Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Phones and Tablets

Updated

I got a cell phone (not a smartphone) around 1999 and my first Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) around 2000. These separate devices soon merged into the smartphone; I got my first one of those around 2004. Since then, the smartphone has become an essential part of life.

The smartphone eventually birthed the modern tablet, a mobile device that is larger and more powerful than a smartphone, but still not a notebook computer. These are good for information consumption and “light” creation.

Devices in these categories are listed here. “Wearable” devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers are listed on the Watches and Timepieces page.

Smartphone

My smartphone is a key organizational tool—it performs the functions that used to be in the realm of the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) like managing my contacts, calendars, to-do lists, and more. It is also a communications tool (obviously), a subcompact camera, and more.

Calypso

My current smartphone is Calypso, an Apple iPhone 14 Pro that runs Apple’s iOS operating system.

  • Model: Apple iPhone 14 Pro
  • SOC: Apple A16 Bionic
    • CPU:
      • 3.64/2.02ghz (six-core) ARM64 v8.6A
      • Geekbench 6 scores: 2,559 single, 6,697 multi
    • GPU:
  • RAM: 6gb LPDDR5
  • Storage: 128gb (on-board storage)
  • Operating System: Apple iOS 18.1
  • Display: 6.1″ LCD at 2,556×1,179 resolution
  • Input Devices: Built-in touch screen
  • Carrier: Verizon LTE and H2O LTE (AT&T MVNO) (dual-eSIM)
  • Name Meaning: Reference to a moon of Saturn that was discovered in 1980. As of this writing, it is the sixteenth of the 146 known moons of Saturn. It takes its name from the nymph Calypso from Greek mythology, who was the daughter of Atlas who detained Odysseus for seven years.

Tablet

I use tablets for “casual” content consumption and some limited, “light” computing tasks that don’t require a notebook or desktop computer. I mostly use it at home, but will sometimes take it along (with a keyboard attachment) to do some note-taking at meetings, classes, etc.

Kalyke

My current tablet is Kalyke, an Apple iPad Air that runs Apple’s iPadOS operating system.

  • Model: Apple iPad Air (5th Generation)
  • SOC: Apple M1
    • CPU:
      • 3.23/2.06ghz (eight-core) ARM64 v8.5A
      • Geekbench 6 scores: 2,196 single, 8,034 multi
    • GPU:
  • RAM: 8gb LPDDR4X
  • Storage: 64gb (on-board storage)
  • Operating System: Apple iPadOS 18.1
  • Display: 10.9″ LCD at 2,360×1,640 resolution
  • Input Devices:
  • Name Meaning: Reference to a moon of Jupiter that was discovered in 2000. As of this writing, it is the twenty-third of the eighty known moons of Jupiter. It takes its name from Kalyke (or Calyce) from Greek mythology, a daughter of Aeolus and Enarete and the mother of Endymion.

Other Mobile Devices

“Wearable” devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers are listed on the Watches and Timepieces page.

Readers and Sub-Tablets

History

See Watches and Timepieces page for “wearable” device history, including smartwatches and fitness trackers.

Smartphones

Tablets

Readers and Sub-Tablets

Legacy Mobile Devices

These sorts of devices aren’t part of my life anymore, but they used to be!

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)

Phones (i.e., “Dumbphones”)

Portable Music Players

  • ScottPod 2 (Apple iPod Classic [6G], iPod Classic Software 1.1)
  • ScottPod (Apple iPod 3G, iPod Software 2.3)

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.