Thursday, July 28, 2011

Truly Mobile

Technological advancement is an ideal that continues to have a myriad of professionals pondering how to make things easier, faster, lighter, safer, and more mobile. Based on which aspect of technology you are focusing on, there is a give and take on the features that are emphasized and those that are not. For example, computer servers tend to have features that focus more heavily on their safety and speed than weight and mobility, since servers are not meant to be carried around, but must be operational round the clock. Nowadays, the one area I feel that is advancing more rapidly than most is that of the mobile laptop.

While the tablet era is indeed upon us, it should not be co-joined with the advances we see in the laptop. Some people tend to think of tablets as the same as laptops when they couldn’t be more wrong. The purposes of different devices are specific though distorted. Although they may soon close the gap, the tablet still isn’t fully able to replace the laptop. The tablet is vastly under powered to be able to run large applications as well as a limited software selection. When Apple’s iPad became available, those unfamiliar with Apple technology assumed it was simply a portable computer when in fact it simply was a big iPod touch.

The true laptop landscape is making a lot of headway. Since its recent market growth the main focus on improvement have been in the speed and weight areas. Although there still are still bulky laptops out there, it seems almost a social faux pas to be lugging around such a device. It is comparable to using a boom-box to listen to music. Since the upgrade of storage devices, no longer are floppy drives needed—soon CD/DVD drives will be joining that list as well. Thanks to the cloud and the ever improving wired and wireless connectors in existence (USB, Bluetooth, Firewire to name a few) the laptop can be a sleek power house of a machine. Products such as the Dell Inspiron M101z, the Nokia Booklet, and the Sony Vaio X are making it easier to have the power of a desktop on the go. My personal favorite is the Macbook Air, but don’t judge me because I’m biased….

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