I Have a New 6-lb. Cellphone

I was traveling last week with a pretty decked-out Thinkpad T60p, and decided it would make a great smartphone. It's got a huge screen, a 512MB 400MHz ATI graphics card, 2 GB of RAM, happily runs a few VMs, development tools, databases, and DVD-quality movies all at the same time. It runs 5 hours on a charge while doing that, can idle in sleep mode for days, and stays on the network with integrated WiFi and EV-DO.

Last time I checked, smartphones don't do any of that stuff, and if you continually use them to access data, their batteries will not even last 5 hours.

So crank up Skype or Gizmo Project and it's a heck of a phone.

And yet ... at 6.5 lbs, and a foot across, I'll get some odd looks when I clip it to my belt.

Where am I going with all this? there are two things we need here:

First, a new BIOS-level powersave mode that lets me receive calls -- routed to a Bluetooth headset -- when the laptop is sleeping, maybe even with a satellite UI ... wait, someone had this idea, it's called Vista Sideshow. So I'm asking for a Vista Sideshow VoIP phone gadget.

Second, a more flexible way to link multiple telephony devices to a single phone line. I want my Sideshow PC phone and I want a $49 cellphone that I can carry around when I don't want to carry the PC -- and I want them on the same number. And I'd like to link my Blackberry onto that number too, so I have my choice of high productivity, high voice quality, or a compromise. I'll bring the hardware and the subscriptions. Wait! My second wish is already coming true. It's called GrandCentral.

Now let me get this all rigged up and I'll report back.