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Subject:RE: Laptop for personal use? From:"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> To:'techwrl' <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:15:58 -0500
I haven't checked Android Market for "Bejewelled Blitz", but I got my
first-ever "superphone" (or even smartphone), a slightly outdated
Motorola XT860 (you Yanks would call it a Droid-something-or-other) -
it's the one with the slide keyboard. I still use my work laptop
(company provided) for all my work stuff, but since I've had this
phone, my several-year-old MacBook Pro is getting less and less
use.
I browse, handle multiple e-mail accounts, shop, and am even
deciding what names I want for (gasp! shudder!) social media
accounts. The other day, the MacBook connected to our house
network and thence to cable was stuttering and pausing on
a video, and I got annoyed and tried it on the phone...
streamed smoothly with no pauses. And that was just so-called
4G, not LTE+.
I've made early tentative steps at managing and updating web
sites with the phone. I had the mobile version of Opera's
browser, and got rid of it. It turns out that I prefer viewing
full-size sites and pages on the phone.
Many/most sites are done in multi columns or frames, such
that the content is in a frame or column that the phone
can see, readably, in landscape mode. What's off the screen
to the left and right are.... hahaaa! the damn... er, I
mean... the dratted ads.
Android Gingerbread seems to have most of the multi-touch
capability that I was using with my MacBook, so no loss
there. I mean, Macs, and probably IceCream Sandwich Android
probably have greater multi-touch abilities, but I just
don't use all of 'em.
Typing with thumbs is, of course, not as quick and easy as
typing on a full-size keyboard, but it might help trim
some of my wordiness (don't you wish) and encourage me
toward the semi-thoughtful writing that I did when I
wrote letters with a pen. Still, I find the little
qwerty slider ever-so-much-nicer than the on-screen
keyboards.
The really big benefit is that I have the single device
with me everywhere. I will need to exert myself to approach
the ceiling of my 6GB data plan.
Finally, Motorola has at least one model that docks with,
and acts as the computing-and-storage guts of, a dumb
"laptop", that provides screen, full-size keyboard and
some other amenities when you aren't on the road with
your phone. I skipped that one in favor of the one
I've got with the slider.
All of that to say that (except for the one game that
was mentioned - at least, I assume it's a game), it
might be worth just upgrading your phone (and maybe
cell data plan) and keeping your computer and phone
together in your pocket or purse. For that matter,
there's probably a Windows phone that has whatever
keyboard you prefer, so it might run the game, too.
Skip right past the laptops, netbooks, Chromebooks,
tablets... there's even that giant-phone/mini-tablet
offering from Samsung (the Galaxy Note?) that can be
used with a stylus... hmmm.
-k
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