PriceSCAN Blog

First, let's discuss some terminology, all of which is used in talking about these machines, but often in a somewhat haphazard way. We'll talk a little about:

1. Cell Phones;
2. PDA-sized machines;
3. Hand-helds;
4. Tablets;
5. Super-light Notebooks;
6. Regular Notebooks and
7. Laptops;

We'll take a quick look at each size and capability. However, to make that meaningful, we will start looking at some of the problems that the various scale of machine attempts to deal with.

First,

there is the "PDA" aspect. While PDAs are, in an of themselves, an interesting category to discuss, that is not our purpose here. We are interested only in PDAs that have sufficient progamming power to be considered as a "full computer". When we add that qualification, we are looking at a much more limited set, and one which, at this point in time, is really only satisfied by some Unix-based machines. Windows (and we don't count WinCE as "windows" for our purposes) is just too complex to (so far) be delivered in a very small tightly packaged machine.

To satisy needs as a PDA, there are a few necessary characteristics. The device must be essentially instant on. Perhaps a few seconds (a very few seconds) of "boot" is tolerable, but this it is intolerable to take more than just a few seconds, as PDAs tend to be used in circumstances where there are severe time constraints. Looking for a phone number, for example, better not take very long or one will resort to other means of finding it.

PDAs also require a longer time span between battery charges than would be the case for most normal computers. PDAs are used on trips where it may be inconvenient to re-charge them every five or six hours.

Another aspect of the "mobile computer" is how, and how often, it is to be transported. For some people, they want a computer as a companion to a daily commute. For others, portability is useful when moving from home to a summer house. Sometimes we have to lug them in our briefcase, in other situations, the trunk of the car will do. One of my earliest portables was a 10 lb machine back in the days when that wasn't unusual. It made exactly two trans-continental trips with me. Thereafter I always managed to figure out some way to avoid doing this arduous transportation activity. I'd borrow a computer, re-organize work so I didn't need one, or find some other way of avoiding lugging "the brick".

Second,

So different people have different needs. None of our discussion should skip over that point. What is important for our purposes, though, is some estimate of the size of each of the different markets.

Cell Phones None of these exist yet. And they may never make it, although there is every reason to believe that a Linux-based cell phone would, technically, be quite feasible. At the moment, however, we can probably skip this category.

PDA-sized machines might be useful, not (except for the rarest of the rare individuals) as a place to engage in any serious programming activity, but rather as a place where the result of such activities might conveniently be put to use. Again, this doesn't---at least at the present time---seem like a very large market, but there would at least be some demand.

Hand-helds tend to weigh only a pound or so. Some, like the OQO have existed only as "vapor" until very recently. Others, such as Flipstart are still in that category. Still others have been serving a (albeit very expensive) niche market for some time: Antelope and Tiqit to name a couple of examples. These machines seem to be another attempt to break through into the marketplace that was once occupied, and then abandoned, by the time-honored Libretto, and I must confess that it is not clear why the current developers of this technology expect to succeed where such a machine has already failed---several years ago. But perhaps they are right and it is just time to re-cycle an old idea again in the hopes that it will catch on. Goodness knows we have done that often enough with TV series to know that it is at least possible.

Tablets have an extensive range, particularly in the cost dimension. Supposedly the soon to be available Pepper will weigh in at about $900, and will run a version of Linux as its operating base system. Other tablet devices, built by the more main-line firms, range in price from $1500 on up, reaching some very high limits for devices that are intended to operate in adverse working conditions.

Super-light Notebooks weigh in at about three pounds, and tend to have keyboards and screens that are near normal to normal sized. One of my favorite portables ever was a Sony 505 that was light, thin and had a wonderful screen and keyboard. While these devices are generally very useful for information display and capture, they generally do not have built it CDs or DVDs. The disk devices are simply too heavy, and usually connect either through a expansion base, or through some sort of PCMCIA "dongle". This means that the super-lights are wonderful for some set of problems, but---relatively speaking---a nusciance for others.

Regular Notebooks weigh five to eight pounds, and typically have full sized keyboards and a built-in CD or DVD disk drive. These days this is probably the largest category, in terms of number of units, of any of the "laptop" categories.

Laptops round out the list. Some of these get to be quite heavy, approaching ten pounds, or even more. They often have beautiful screens---today as large as 17", and are used as much as supplementary entertainment centers as they are as productive workstations. These are excellent machines to allow us to move between different sites of computation. Particularly if we can move between the sites by car, or by other means that do not require us to lug these heavy devices on our own shoulders.

Third,

So that's the layout of laptops as we see them on the market today. All have their own place, and given our own problems, some will prove to be useful while others will prove to have little value. It's getting the right match between your own problem and this exciting technology that counts.