Inspirational Technology

Sometimes less is more

Stevenf is comparing the Sony P800 with a Palm Tungstun T2 and finding that the P800 isn't so great after all. Clearly a case of less is more and once again shows how lots of features does not necessarily a good product make. For a reminder on my thoughts on the subject just read my opinion of the Acer Tablet PC. I really wish more companies would recognize this and just build better products. I guess good products aren't what sell, although it appears the Compaq TC1000 is the most popular Tablet PC and I'd say that can be 100% attributed to it's superior usability and quality design. It sure isn't because it's fast.

If you ever want to see an extreme case of this just visit a high end audio store and then compare what's on the shelf to what you find in the local Best Buy. Best Buy is full of blinking lights and audio components with buttons for their buttons. In high end stores the higher up the line you go the fewer buttons and the fewer lights you're going to find. What you will find are products that do the job better then anything and don't need flash to sell. The most expensive components are also often the ones that are the simplest to use. It's really quite sad that companies feel that it's necessary to fill products will all this junk that looks cool, but is really pretty useless. The user experience is almost always bad and the percentage of consumers who actually use anything beyond the most basic features is tiny. I used to have a dolby digital receiver and even though I'm a complete technology geek I could barely figure out anything beyond the basics and if someone else ever came over ... well just forget about it. I'll take the simpler and more usable piece every time.