Phones are becoming increasingly popular computing platforms which perform the same operations as computers and other computing device platforms. Aside from the limited real estate of the handheld devices and related smartphone displays, such devices still have enough processing power to become the new computing platform for everyday computing. In fact, smartphones and other handheld computing devices tend to have better network connectivity and portability than the current devices used in today's computing environment.
The voice feature of the smartphone may be considered a mere telephone application as opposed to a primary function. Voice communication is no more or less important than other communication mechanisms, such as chat and email, and is no more or less important than other application classes, such as word processing and web browsing. The public perception of “phones” has finally begun to change after the introduction of the tablet computing device (e.g., iPad®). At the current rate of technology trends, there will be much fewer desktops and laptops in 5-10 years, similar to the way mainframe computers have become almost entirely obsolete.