I still don't get your point. Just because something is "by design" or "by design different" still doesn't mean you can't compare it. Yes, they have different purposes, but that doesn't even really matter here. Even for typing text I'd rather use a touchpen and just one hand than two fingers. Your argument isn't even really valid, either. Using two fingers may be faster, but the touchscreens are so inaccurate and the buttons usually so small that you spend so much more time correcting typos, which totally negates any potential speed benefits. The same goes for pretty much all other areas of a smartphone. If they really designed smartphones "to require less accuracy", they sure did a horrible job at that, because I just always do so many things I didn't mean to do because it either registers "holding" as "touching" or registers a touch were I didn't make one.
Anyways, that is completely besides the point. Yes, smartphones and handhelds do different things, I absolutely acknowledge that. But certain components of both devices still do similar things. Both devices have touchscreens which both devices use to get touch input. We were never even comparing handhelds to smartphones, nor were we comparing "what you do with a handheld" VS "what you do with a smartphone". We were just comparing how both kinds of touchscreens work and concluded that you can work more accurately with the kind of touchscreens that use touchpens and that we prefer those. Yes, even for smartphone-related tasks.
Again, just because two things are different or have different purposes doesn't mean you can't compare them. Dogs and fish are different and have entirely different purposes. Dogs are made for living on land and fish are made for living in the water. Yet still both animals have mouths and even though these are designed very different from each other (different teeth, different tongues etc.), they're still essentially used for the same thing, eating food. The same goes for handhelds and smartphones. Yes, they're different, yes, they have different purposes, yes, even their touchscreens are different, but both touchscreens still have a similar purpose, getting touch input, and therefore a comparison is totally fine. I don't know what kind of unwritten law there is that regulates what kind of things you are allowed to compare and what kind of things you aren't.
Originally posted by ergazoobimight as well complain about cell phones not having a d-pad while you're at it.
Even that would be a valid complaint. Yes, smartphones weren't originally designed for gaming, but that doesn't change the fact that, by now, gaming has become a major part of smartphones; and while a lot of games play fine with just a touchscreen, developers keep pouring out games for smartphones that just would work a lot better with a D-Pad and buttons. Because of this, smartphones have now essentially become some kind of gaming device, even though that wasn't their original purpose, and therefore it would be totally fine to complain about smartphones not having D-Pads or buttons. Even though I personally wouldn't ever do that, since I wouldn't use a smartphone for that kind of games, anyways. Just saying that I would completely understand if someone complained about that. In fact, I'm 95% sure that a lot of people DID already complain about this.
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