This is just a quickie, addressed in haste to all you technologically hip types out there.
I’ll describe a piece of kit I’d very much like to own, but do not know if it exists. What I am looking for is a kind of tablet PC, bigger than my HP Pocket PC PDA, but smaller than my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. I’d be able to use it to write scads of my book By The Sea while on the move, allowing me to save the files and transfer them by USB or Bluetooth to my Laptop later.
But here is the killer – it must have loads more juice than the measly 4 hours that my Dell offers, even with a 9-cell battery and if I have no other applications working than Word.
I suppose a pen and paper has infinite battery life, but I’d have to scan it in afterwards…
My bro-in-law, who knows about computers, recommends a standard called UMPC and points me to this machine which he compares favourably with the gonads of medium-sized cursorial pack-hunting carnivores. But I don’t have one of these, nor the £799 to buy one, and wonder if there are things that have more power but fewer bells and whistles?
Any suggestions?
What about a smartphone? The MDA Vario II is my current love; I just had it replaced after losing my last one in a nightclub (damn you cheekos!). It’s loss nearly sent me into counselling.
It’s got a full QWERTY keyboard, web access, you can read books on it (get Mobipocket), it’s got MS office applications, there’s an optional GPS attachment (I have a spare, email me if you want to buy it), it plays movies, MP3’s, you can get a 2gb micro flash for it for peanuts, and if you’ve got a contract it’s not that expensive.
I recently tried a tablet PC for demoing a website at a conference and whilst it was very useful for that I certainly wouldn’t call it portable. By contrast my trusty Vario lives on my belt (comes with a nice holster too), battery lasts at least 2 days, and you can type at a fair old rate on it.
Looks like a neat and nifty device, Paul… thanks for the tip. I wonder if one could type 1000 words at a go, as I do on my Dell? I’d have to try it and see, but I’ll certainly add it to my List of Things to Research.
Coming to Nature Networks drinkies? Assuming I don’t lose it before then you could see it!
Sadly not. I usually scuttle off to my secret base in North Norfolk.
I once bought a secondhand PDA on eBay after deciding that it would be ideal for allowing me to carry about a large variety of electronic books about whatever my silly fancy was back then. Why, I thought, I’ll never be bored on a bus again and I can use this keyboard thingie to write, too! Bold new vistas opened up before me, and I knew it would enable me to become an erudite man of letters. Sadly, it was not to be as it was incredibly frustrating to use for a technical buffoon such as myself: the LCD screen was strangely hard to read, the keyboard too small for my oafish fingers, and electronic books didn’t fit the screen comfortably resulting in horrible typographical atrocities like
this
which annoyed me beyond endurance. Eventually, I was forced to admit I was better off with a pen, a notepad, a small book, and a satchel. Well, not exactly: dork pride forced me to soldier along with it for years, enduring hoots of derision from friends and colleagues as I fiddled with the thumboard for minutes at a time to record the most trivial of utterances, until – finally – it broke and went to Sony heaven. At that moment I swore of gadgets and gismos, no matter how many sliding-out bits and blue LEDs they have. I’d like to say I have never been happier, but unfortunately I’m now obsessed with window shopping for fountain pens…
I’d write longhand but for the fact that I’d get writer’s cramp, and I’d only have to transcribe things afterwards. I do use an old-fashioned desk diary now in preference to my PDA though.
What frustrates me is that manufacturers insist on overspecifying their products, adding all sorts of money- and power-hungry add-ons you don’t need, so it is impossible to get a device that does one thing well with minimal fuss and power drain.
Basically what I want is a kind of slim, portable electronic typewriter that saves files for later download, which does not (a) connect to WiFi (b) have a phone so you can text all your mates © have a camera so you can take pictures of all your mates, having met, getting drunk and throwing up (d) store the latest download from the Farctic Monkeys. Is there a pattern to all this? Let’s have good electronic products that aren’t aimed at hyperactive teens.
Hyperactive teens are the only people who can afford to buy things – hence the products designed to appeal to them. They’re also the ones with all the time, hence the internet is spinning faster and faster in their direction.
Ah me, there must be a market among us Silver Surfers, if only small.
Thanks James, you’ve given me a smart idea for another blog entry…
happy to help