What a perfect test it was to be away from home for 5 days. I took the Nokia N8, the Galaxy Tab and my Gigabyte netbook with me for Christmas in England and all three were needed. Convergence doesn’t exist.
The N8 makes a perfect phone. Voice calling is strong and reliable. It’s a perfect pocket, internet-connected camera too. In typical low-light, moving kids scenarios it beat my old N82 hands down. Video footage has been great too. I’m confident that there isn’t a better personal camera out there. Try having a compact camera ready for all the moments I captured! As for maps, well it wasn’t the best. I didn’t have to do much with turn-by-turn and when I searched for an address offline. I couldn’t find it. I had to go online to resolve that problem. Clearly I need to download the local map again but with Google maps supporting caching now, the advantages for OVI maps are fading. MP3 capabilities are good, the always-on clock is useful and timed profiles are a winner. Structurally I feel its going to last and although internet is relatively slow compared to my Galaxy Tab, it’s there if needed in an emergency. I used Gravity quite a few times.
The Gigabyte netbook came out twice in the last 2 days and I’m glad I had it because I had a server issue. Try ssh, server testing, ping, traceroute and submitting a ticket on the Tab. Under pressure, it’s no use in these scenarios at all. For admin work, there’s no way you can survive without windowing, a full browser with mouse and keyboard. No way!
As for the Tab, it became my buddy. Used way more than the phone or netbook it was used for comment handling on my blogs, emails, chat, sms, Facebook, Twitter, maps, contacts, calendar, ebooks, casual web, RSS reading, games, photo presenting, pdf reading (stored itinerary) and this – blog writing. I even used it for remote access to my PC although that was more of a more webcam experiment than anything else.
I knew there was a space. Carrypads are here, are valuable and show just how much fits into the ‘tweener’ space. The Origami concept of 2006 was spot on. Shame they didn’t have the technology to actually make it happen back then!
Anyone else out there, enjoying the three-device strategy?