From the UK CAA
Portable Electronic Devices | Information for Passengers | CAA
My emboldening. PLease will you provide a reference to corrobaborate your statement?
General Policy: Use of non-Transmitting PEDs
Whilst the use of all PEDs is prohibited during the taxi, take-off and landing phases of flight, (when the passenger seat belt sign is on), use of PEDs that only produce spurious emissions are often permitted during the cruise phase of flight. However, the aircraft crew may require PED use to be suspended at any time, and such a request must be obeyed. Such a case might be if the crew suspects that the PED use is the cause of interference with aircraft systems.
Examples of PEDs that might be permitted to be used during the cruise phase of flight includes:
* laptop computers, PDAs and MP3 players (as long as they do not include wireless transmitting functions), and
* electronic games, DVD players, CD players, cassette players, video or "still" cameras and calculators.
The use of some mobile phones or PDAs is also permitted by some airlines as long as they are used in the "flight safe" mode only, and this mode is enabled before the PED is turned off before the start of the flight, so that it is already within the “flight safe” mode when it is turned back on in the permitted phase of flight.
The restriction on the use of PEDs applies to devices carried onboard by the passenger or provided to the passenger by the crew. It does not apply to time measuring equipment (watches etc) or implanted medical devices (pacemakers etc). Any medical devices that include a monitoring feature that includes a transmitting function to a medical centre should have this transmitting feature switched off during the flight – see general policy on use of transmitting PEDs.