The small screen is only one part of the laptop argument
The February 2006 device debate is most persuasive when it follows power, connectivity and the difference between reading and making.
A historically specific comparison
The post dated 3 February 2006 responds to proposals involving inexpensive laptops and internet-enabled mobile phones. It raises screen size, power, connectivity, physical conditions and the opportunity to create software. These are the author’s arguments in that debate, not a present recommendation about phones or educational purchasing.
The strongest objection is a chain of dependencies
A usable device needs more than a purchase price. Power must be available, a connection must work, and the intended activity must fit the screen and input method. The post’s distinction between consuming information and producing something with a computer sharpens the question further. An inexpensive route to reading is not automatically an equally good route to making.
Where the argument becomes less secure
The text also makes broad assumptions about what poor households would value or do with equipment. It supplies no study establishing those predictions. Those passages should remain visible as limitations of the argument, rather than become new facts in this edition. The stronger design insight survives without them: a device’s usefulness depends on the activity and surrounding infrastructure, and a technical prototype alone cannot establish that whole relationship.
Sources and edition note
This is new independent writing at the historical /2006/02/laptops-100-or-cellphones-which-is-it_03.htm address. It reconnects the specific work or project described above. It does not claim byte-for-byte restoration, original browser behaviour, current artist representation or operation of an earlier service. Source images, documents and full texts remain at their archival sources.