Battery Life is a Feature

I do not always follow every iDevice rumour but the one I do hope would come true (and not just for iDevices) is extending battery life further.

High End Version of New iPads Get Extra Battery Life

Reports are coming in that Apple will be unveiling two versions of iPad3 this early 2012, one for the high-end segment and one for the mid-range segment. One rumored improvement of these new devices over their predecessor is longer battery span, which will be increased to 14,000mAH.

This rumour is probably absolute nonsense but I hope device designers out there really start to focus on battery life as a primary feature of a mobile device, and not as a secondary one. Devices need to be able to run through a heavy working day with some spare capacity without the need for me to carry my trusty recharger.

Travel Tablets

Like many of you I acquired an iPad just after it launched last year and added it to my arsenal of lightweight information processing equipment. However I struggled to make it work in my setup primarily because I make use of an ultralight laptop. It ended up being yet another similar sized device that was used but was annoyingly bulky compared to my main machine. That identifies the problem, it never replaced the laptop despite being useful for reading watching video podcasts, documents and magazines. 10 inches is simply too big.

So I acquired an Android 7inch device in the guise of the HTC Flyer (although I also looked at the now out of manufacture Dell Streak but I dropped that one as the resolution of the screen was lower at 800×480). It is not ideal as it still runs Android 2.3 but the 3.2 Honeycomb upgrade is imminent.

After the last few weeks using it, it has proven much more versatile as I can have it with me much more often and does not feel bulky compared to my ultralight. The battery life is good (as I can get through a business day) and it serves the functionality I need in terms of video podcast watching, light web browsing, document and magazine reading as well as being a much more effective email processor than a smartphone when you are not running around.

Now all it needs to do is make that upgrade to Honeycomb (hurry up HTC!) to remove some of the rough edges and make it equal to the iPad but exceed its usefulness in being the right size for my jacket pocket.

Steve Jobs… You are so wrong about the 7 inch tablet.

Incidence of Gadgets

Travelling as much as I do, I have noticed quite a big change over the last decade in the range of gadgets carried by travellers. It used to be the case that you saw most business travellers with their Nokia 6210 mobile phones and some actually had laptops ranging from the hulking huge to the micro, but the ordinary ‘civilan’ at best would have a mobile and possibly a portable cd player or tape player.

Today, pretty much 90% of travellers (including holiday makers) take at least one laptop with them, ranging from the hip Apple to the much more regular netbooks. I also have to say it to the ‘netbooks are dead’ fraternity, the MAJORITY of computers I see particularly amongst the holiday maker is the Netbook – an Acer or an Asus. Everyone has a mobile, and certainly near 50% have a smartphone of some sort (although including any Nokia in this classification is almost heresy). Most smartphones are of the Blackberry variety (the business man) but with a rapidly growing number of Apple iPhone and Android devices.

Over the last six months though I have seen a change, in that I am regularly seeing the incidence of tablets and eReaders, with tablets occuring more regularly than the latter. As a rule the eReader of choice is definitely the Amazon Kindle, with a few Sony eReaders occurring. Today I have seen 3 Kindles amongst those waiting for my flight.

Now with the tablets however, I see the iPad primarily, but this week I have seen Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 inch devices and (a new one for me) the Blackberry Playbook. Today I saw 4 iPads, 1 Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 inch, and 1 Playbook amongst my fellow travellers. The occurence of music players is now almost nil, apart from Apple iPod Touches, with almost everyone you see going through their smartphones. Goodbye MP3 player, we knew you for such a short time.

I wonder what the future brings?

Powered Flight…

… or in other words, having a good charging solution for your charge hungry smartphone, MiFi and tablet. This is where the A-solar Power Bank Pro comes in.

I have always prided myself on always having the best tech, particularly when it comes to smartphones, Wi-Fi gadgets and tablets. However one of the banes of my life is the poor battery life that much of this kit comes with, particularly with the smartphones. One solution I have had is to always make use of the latent charging capabilities of my netbook/notebook, by ensuring that I can charge everything over standard USB leads. This has worked well but it has not been always the most ergonomic solution, with cables appearing out of bags and always having to ensure that I am charging on shutdown to ensure that the port power is not shutdown when I go into suspend mode (I know some laptops do have an always on port).

So I cast around and found the A-solar Power Bank Pro, which gives me 5000mAh of charging goodness. This can be fed to your USB based devices either via a standard USB output with 500mA capability, or via the very iPad and MiFi friendly 1000mA USB output. The key and very important feature here is that they can be both used at the same time to charge two devices, even a combination of iPhone and iPad. I have now been using this for a good three months during which I have kept myself running during long travel days into and out of London, as well as the much more demanding weekend in Amsterdam, whilst I was running around Koninginnedag. The London travel days stressed my Smartphone battery through running it fully active (browsing and tweeting) for the full 4 hours of travel time each day, plus all the normal usage going from meeting to meeting, including heavy GPS usage from the Walking Directions features of Google Navigation. A much more demanding test of its capability was the Koninginnedag weekend, during which I double handed an iPhone and an Android phone, taking video and photographs and posting to Facebook and Twitter throughout the day via an unlocked MiFi. It kept me going so I never lost connectivity and never lost a photo opportunity. It even charges overnight from a standard USB port, so it really cuts out the need to have an additional power block, and it fits well within an inside or outside suit pocket, or cargo trousers/shorts.

This is an excellent device to extend your smartphone, iPad, iPhone or MiFi life on even the heaviest data usage days, and can really recommend you get one, and at between €39 and €49 it is a snip. I got mine whilst passing through Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, for the lower price Smile

Netbook Death by iPad

A thought just struck me after reading yet another ‘Netbooks are dead’ article. Netbooks are not dead, they just need to evolve. As a keyboard based device, many people do want (but already have one). Many of them are looking to upgrade, however Netbooks have functionally changed little since 2007. There are some improvements such as Dual-Core Processors and improved Graphics subsystems, but these are not enough. What would really give them a shot in the arm is giving us what everyone finds so restrictive on the current set – the 1024×600 screen. Make that a 1024×768 or even a 1280 x 800 and then these machines would have a welcome boost as people upgrade. I would after all. What should not change however is their form factor – a 10.1 inch screen is great thing for travel. I am tempted to go for a 11.6/12.1 inch machine next but if there was a decent 10.1 incher then that would be my target.

Multi-Monitors on the road

You are on the road with your ultra-portable with its resolution impaired screen and you need a little bit more space to work on multi-documents (particularly Excel!) and you are stuck as this office (or hotel!) does not have a spare monitor to either use as your main screen or extend your desktop. So what do you do?

Well you may have heard of Display Link, it is a set of technologies implemented into hardware and software which allows you to hook up a second (or more) screen to a laptop over USB. This is good where you are port constrained, or where you have a docking station implementing the technology which then allows you to hook up using only one cable – the USB. Well they have now come up with an alternative for those who also travel with an iPad. They have released an iPad app that, in conjunction with software on your PC, allows you to use the iPad over WiFi as a second screen.

Now that sounds a bit screwy but it actually works in a passable way as long as you are not looking for a really dynamic display or trying to handle video. It is generally good enough for document editing and creation but it does have some noticeably lag and screen corruption when the screen is being updated. Of course, there are some other downsides.

Firstly there is a small processor bump on the laptop. Secondly you have to be on the same WiFi network which if you do not have access to WiFi is going to be a killer. Thirdly, if that WiFi is a bit poor or congested then the connectivity to the iPad is not maintained leading to freezes or disconnections. This is an early release of the software so maybe it will improve, but they cannot make up for the lack of good wifi. Note that these issues are because it is a software solution running over WiFi, I have heard good things of DisplayLink hardware solutions connected via USB.

All in all, if you have no other choice and you need the real estate, and you can give it the bandwidth then it is a workable solution. You are always going to be better off with a full proper monitor.

The App is available from the Apple iTunes store for £1.19/$1.99 (introductory price)

Subsidised iPads–Are they worth it?

I have just noted that the mobile company Three (3) have made available a subsidised iPad for £200 as long as you subscribe to a 24 month contract at £25 per month. This compares with the full price of the same iPad at full price as being £531 . This looks like a sweet deal but what is the total cost of ownership, which is something everyone should do in every purchase of this type.

With the subsidised deal, the cost of that mobile contract over the two years is actually £600 giving the total cost of ownership as being £800 for the whole package of iPad and Mobile Broadband with a data allowance of 15GB every month.

This means that the mobile data contract has to be worthwhile to the tune of £269 over the two years. The actual standard contract mobile broadband deal (which is exactly the same as the iPad deal in data allowance) costs £15.99 per month, thus giving the total cost over the two years for the contract being £383.76. The total cost separately then would be £914.76.

This looks like a fantastic deal if you really do the over 1GB per month of 3G data, getting you actually £114.76 better off by taking the package deal.

The key thing though is whether you will really need all that 3G data, and whether you would actually need only 1GB per month. Three offers a 1GB allowance contract for £7.87 per month, giving a total of £188.88 for the contract and thus only £719.88 over the two years. This makes it still a reasonable deal but now actually more expensive than buying the gear out of the contract, by just over £80. Then you need to consider if you can get away with PAYG on a more intermittent basis and thus be even cheaper dependent on usage (as Three’s rates are £10 per 1GB per month for that).

It is very important that you always do the total cost of ownership on any contract, and as you can see here your planned usage can have a major effect. In my view, the iPad deal from Three is actually a pretty nice deal with none of the major profiteering that you can get from some operators, primarily because of that 15GB allowance. Of course, I would recommend an unlocked MiFi and non-3G iPad for the international traveller so you can take advantage of local 3G broadband with standard SIM cards (as the iPad uses a really non-portable Micro-SIM).

For those Americans looking in here, yes these prices are real prices – we are able to get 15GB for $20 per month in the UK Smile .

Death of Netbooks…

There have been many posts today (like this, and this) as follow up to the Acer story about them dropping netbooks as a product and effectively focusing on touch screen devices. The follow up has been largely about retractions from Acer that netbooks will be an important part of their product lineup.

Many people have stated that Netbooks are dead because of the iPad, but to be honest I do not believe that in the same way that I did not believe that netbooks would kill notebooks. One thing is clear, there is now a lot more choice in the device that you – the customer, personal or business, have when you are travelling. This is all about choice and fitting the perfect device for the individual’s way of working. Some people will find the iPad and similar incredibly suited to the way they work. Others will find the netbook perfect. In addition there are many people out there who believe the 17 inch Macbook Pro is the ideal machine for their own particular work flow.

There will be a reduction in the market for the netbook, just as the notebook had a reduced market when the netbook was introduced. What should be focused on is the size of the combined market of netbook, tablet and notebook… and my impression is that this total market is growing with the new devices. You only need look at people standing in the queue for security at the airport to see the big difference from just three short years ago. Back then you only saw business people with standard 15 inch laptops going through security, and now it is pretty much the majority of people are having to take the netbook/notebook out to have it scanned. Netbooks are everywhere… just as in 12 months from now tablets will be everywhere.

What I believe will happen though is that along with tablets getting more powerful, then the netbook will also become a little more powerful and keep its small size. In fact it is the ultra-portable business machine that is the endangered device in my book. Why give the business person £1500 of machine to break, lose and create a security problem with – give them a £300-£350 netbook with a remote access solution or the £400 tablet. Remember most business people only use Web, Mail and Office…

iOS4.2, the iPad and the Laptop/Netbook

Brook Crothers of CNET seems to believe he can now make the iPad work for him…

CNET’s Brook Crothers claims that with the launch of iOS 4.2, he is pretty much ready to abandon his MacBook Air in favor of full-time use of his iPad. Even before the upgrade to the mobile OS, Crothers found that he was almost exclusively using the 3G tablet in the airport, hotel and plane for his various tasks.

via iOS 4.2 makes iPad a productivity rival for MacBook Air, says CNET.

I do believe that iOS4.2 has made the iPad much more usable (although the multi-tasking is still not a great improvement), I do not agree that it replaces the ultra-light laptop. I think however that this is down to whether you are a generator of content or a viewer of content. I am a generator of content, which I though that Brook would be as well, but maybe my content generation is more feature rich than his. I do not just generate copy for others to work into something pretty, I have to do the pretty too with documents and emails.

After all, although I own an iPad, I am not carrying it with me as I have my one device that does it all – my nice ultra-light 13inch Asus UL30, currently with 10% battery used and still with over 9 hours of batter life left, which is going to come in useful to charge my less than 5 hours MiFi via USB in a moment…something I cannot do via the iPad! (In action shot below… apologies for the low light, this is on a bus crawling its way along in the snow on a cold Amsterdam evening!)

Is the new MacBook Air eating into iPad sales?

Since the Late 2010 MacBook Air was released, there has been a huge amount of interest in the small and light space. Now the headlines are coming through asking the obvious bait question:-

Is the new MacBook Air eating into iPad sales?.

Until the recent release, most people were posting about whether the iPad was eating into Netbook sales. This sounds repetitive but I do not doubt the figures. There is variation in demand for these tools.

I prefer however to look at the wider situation – the one where I see netbooks used all over by many people and I also see many people using iPads, and also see many people using what could be called netbooks, but are actually ultralight notebooks. It all comes down to mobility and what people feel is useful for their particular situation, and I see the future for all of them.

I see this because I have netbooks, an iPad and an ultra-light notebook and use them according to need and suitability. I use my netbook when I want something small but I also want to generate content, and make use of particular software. I use my iPad for home browsing and quick consumption of content (particularly electronic magazines) within my home. I use my ultra-light for actual day to day work. I have a use for all of them…

They all have two things in common – good size for portable use and lots of battery life.

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