This week at Mobile Tech Manor #25- pressing the Advantage

mobile-tech-manor-large-22This was a hectic week at Mobile Tech Manor as I wrestled with lots of new gear that appeared that covered the breadth of mobile technology.  I installed Windows 7 on the HP Mini 2140 netbook and spent quality time with the biggest notebook I have ever used.  I found some new software to help my work and am considering another program that might help me write.  Join me for the weekly look into my world.

The gear

Lenovo sent over the biggest ThinkPad in existence and the W700ds presents many firsts for me.  It’s easily the biggest laptop I have used as it packs a full 17-inch display, WACOM digitizer, numeric keypad, many ports and the second 10.6-inch screen that slides out of the 17-inch screen.  It’s the only two screen laptop I am aware of and it commands attention when it is fired up.

Lenovo tricked the w700ds evaluation unit out and it’s more powerful than other notebooks and many desktop systems.  This one has quad-core Intel Extreme processors, 4 GB of memory and dedicated graphics with 1 GB of dedicated video RAM.  This baby screams and it is a true mobile workstation that would be perfect for professional graphics artists and those who work in AutoCAD.  It presents a full desktop work experience yet can be closed up and carried around if needed.  That power doesn’t come cheap as this unit is around $5,000 as configured.  I need to shoot video of this thing in action as it must be seen to be believed.

I also spent a fair bit of time with the HP Mini 2140 netbook and really like using it.  It couldn’t be smaller and still have the 10-inch screen and near full-sized keyboard.  It is a no compromise netbook in daily use yet is so small it’s very easy to carry around.  Installing Windows 7 was a breeze and it runs very well with the beta of the next version of Windows.

The 10-inch screen of the 2140 suffers from low resolution, the affliction that affects most netbooks.  It can be a bit taxing to do a lot of web surfing at that low resolution so it will be great when HP makes the higher resolution version available soon.  This netbook would be killer with 1366×768 and would easily be the best netbook on the market.

I called an old friend back up from the minors where he’s been for a while and he stepped right in where he left off.  The HTC Advantage is an unusual device as it’s a PDA, a phone and could even qualify as a netbook.  It runs Windows Mobile but that is a strength rather than a weakness as it means the Advantage can run all day with heavy usage on a single charge of the battery.  The removable keyboard lets me use it as a true handheld or as a clamshell so it works in any situation.

I had forgotten how sterling an ebook reader the Advantage can be and it hasn’t disappointed me.  I love reading books in eReader on the Advantage which I do in portrait orientation without the keyboard.  The reader is light and easy to hold for extended periods and the 5-inch screen displays lots of text at once.  I also enjoy reading while I am eating lunch and putting the Advantage in clamshell mode lets me read with no hands, I just tap the right arrow key with one finger to turn the page.  It’s the only ebook reader I have used to date that can do all of this.  It’s too bad HTC doesn’t sell the newest model in the US.  Something about legal problems with Qualcomm.

I have been using the Advantage without a SIM card around the house, leaving WiFi turned on all the time.  It’s very fast on Wi-Fi and doing email and web work is quick.  I am using Opera Mobile and the browsing experience is nice on the big screen of the Advantage with almost all pages rendering perfectly.  It’s like a tiny laptop and is a joy to use.  When I need to take it away from Wi-Fi I put the T-Mobile SIM in and am restricted to EDGE since the 3G network of T-Mobile requires special radio frequencies that most devices can’t handle.  The performance under EDGE is not bad but it’s not 3G.

Get with the program(s)

I found GooSync to keep the Advantage PIM info synced to the Google cloud.  It works great and I now have all my Google contacts and calendar in sync with every device I use.  It’s a powerful argument for cloud computing as I don’t even have to think about what device I am using nor what platform it’s running.  My stuff is just there when I need it.

This week I have been thinking about software tools that I can use to organize information that I collect while researching for writing projects.  There are a lot of programs to consider, some I have used before but others I have not.  I ran across a writer who swears by the Mac program Devonthink and it looks good enough to give a try.  It defies description as it does many things.

Devonthink is a repository for information that is grabbed from the web and other places.  You can snag a piece of a web article for example and save it for future consideration.  What sets Devonthink apart is how it can connect random bits of information you have collected and then present them to you in ways that gets you thinking about things in a whole new way.  I’m going to give it a try and see what shakes out.

Upcoming trip

It’s not like I haven’t already done a lot of traveling this year but I have a fun trip coming up next week.  My wife and I are heading to Las Vegas to celebrate my birthday and it will be a blast.  It’s basically going to be a long weekend kind of trip and since I was just in Vegas a few weeks ago it will sort of be like going home again.  We enjoy our trips to Sin City and this one will be interesting since the hard times have even hit Vegas hard.  We found cheap air fare and the hotel bent over backwards to get us to stay there so it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I’m will take some mobile gear with me as I do on all trips and I’ll let you know how it all works.  We don’t leave until the end of next week so you’ll have to put up with me until then.

ebooks of the week

The Advantage was put to good use this week as I started a new series that was written in the 80’s.  The Sten series by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch is a science fiction story that covers the exploits of our hero Sten and his motley crew of cohorts as they romp through the galaxy.  It’s fun stuff and a light read.  I finished the first book in the series, Sten and am well into the second, The Wolf Worlds.

Until next week

The week was full as you can see and raced by as a result.  I had fun bouncing between little bitty gadgets and the giant Lenovo so the entire mobile spectrum was covered.  Thanks for stopping in and until next week, peace out.

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