Jakub contacted me yesterday via the CCC email account with the first of the CCC2011 challenges. It’s a very typical one to start off with and will probably fit many peoples requirements too so lets start with the first of our tailored buyers guides for mobile computing solutions.

Requirements.

Via a number of emails we’ve determined that Jakub would like a device that could be kept in a bag all the time. It would be used occasionally for work and personal tasks, needs 3G and importantly, needs to be able to access the full internet experience with no need for zooming and panning. A battery that can last 2 days without charging on light usage is also important. I’m interpreting the ‘bag’ requirement as something between 7 and 10 inches, 500-1300gm.

Nice-to-have’s include car navigation, sub $500 cost, ability to handle printers and cameras and a docking station. Jakub also appears to be a photography fan and wants to use the device for photo previewing and basic editing. SD card slot, USB host and screen could be important

In the correspondence we’ve had over the last two days, one line resonated with me: “full internet experience is a must. I don’t like limitations, they always appears at worst moment, when i must do something.” I was lying on the couch yesterday with the Viliv N5 thinking exactly the same thing as my Galaxy Tab failed to offer me full web experience. Not only is plugin support a problem but the ability to access full versions of websites, reliable rendering, javascript input fields and of-course, the unsolved problem of mouse-over on web-page menus.

Narrowing the platform choices.

We’ve got a problem on hour hands here. Its the common trade-off between full internet experience which is still only available on the X86 platforms using desktop browsers, and long standby life. However, we’ve got a loophole to get through because Jakub is likely to be happy with quick return from standby as opposed to always-on. Immediately I’m thinking of the latest Samsung netbooks with their quick start and long standby support. With a full SD card slot it helps for photography and they have great screens.  If the Toshiba AC100 with 3G had been fitted with a quality software build that might also be a solution although it’s available for under 200 Euros with 3G so might be worth a test.

Based on the web requirement though, I’m going to rule out the rest of the Android tablets and smartphones. That’s unfortunate because the Galaxy Tab would have been high on the list. The iPad too. The original 3G+16GB version is available for under 500 Euros and at Argos in the UK right now, it’s only 418 Euros. My feeling is that you’ll still hit issues with websites but that’s a great price for a great mobile computing device and you’ll certainly have fun with it.

The docking station requirement is a good one. There isn’t another accessory that improves the range of usage of a tablet more than a dock and since my first UMPC in 2006 I’ve been a fan. The MSI Windpad 110W might be a device to check out. It’s a tablet but it’s got an important feature – mouse pad. That improves Windows/Tablet usability a lot. Pre-order prices for the 3G versions are heading towards 600 Euro, slightly above the price range but with the included GPS (according to my specifications) it would be possible to add something like Mapfactor Navigator 11 or even their free product. The dock is going to add to the price though but might be something for a later date. The Acer Iconia Tab W500 is another one to consider in that vein but as far as i’m aware, it doesn’t have that important mouse pointer/pad. If you want a high-end Atom tablet at under 900gm, look at the Gigabyte S1080 with N570, 2GB RAM, USB 3.0, 3G and keyboard case. It’s expensive though!

Isn’t it a shame that the HTC Shift didn’t get an update. For people that just want the occasional-use PC along with portability and an always-on operating system, you’ve got the best of both worlds. Alas, HTC, along with many others are busy serving the competitive smartphone, superphone and tablet PC space. An updated Nokia Booklet 3G could have been interesting too. If you see an original for sale for under 400 Euro, do check it out though as it’s a unique netbook. (GPS, weight, battery life.)

On the netbook choices though, there’s a bargain to be had in the Samsung N150 Eom 3G. It doesn’t have the ‘Fast Start’ option unfortunately but it’s a solid, well priced 3G netbook at well under 400 Euros and in some cases, under 350 Euros. Weight 1.25KG

Finally, I’m going to call out the Viewsonic Viewpad Pro. It’s coming soon and it’s going to be one of the first Oaktrail devices in Europe with 3G for under 700 Euros. 650 Euros is the street price right now but with SSD, 3G, 2GB of RAM, 870gm weight and the Intel Oaktrail platform, it could return some excellent battery life, even in always-on mode.

Top 5 Choices

Click on images for more information.

Your reliable, good value choice is going to be the Samsung N150 Eom 3G (Eom is the name in Germany, it could vary in other EU countries.) At 350 Euros for a 3G netbook, it will cover all your angles apart from navigation.

If you fancy waiting a bit for a modular solution, do so for the MSI Windpad 110W. With 3G, GPS, the mouse pointer and the dock, it could be one of the most flexible, general use tablet PCs around. Don’t forget it has Windows Home Premium, 2GB of RAM and a nice 1080p capability. 2 years ago, something like this would have cost 1200 Euro! No full SD card slot. No full reviews yet. Above budget.

A low-cost choice and Android experience would be the Toshiba AC100 with 3G which can be picked up dirt cheap. It’s not business quality but there are marketplace hacks out there that could be fun to test out. The web experience won’t be as good as on the Windows-based devices here. No GPS. Test well before buying!

Another one to check out in the next few months would be the Viewsonic Viewpad 10 Pro. It should have better battery life than the Windpad 110W but doesn’t provide as much processing power. For occasional use it might be fine. No full reviews available yet. Above budget.

Long-shot choice. I haven’t mentioned this yet because there’s no indication that it’s coming to the market but keep a close eye (and Google search for the VX70S-001. What is it? It’s the product code for the new Viliv X70 Slate with Oaktrail. Price is highly likely to be above 500 Euros but with SSD, GPS, long standby and the full internet experience, it’s just what you and many others are looking for. No 3G. No reviews. No idea when and for how much it’s coming.

Also look at the original iPad with 3G, the Gigabyte S1080 (high-end Atom-based spec) and Acer Iconia Tab W500 and keep an eye out for cheap and sales of the Nokia Booklet 3G. There’s promise in a few 7″ Intel Oaktrail tablet prototypes (e.g. the X70 Slate, ECS 7″ Tablet) we’ve seen at shows buy as yet, none have reached the market. They could be worth waiting for though.

And finally, look in the comments below. One of the great things about this website, even if I do say so myself, is the quality of the commenters.

Keep those requests coming via the CCC2011 email address.

After Computex in Taiwan, a speaking gig in Barcelona, a casual weekend away in Holland and four days with my mother I’ve forgotten what my desk looks like. I’m even sitting on a train to Hannover as I write this! During the last weeks I’ve also built up reliance on an unnecessarily large stable of mobile devices and it’s frustrating me more than ever because we are deep in a changeover phase where nothing is ready. Obviously I haven’t bought all of the devices above (*1) so if I was a ‘real’ person I probably wouldn’t be in this mess but it’s an interesting exercise to see how certain devices have unique features, how the changeover is progressing and how I’m struggling to converge down to fewer devices right now.

In a way, it was easier two years ago. I had an underpowered smartphone with a poor OS and slow web experience and I complimented that with a  UMPC that was built for the job but today we’ve got an overlap where smartphones offer performance and an enjoyable, always-on quick-hit access to information, location and information from the internet and ones social circle. They provide an Internet experience with features that the desktop can’t provide [See article: The Full Internet Experience of 2010.]  Despite that, these expensive ‘do it all’ superphones still cant offer a full Internet experience, a productivity application suite and rarely last a full day on one battery.

On the other end of the scale we have netbooks that last all day but seem to be getting bigger, heavier and just don’t seem to perform as fast as the XP-based netbooks of 2008 and 2009.

In the middle of all this we have a rush on consumer focused tablets that don’t offer anything unique or productive for someone that just wants to get things done. It’s a three-pronged tease!

Why can’t I converge on just two or three devices?

There are some good netbooks out there but I haven’t found one as fast and with the excellent 3G reception of my modified Gigabyte Touchnote. The Viliv S10 provides 8 hour of battery life in a smaller, lighter form factor but if it’s slower to access applications, files and process images, I’m not interested. And yet, here I am, typing on the S10 because of the battery life.

There are some good smartphones out there but I haven’t found one that provides a full internet experience and still provides all-day battery life with good voice, contacts, SMS and MMS capabilities. Carrying a spare battery, all-day, every day is a no-no. And yet, here I am with the X10 in my breast pocket checking the world cup scores every few minutes.

At least I haven’t got an iPad too!

MeeGo offers me some hope. A full internet experience and an app store but it’s something needs to mature until at least late 2011 and in fact for it to function fast enough to be productive it will need a high-end dual-core ARM or Intel Moorestown platform that will not be able to provide all-day battery life in a smartphone form-factor.

I had thought that the Dell Streak might fit in well as my mobile internet device but that’s not working out. The Android browser works well for the sites commonly used by people testing and reviewing but in the long-term you’ find that it hits brick walls time and time again. In the last week I’ve had problems with my WordPress back-end, MobileMe galleries and even a captive login page for an open Wifi network that I couldn’t use. Having 95% of the Internet working is just not good enough. Android is developing well too but I’m not expecting a full browser in 2010 so splitting the voice and the internet functions on to two devices is still going to be the only option in order to preserve battery life for always-important voice, pim, alarm and sms functions and to guarantee the full internet experience I need for my work.

And then I have my personal cameraphone conundrum which leaves me with one smartphone to choose from.

My cameraphone conundrum

What a joke this is becoming. After 2.5 years with my Nokia N82 I still carry it everywhere and the only reason is the camera and flash (and to a certain extent, downloadable Nokia Maps which provide me cheap offline navigation and turn-by-turn.) There are devices with better camera sensors and optics that don’t have the flash or have a poor build or user interface and there are phones out there with better camera software and sharing features but are a complete let down when the sun goes down. (The Xperia X10 for example.) I did get a little excited at the Motorola XT720 which seems to be the first Android phone to offer 8MP with a Xenon flash but having analyzed some images on Flickr from early owners in Singapore, I don’t see that it will beat the N82. The iPhone 4 is also exciting but even though the sensor is reported to be high-quality, it will still need a flash and a LED lamp just doesn’t cut it. It leaves the Nokia N8 but I’ll be honest, it wont replace the N82 for ease of one-handed use and won’t offer the application suite and Google integration of Android that gives me proven advantages and efficiencies. The XT720 does look like the best option right now and I’ll be happy to swap out my X10 for one when it’s available. I need stability in my phone and I’ll be thankful for an Android device that can perform as well as the N82 in the camera department.

Summary.

The mobile device market for road-warriors and pro’s is a messy minefield that’s going through a big change and it looks to be staying that way until 2011. Android’s version of the Internet has roadblocks and Windows 7 netbooks are slower than Windows XP netbooks. New mobile operating systems are starting to develop.

My Plan:

Personally, I need to make some choices, slim down and wait until 2011 for the next move. at least in terms of phone/MID and this is how I plan to sit out the wait…

• Dell Streak – Tested – Out due to lack of FIE.
• Viliv S10 – Tested – Out due to slower performance compared to my Gigabyte Netbook. I will suffer with the extended battery on the Gigabyte until something much better comes along. Am prepared to wait until 2011 and the next generation netbook platform (Cedar Trail)
• UMID BZ – In (possibly to be replaced with a long-term loan of the Viliv N5) as my handheld FIE device.
• Mifi – In (for conferences, expos, meetings)
• X10 + N82 – In but consider replacing with XT720 as my only mobile camera/smartphone.

What’s your mobile pro plan?

Have smartphones met your expectations?

Are they causing you battery life problems?

Are you satisfied with Windows 7 on a netbook?

Are you still looking for ultra-convergence?

(*1) UMID BZ on long-term loan by UMID. Viliv S10 on long-term loan from Viliv. Dell Streak a shared-purchase with JKKMobile.

I’ve had a theory about web-page loading speed for about three years now. When a web page takes more than 12 seconds to load, a user considers it a slow experience. Anything less than 10-12 seconds and everything is in the green zone. Smartphones are now entering the green zone.

The mobile Internet experience needs to be compatible and quick and if either one of those elements fails, then the customers Internet experience fails.

In my search for the full internet experience in my pocket I’ve spent hundreds of hours testing, analyzing, questioning, discussing and writing about the subject and I have a very clear picture of what is satisfying for the end user. In Sept 2007 I wrote about the extremely poor ARM-based internet experience. Really, it was embarrassing. The best phones of the day were taking nearly twice as long as the slowest of X86-based platforms with small screen sizes and low-quality rendering adding to the overall disappointment.

In October 2009, 2 years after my ARM-bashing article, the ecosystem had moved forward a long way and we saw what was probably the fastest ARM-based browsing experience ever. The Archos 5 was even beating low-end UMPCs. The iPhone 3GS was doing well too. Take another 5 months step into the future to the present day and you now have smartphones beating low-end Ultra-Mobile PCs. Pocketables, always reliable for a good set of browsing speed test results, shows us that there are at least three phones out there that are in the green zone now with the Nexus one and iPhone 3GS breaking the 10-second barrier. If JKK’s excitement about the Milestone and the Android 2.1 upgrade is anything to go by, we can expect the Droid/Milestone to be in that category too. The HTC desire will be joining the club in just a few weeks and following closely will be the Dell Mini 5 and Sprint EvO.

Just to re-cap, that’s pocketable, always-on, fast-internet devices with mobile-focused operating systems, mobile photo and video cams, high speed 3G, GPS, sensors, touchscreen, multi-GB’s of storage and access to thousands of apps costing under 400 Euros.

Related: The Full Internet Experience of 2010

Related: ARM’s lock-in opportunity

It’s not just the CPU.

You might think that ARM and their silicon partners are responsible for the advance but fortunately for Intel, that’s not quite true because in the last 2 years we’ve seen some amazing progress in browser software performance. Javascript processing speed, delayed script processing and other tricks and optimisations mean we’re also seeing improvements on desktop browsers too. I haven’t had time to do a complete set of tests but after disabling Flash on my desktop browsers I’m seeing something like 20-30% speed improvements over results of two years ago.

I’m not going to sit here and defend X86 though because its the ARM ecosystem that deserves the praise here. The fact is that the ARM ecosystem of hardware and software developers has moved forward quickly and shows no signs of stopping. In fact, as ARM tablets and always-on netbooks enter the market, that momentum could increase. With Moorestown and MeeGo on the horizon for X86 there’s a ray of hope for X86 but if that hardware/software platform isn’t good enough (most of us in the industry agree that it needs to move on another generation before it’s ‘ripe’ for smartphones) and the speed of development and investment doesn’t ramp-up quickly enough, Intel will never be able to catch up with the smartphone market.

The Internet experience has split into two in the worst way possible. The mobile internet is no longer a subset of the ‘Full’ Internet; it is now a separate world offering features that the desktop just can’t offer and the worst thing is that there isn’t a single device and operating system out there that spans the two Internet worlds. In this article I look at the feature-set of the ‘Full Internet Experience’ and how those features impact netbooks and other ‘mobile’ PCs.

Read the full story

Everyone is free to make their own definition of a MID. Intel like to define it as a pocketable web-capable device. Dell used the expression for netbooks at one point and I’ve talked about a wide-ranging Ring of FIE (right) which includes MID-like, internet-connected devices that don’t even need a browser. It looks like ISuppli take a similar idea and use it for their definition of a mobile internet device.

EETimes reported a few weeks ago.

ISuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) defines MIDs as devices that have integrated connectivity for wireless local area network (WLANs), wireless metropolitan area networks or 3G-or-higher worldwide wide area networks. They also must a maximum-sized display of 8-inches in the diagonal dimension, an instant-on function, an always-connectable capability and a full day’s worth of battery life under typical usage scenarios, according to the firm’s definition.

Far enough. But what about the statement on smartphones?

Smartphones are projected to dominate the MID segment in the forecast period from 2008 to 2012, iSuppli said. The firm estimates that about 60 percent of all smartphones now are considered MID-class devices, but that figure will rise to cover 100 percent by 2012.

I agree that smartphones (if we continue to call them that) may dominate numbers as they move up the chain in terms of sizing, software and processing capability but I certainly wouldn’t class 60% of all smartphones as MIDs today.

As I said, definitions vary so despite my reservations about those smartphones, if you’re researching the sector you might want to be buying a copy of the ISuppli report.

Michael Gartenberg puts an argument forward against MIDs  in an article over at PCWorld today but I’ve read his article through at least three times now and I dont get it. Michael says that consumers are willing to carry three devices and lists the voice-capable mobile phone (agreed) and the laptop (agree, for business use.)

But where’s the third one?

He goes on in his article to say that netbooks can’t replace laptops and I think he’s also saying that MIDs can’t replace phones. I agree.

But where’s the third device?

As I said a few days ago, I think the MID is a convergence of a number of pre-existing gadgets that already enjoy popularity in the ‘tweener’ ground but require a bigger form factor than a mobile phone could ever provide.  Digital internet-connected cameras, pnd’s, ebook readers and handheld gaming devices are already enjoying momentum that no-one really disagrees with and with social websites and portable internet video taking off, there’s other areas of interest too.

Rather than the MID being a device that crosses over the phone or laptop, it’s a device that could consolidate the 4th, 5th and 6th digital gadget into one.

That’s the third device.

See Ring of FIE (in the second half of this article) for more on the convergence in the middle-ground.

Tweener Devices Fall Between the Cracks of Usefulness – PC World.

‘Faster over fuller’ is the expression Jenn uses to describe how consumers want their browsing experience and I tend to agree. Personally I want Firefox 3+add-ons for my browser as it’s long my most important piece of software but I’m not most consumers. A consumer MID doesn’t need to be 100% FIE for most people but it does need to be close.

The browser on the Archos 5 is, relative to existing consumer and smartphone-based browsers, a big step forward in the eyes of most people that have tested it so it’s nice to confirm it with some stats. Jenn has lined-up the Archos 5, the iPhone 3G and the Nokia N810 in a browser speed test and overall, you’re seeing page load times 1.5 times faster than an iPhone 3G  and about 1.8 times faster than a Nokia N810. But is it fast enough? MIDs and low-end UMPCs are likely to beat these times and return more accurate results but does the difference really matter?

What we’re seeing here is proof of, not just a fast new Archos device, but how the ARM Cortex core could improve the Internet experience. In this case, the ARM core is sitting on the Ti OMAP platform but Ti aren’t the only people using it. Intel really do need to watch their backs in this territory now because they’re not fighting against relatively small companies like AMD and VIA here, they’re fighting against the huge ARM ecosystem and they certainly know a thing or two about mobile hardware and software.

Read about the 3-way test at Pocketables.