wahlau's online hut

looking the current trend, you can see most people who want need a portable Internet device will get themselves a Netbook. The reason? simple, it is not that slow after all, and it is affordable than those expensive sub-notebooks. It has mostly enough connectivity interfaces that you and i can get online in places we mostly are going to frequent. If you are the few lucky ones with good 3G plans, you might be able to even get online everywhere you are with a suitable 3G device.

But have we all forgotten the good old effort in producing a nice Internet Tablet? This brought me back to the memories of my Nokia 770 when it first came out... and how it went through the years and evolved into the N810. Even today i came across a rumour that Nokia's coming out with a new Maemo phone supposingly named N900. I hope people out there have not forgotten the alternatives we have - such as Maemo Platform or Openmoko... sadly it took longer than most consumers can wait for a consumer-ready product. I have not given up hope, and i do think one day it will be ready to take a share in the market.

I am only concern about which one do we actually need? I for all have the philosophy that you only get what you need. And there is basically enough combinations for everyone out there. You can do all on a phone (a smart one, perhaps), or you can have a two device combo. You can also have a bigger phone with larger screen (such as IPhone and similar smartphones) or just get a notebook/netbook with 3G built-in if you don't intend to make calls after all. I personally think when it comes to computing, i am still a keyboard person. Tried touch-screen based input such as the one on Maemo and Iphone, and i really think i need more practices until i can do it well. Doing it on smaller keyboard such as the one on my Eee PC 901 is still reasonable. I tried once typing on an E71, and surprisingly it is not too bad too. But nothing beats a reasonably big screen for reading and viewing.

Another factor would be the portability and battery issue. The Internet Tablet philosophy goes in the direction of a longer battery life with full Internet experience. I agree since i can easily have more than 3-4 hours of online work done with an accompanying phone. But ever since the netbooks are around, the IT has raelly got challenges. I am more than happy to go out for days with the 901, since i get 5-6 hours of working time, and i can really do some work on it. Granted i need to wait a little while turning it on (the ITs can give you instant on!) and i cannot really operate using one hand, but most of the time i will only need a computing device when i can sit down and work on it. The twittering/FB/microblogging part i can do it equally good with the current phone, so i don't really need an IT. The IT has the advantage of being really light and portable as compared to the netbook. I remember going around Leipzig last time and used the N800 throughout the trip. Minus some hiccups here and there, it was convenient and simple to get things done. I can imagine how happy i would be if i can have the N810 with keyboard. :)

Looking at the current offers of mobile devices and the role of Linux it is playing in them, i am hopeful that we will only get the best in near future. The first time i have the almost full ubuntu desktop on my Netbook i felt just happy. Why? i finally have the same thing as on my workstation, and it works almost the same. If one day i can have my smartphone with the same features, softwares and choices i can have on my desktop, i will be really glad.

What about you? what kind of portable device would you prefer?