Country Resources
Travellers Tips
Offers & Topics
Recommended Sites
- Holiday Brochures: Travelwhere
- Central London Car Parking
- Seychelles Travel UK
- Turkey Villa Rental
- Airport Parking Offers
Working on the move: Smartphone or Laptop?
In the last decade or so, working away from the office has become a lot easier. You can write reports, keep up with your email correspondence, browse the web, and even videoconference from the train, the beach, or the hotel room. All you need is a laptop and a mobile phone, and you’re away!
Or so you might think. However, recent advances in smartphone/PDA design and technology have blurred the line between computers and phones to such an extent that the laptop computer has become less necessary to the mobile office equation. Here, we look at some of the leading smartphone platforms, and assess whether they are indeed suitable replacements for your laptop computer.
The Pocket PC, recently rebranded as Windows Mobile, is basically a cut down version of the ubiquitous Windows operating system for smartphones. It features phone-optimised versions of all the familiar Microsoft programs such as Word, Excel, Outlook, and Explorer using an external QWERTY keyboard or a touchscreen equivalent. The familiarity of the software, and the fact that a decent-sized external keyboard can be used make it a very practical option for office workers on the move, although the interface is a little dated by comparison to some of its competitors.
The iPhone is by far the most advanced smartphone on the market in some respects, with many innovative features and over 50,000 apps already available. However, few of these apps can be regarded as serious business tools, and with no option to use an external keyboard, and severe document portability restrictions, it cannot be regarded as a suitable laptop replacement in its present form.
Unlike the iPhone, the RIM Blackberry has been specifically designed and marketed at the business fraternity, with push emailing as its central feature. For the uninitiated, push emailing is basically a system whereby emails can be sent and received instantaneously on the move, rather like SMS text messaging, but with the flexibility of email. Most Blackberry models come with an integrated QWERTY thumb keyboard, which is great for sending emails, but for writing longer documents it can get a little tiring on the old thumbs. If your work involves merely keeping up with email correspondence, the Blackberry is an excellent solution, but if you need more, then you might want to look elsewhere.
Smartphones equipped with the Google Android operating system, a new platform with some similarities to the iPhone, have recently come onto the market. The main advantage of Android over its competitors is that it is an open-source system, which anyone can write apps or create accessories for. This means that we could see phones which have the office capability and expandability of the Pocket PC, but with a slicker operating system and lower software costs. At the moment, though, there are insufficient accessories and apps available to turn an Android phone into a fully functioning laptop replacement.
So, if you merely need to send a few emails, keep up to date with your calendar, and do a little web browsing, then the Blackberry would probably be your best bet. However, if you need a full-blooded laptop replacement, then at the moment the Pocket PC is the only one that comes close.
Visit Vodafone for these and more phones.