Mobile computing.

[Colin_S]

Looking for some advice.

I work in and around London and travel with my business partner, usually as a passenger. Generally my travelling time is wasted time apart from a few good chinwags and occassional telephone calls. When I get home I have to remotivate myself to sit down and do a bit of paperwork, fax quotes, etc.

What I am looking for is a method of preparing and faxing quotes, etc. whilst on the road. My first thoughts are a laptop linked to a mobile. One product however I've never looked at and do not know the first thing about is PDA's.

So the question is, can PDA's prepare word documents and fax them off or is a laptop the best bet. The immediate advantage of a laptop IMO is a decent sized keyboard and display.

Your thoughts please.

 

[BrendanS]

Some people find hand held computers (smaller than laptop, bigger than pda) fine for this sort of stuff, pda's usually too small and limited for anything other than odd document, and usually use small non querty keyboards or touch screen writing which not everyone gets on with. Best bet is to find some peeps that have examples of the type of machine you are interested in, then try typing up a document or email response on them, before you buy,

Peoples tolerance for keyboard and screen size varies a great deal, and what works for one person, often doesn't for another

 

[lockwood]

I have a pocket PC which runs all of the usual PC programs such as word, excel etc. It also functions as my mobile phone and has a fast always on internet connection - not dodgy mobile phone Internet but the real thing running on Internet Explorer. Its about the size of a digital camera but only about 3cm thick so easily fits in a jacket pocket.

The only disadvantage is the small touch screen keyboard, but this can be overcome by voice recognition software or a plugin keyboard.

Take a look at the XDA website

 

[Ships_Cat]

I use a PDA and a notebook and often have to work away from landlines, mainly from our boat or when on "holiday". I leave tommorrow to go sailing for a few weeks and the following will apply then.

As Brendan says PDA's are not appropriate for other than short notes - they are great as an organiser, for ebooks when travelling, etc though. You can get little keyboards for them but they are little and fiddly.

I don't know about the UK but everywhere I work or have business contacts (mainly NZ, Australia, North America plus some smaller nations) no one uses fax much anymore and I now do not even have a fax machine in my office - all done by email, so that influences what is convenient for me. However, mobile phone service providers also provide fax services.

So I use a notebook, a GPRS capable mobile phone and email, and find that works well. If I am away from the office a copy of all my email gets forwarded from my office computer (Internet Explorer can be set up to do that) to my mobile email address (provided by my mobile cellular service provider). When I send email from the mobile I send it with my office email address as the one to respond to and BCC a copy to my office email address - then when I get home there is a copy of all sent and received emails on my office computer.

On the boat I have a permanently installed fixed cellular terminal with RS232 port and elsewhere I use an ordinary GPRS capable phone with infra red link to the PC. From your post I am not sure if you intend trying to do these things while being driven around in a car - I don't think I could personally cope with that from a motion and general awkwardness point of view.

GPRS costs generally become very high outside of ones own service provider's country, but I am assuming it is local that you are looking at.

Hope that is of some help

John

 

[Colin_S]

Thanks for replies. Been doing a bit of research and I think the best option for me would be a laptop and a 3G card. I can then mail off quotes and also install my accounts software so I can prepare invoices ready for printing when I get home.
I figure a hand held with touch screen keyboard will be hard work and adding a full size keyboard may start getting clumsy. The idea of a bigger screen on a laptop appeals to me too.
Unless someone convinces me otherwise, I shall be out shopping in the next couple of days.

 

[heartlander]

I am writing this on the London - Newcastle train using a Fujitsu Lifebook with a 3G card. The laptop is the smallest I have seen that is still suitable for full time use. It is also very light. The 3G card allows connection most of the way on the east coast line and has enabled me to deal with emails while travelling.