RoninEdge

What percentage of Android phones’ purchase price goes to Microsoft under the licensing agreements with HTC, etc.?

Love my Droid 4, but I’m glad to see other companies keeping high-end QWERTY phones alive…

Agreed. The PS Vita is a much better choice. Tablets may catch up to dedicated consoles on graphics quality, but until they offer physical joysticks, they’re not serious options for hardcore gaming. (Razer’s Fiona might change this…)

Physical keyboards are like manual transmissions. They may be less popular, but there will always been enthusiasts who aren’t willing to settle for less…

Both Android and iOS are clearly attracting large numbers of buyers. Yes, the iPhone has a great screen and camera, but I also want a great physical keyboard and LTE, and the iPhone has neither.

Choice is good.

This link works:

Or at least the third :). (Speaking from someone who lives in downtown Boston.)

True. You don’t buy or lease 500,000 square feet of expensive downtown real estate for a company you plan to sell off…

A .22 pistol is the least lethal caliber of any handgun. It’s still lethal, in the right hands.

Yes and no. Does the average consumer care about the licensing agreement governing their OS? No not at all.

Does the average consumer care whether they can get a phone with a large screen or a small screen, a physical keyboard or a virtual keyboard, a high price or a low price? Definitely.

Are you going to see an iPhone with a Galaxy Note-sized screen or a Droid 4 keyboard? No. And the reason is because iOS is closed and other OEMs aren’t free to build a wide range of devices based on iOS to fit every customer demographic.

Google will cut a licensing deal with Microsoft, and the cost will be in the noise as far as Google’s profits are concerned…

Costs less than an iPad, even the obsolete iPad 2…

This is exactly what I want! SONY, MAKE THIS PHONE!

And give it a quad-core CPU, LTE, vanilla Android, real joysticks like the Vita (not touchpads like the Xperia Play), and a decent battery. Also port the best Vita games to Android’s Playstation Suite.

It’s selling reasonably well. It’ll sell better once they have a decent shooter (like Resistance, due in May).

Nintendo always bet on the family/casual market, and that served them well in the early days of the Wii and the DS, but it’s coming back to haunt them now. Smartphones and tablets will probably come to dominate the casual market because of both the low price of the games and the ubiquity of the devices.

On the other hand, Sony bet on the hardcore market, and this may be what saves the PS Vita. It’s clearly the best mobile device out there for hardcore gaming. The graphics capabilities of smartphones will catch up, but analog joysticks will always be far superior to touchscreen controls.

Now, if someone were to come out with a quad-core Android phone with the PS Vita’s form factor, then Sony would have something to worry about. If Sony is smart, they’ll do it first…