The late Mitch Hedberg, a brilliant one-liner comedian once said, “Two for one is a bull*$#t term, there can’t be two in one, that’s why two was invented.” Although he’s not entirely wrong, technology would beg to differ.
Technology has always prided itself in how many different pieces of tech they could fit into one device. Samsung is particularly avid in this realm as they shove every possible thing they can think of into each new phone whether it works or not. This, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely the problem with two for one tech, you never truly get the best of either when you have both.
Of course, some tech doesn’t make sense alone. A television would be useless if it wasn’t also a stereo system. A phone wouldn’t be what it is today if it didn’t have a camera on it, even though you don’t REALLY need that to use a phone. A car would be pretty boring to drive if it didn’t also have a stereo system and a bluetooth connection with your phone. As technology evolves we are able to add more and more features into each device because the technology it takes to make those features is built smaller and more modular.
HOWEVER, I would argue that when you pack features into one device you never get much out of either. Consider the same examples from earlier, how good are the speakers on your television? Not great, that’s what sound systems are invented. How good is the camera on your cell phone? Pretty good, but definitely no DSLR (although some might argue). Some phones have come out with amazing cameras, but then let me ask you how good the phone is?
There is always a trade-off in putting more technology in one device. Let’s stay with phones for a minute… your phone can double as a WiFi hotspot. This is a pretty impressive feature actually. Not only does your phone then become a receiver of cellular service, but it can then take that service and spread it to other WiFi only devices, and frequently many of them. That is a big deal! However, if you ever used a dedicated WiFi Hotspot like Solis you are probably already itching to tell me that it’s night and day difference, and I believe you.
Using your phone as a hotspot drains it of its battery so fast that it almost becomes barely functional as a device. While a dedicated hotspot has an engineered ratio of battery power consumption and battery power available to give you a legitimately useful version of that device. It uses all of its internal capacity solely on capturing cellular data and sending it to your other devices, rather than also having to send pictures of yourself with a dog filter to your friend.
There is no harm in getting some devices that have multiple devices packed into them, but I would urge you to always consider the fact that some devices should remain on their own with little intervention, so that you can actually get the full benefits of this device. Mitch Hedberg was kind of right, but who knows what will happen next!
