This is another thing more people need to remember, we've advanced beyond a lot of the kind of stuff we saw in TOS, so if we want to stay true to TOS then the tech on the show would end up being behind a lot of today's tech. And yes I'm not an idiot, so I'm not including things like transporters and warp drives in this.This seems to be a hang-up for some. The thing is, I'm not sure what they could have done that would have been acceptable to everybody. Even some have mentioned the props (which you are okay with) are too advanced. Anything that even looks like modern 2017 technology would be too advanced.
When they're right, you kinda are.Well, when people say "an iPhone is a dumb terminal", and continue to make that point, am I supposed to say "oh yeah, you're right, my bad"?
No.
So instead of splitting the processing power to a million different things, they devote it all to communicating with other people?A Communicator seems today like a very military style technology. As in a purpose built item that does one thing very well so the person in the field will survive. While a smartphone might have many more functions, they would likely distract or take away from the need to communicate with others and especially the starship in orbit.