a (little) bit of a comeback. I find myself sometimes wanting a portable terminal for emergency maintenance, although it’s more practical to just throw a Bluetooth keyboard for my phone in my backpack.
We did have palm pilot for a brief period in time.
Handy (as we do in Germany).
Every time I’ve gotten a handy, it has been by some dude in a store. That’s why I keep coming back once every year or two; he knows how to provide a good handy.
For a brief period of time, they (mostly journalists) tried calling them App Phones to differentiate from other phones with touch screens. There was also the rumor leading up to the iPhone that it would be called the iWalk.
PPC: Personal Pocket Computer
Telescreen. Term coined in 1949 by Eric Blair.
It’s always on, always listening, always notifying you when you should do things. Algorithmically telling you what to hate, in two minute videos. Not having one is akin to exile from society. What was really a stroke of brilliance was making them portable and convincing us to pay for them, rather than making them mandatory and provided by the State.
Absolute genius, I could not have done it better! My telescreens are Xiaomi/Huawei – I would feel lonely if only the West was listening. They are quite wonderful little things.
It’s my Microsoft® Windows® PocketPC™ 2024 for Home™ PremiumPlus™ for Palm Computing™ Touch Edition (non-commercial) with Bing™ -powered device.
pokécon - pocket computer
And here I was wondering why podcasts are still called podcasts when they barely had anything to do with iPods in the first place.
Computer phone. I mean, it is a combination of a computer and a mobile phone so why not?
Terminals
Screenphones, because they only have a screen and no buttons like a normal phone.
Bricks.
- Touchphone
- Voicetransmitter
- Walky-Talky
- Mini-PC
The alternatives are endless
Fun fact: In Germany, mobile phones are called “Handy” instead of “mobile phone”
And phone plans are flats. Iirc that is also unique to German. It’s always interesting when languages steal from other languages and butcher the words.
And phone plans are flats.
You must mean Flatrate? A term for a flat/fixed price with unrestricted volume (the default for home internet; mobile phone plans have variance).
I’m not aware of anything being called “flats” in German. Could be an abbreviation in circles though.
Yeah, flat is colloquial speech for Phone Flatrate. Flats being the plural.
And if I remember correctly that only was the name of one company’s model of mobile phones but it stuck like e.g. Tempo for tissues in general.
Honestly, probably “palmtop”
There WERE palmtop computers, and the first few smartphone-like devices trace their lineage TO palmtops integrating cell phone functionality.
And it pairs nicely with laptop.
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