Friday, September 26, 2008

Notebook computer vs. Mobile phone


With the fast growing popularity of Netbook, we really have to re-think the whole thing from a "user case" point of view.

I have been using a very small notebook PC (Sony Vaio U3) since 4-5 years ago. Why I was buying that smal notebook? It's because I understand that mobility is the first most important thing when buying a notebook computer! For anything which is either too big or too heavy, you won't be using it very soon.

As a mobile computer, you will want to use it for:
  • Presentation: so it can run OpenOffice.org or any other presentation software, and it comes with a VGA socket to connect to a projector
  • Email: you will want to stay connected when you are away from home and office, so it should be able to let you connected to the Internet, etc
  • Web browsing: you will want to check your web based email like gmail, etc.

The best computer is the one which you can use most, it's available everywhere. So, portability is the king here. If you have a very powerful notebook which can virtually replace your desktop, but it's too big and too heavy, I believe that it will end up as your desktop PC.

However, the above situation seems to change a little bit with the advancement on mobile phone. Now my mobile phone is Wi Fi enabled, it comes with a web browser, and you can check email with that. You can even open your presentation file there, so it seems like it virtually replace my notebook?

Yes, nearly, I would say... the last bit is the VGA socket, I would say!

Frankly, it's about to replace some of the functions of my desktop PC. For example, if I just want to check email or so, I would now simply use my phone, since it has virtually zero boot up time. That alone makes it the prime choice for checking email. However, if you need to make a long reply, a notebook/netbook or a desktop PC will still be the better choice.