This could be a long article or a short article because my 8-day old Son, Nicklas is sleeping and who knows when he’ll wake up. Everything I do at the moment has to be flexible, portable and completed in multiple short bursts. Many of you Dads out there will know what I mean and many of you will have tried, like me, to slip a little bit of ‘work’ into the quiet periods.

When you’ve got a studio full of mobile computers to choose from it’s interesting see see what bubbles up as the most used devices and I want to take a few minutes (or 30) to show you what I’ve been using. One thing is for sure though, my desktop keyboard is getting dusty!

[1st break Clearing kitchen for lunch prep.]

We’re camped-out in our lounge during the daytime and with the kids off school (I have a 9 year old daughter and the kids are enjoying the Easter sun in the neighborhood gardens) and the midwife popping in every day it’s turning into an incredibly dynamic living space. I’m out most days doing some form of shopping…

[2nd break Kids at the door]

…and trying my best to do as much cooking as possible along with helping where I can.

[3rd break. Baby woke. Now typing with one finger.]

[4th break. Had to take over the cooking]

OK, lets get to the point here. 4 mobile computing devices…

[5th break. Kids need a drink]

[6th break…oh wait. Wife is handling that one.]

..4 mobile devices have bubbled to the top.

One-handed use – Smartphone

Jenn Lee wrote an excellent article about this recently. [See: How Motherhood turned me into a smartphone Whore.] One-handed computing is so, so important for mobility and therefore you need a device that works with the thumb. You need to be able to do as much as possible in one hand too so that means convergence. Modern smartphones are therefore the ultimate solution. Forget that UMPCs can give you a faster, more complete Internet experience with faster keyboard input because you don’t have space for that second device. Forget a netbook too in this situation because despite being able to put a netbook on the side of an armchair and getting a great consumption experience, typing with one finger is hopeless and this static position won’t last for long. (See this post!)

As for convergence you want the best camera you can find when you have a new baby. I want to say that again because despite your thoughts of buying an HD cam or DSLR, you’ll find that, unless you are an absolute stickler for image quality, you’ll use a cameraphone more often and take more natural pictures. In addition to the cam, you’ll need a screen that’s not too large (thumb needs to reach all the way across) and you need, of course, great access to online data. That means not only having a web browser but also having finger friendly applications and references. Comfortable e-reading is a plus. Ensure your device has Wifi for unlimited home-based Internet activities.

One other tip: ‘Working’ with a smartphone is often more acceptable both socially and in the family situation than using anything that looks like a computer. Pulling out a netbook smacks of ‘work’ or ‘browsing’. With a smartphone you can pretend you’re sending an SMS to the mother while you check email.

[7th break… 2nd Pizza is ready.]

[8th break…clearing up.]

[Hiding further interruptions]

Best Choices for One-Handed Use.

I’ve got an N82 right now and its a great cameraphone but it’s not ideal for this scenario because when it comes to running multiple apps or browser windows the experience is relatively poor. There are so many phones out there that would be better and funnily enough, the Omnia Pro I gave to my wife would fit in really well here. (She’s sitting across from me right now thumbing the excellent Samsung on-screen keyboard in portrait mode.) Top choices right now would be HTC Desire/Google Nexus One (I question the camera quality on those having seen and taken a number of iffy-quality images that have characteristic plastic-lens fogging.) or, for a good value choice with an excellent camera and big capacitive touchscreen, the Nokia X6. The Motorola Milestone / Droid is also a great value choice and the recent Android 2.1 upgrade makes it even faster and more usable. The slider form-factor also helps with the bedroom scenario below. The Sony Ericsson X10 would be an expensive choice and if you can put up with some poor UI elements you can have one of the best videophones on the market, the HD and continuous-focus Sony Ericsson Vivaz. Again, get a great cameraphone because there will be many times when it’s the only camera/videocam you have. False friends here would be the Nokia N900 (terrible one-handed experience, slow camera software) and HTC HD2 (the screen is too large for most thumbs.) I wouldn’t recommend the iPhone because of the poor camera although the 3GS would just about creep into the ‘acceptable’ category. If you want a super-cheap cameraphone with a 5mp auto-focus Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash, lens-cover, free navigation and a T9 keypad, the Nokia 6220 Classic is amazing value at under 200 Euro for  (Make sure you have a data contract as there isn’t WiFi on this model.) My choice from the above: Motorola Milestone. SIM Free with Android 2.1 for under 400 Euros + spare battery, bed-side docking station and car charger.

Mobile Office.

3 years ago I would be looking at something like the Flybook V5, the Fujitsu P1620 or an Everun Note and considering the $1000-$2000 cost with 3G. Today, I have a choice of 10 or more 3G-capable mini laptops for $600 or less. The Gigabyte Touchnote I bought in 2009 is working out really well. The touchscreen helps with one-handed browsing, the 3G is strong, the SSD is fast and as I’m largely located in the armchair or out for a short errand, the relatively short battery life isn’t a problem.

Listen, I know that an iPad sounds like more fun but you probably need to do some work at some point on a laptop so put those thoughts of an iPad to one side and get yourself an ASUS T101MT or similar. If you’ve got the money, buy a Viliv S10 with the 32GB SSD and 3G. It’s one of the lightest, most rugged, connected and longest battery life touchscreen convertibles out there. If I didn’t already have a Gigbyte Touchnote, that’s the device I’d buy. [Yes, I have one for testing but it might have to move on to another review soon.]

Bedtime Reading.

As a new father you’ll spend many hours awake in bed where a mini-slate comes in extremely useful for e-reading, music, games, tweeting and more. One-handed use isn’t an issue (quiet at the back!) so I’m finding myself using the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. Great battery life, great screen, a good selection of apps, flash gaming capability, ebook applications, fast browser and super light-weight means it fits in extremely well. A large-format high-end smartphone would also work well here but if you do that, don’t forget to keep it charged for the morning. A Viliv S5, iPad, Milestone/Droid, HD2 or something similar (just choose something that suits you or works with your smartphone usage) is a fun device to have.

Ultra Mobile Computing.

One area you need to cover is the unplanned requirement to do something serious. Fixing a web server, answering an email with a modified spreadsheet, editing an , printing a document or even taking advantage of 20 minutes while waiting for the doctor means you need something reliable and something familiar. This is where the ultra mobile PC has always been the perfect companion as you get to take all your desktop apps and processes on the road with you. I’ve been using the UMID BZ with the Mifi 2352 (and tethered to my smartphone) and it’s been working out well. I also keep it by my bedside for occasions when I need to do some real work while in bed and to be honest, I could use it instead of the Archos 5. The Archos 5 is more fun though!

You could use a netbook in this scenario but netbooks are relatively heavy (especially when you need to carry a bag full of baby ‘stuff,’ and need a stable surface.

[5 interruptions hidden]

So Dads, as you can see, there are some opportunities out there and that it’s not just the Dads that sneak in some mobile computing while looking after their babies. In the spirit of parenthood then, what tips have you got to share? Anyone worked out how to have two hands free? I’ll be testing a baby sling soon so stay tuned for some more mobile Dad tips!

Maybe I should have posted this article at Carrypad rather than UMPCPortal as it pertains to the progress that ARM-based devices have made in terms of browsing speed. Just two years ago I wouldn’t have given an ARM-based system a second look if I was thinking of doing an web-based work but now they are challenging low-end PC’s and enabling the sort of devices we cover here on Carrypad. So far, Intel haven’t quite reached down into this area of click consumer computing devices yet.

The question does remain though – What advantage would a 5″ or 7″ device bring over something like the Motorola Droid? Personally I want a 5″ device for an even better quality browsing experience, ebook reading, navigation, 1 meter video experience and a huge battery. It WILL be a second device but that’s fine by me be cause it means I don’t have to have a very expensive high-end smartphone as a 24/7 device.

Smartphones Break the 10-second Barrier. | UMPCPortal – Ultra Mobile Personal Computing.

If you didn’t catch the news yesterday, Sprint has announced a new phone called the Evo which is getting everyone excited. At least those that have huge pockets are getting excited because the Evo is the same size as the HTC HD2 and that’s HUGE! I tested the HTC HD2 out a while back and just a few seconds with it told me it could never be an all day phone for most people. I had the same experience with the TG01. It turns out that many of you think a 4.3 inch phone is OK though. 50-60% of you to be more exact. I’m not sure how many of you have actually tried using such a big phone but I’ll admit there are plenty of people out there that would use this as a ‘pro phone’ for the daytime which keeping a smaller, more practical phone for social use.

Availability and cost will be the next issue because clearly this is a flagship phone. Not only for Sprint but for WiMax too because 4G and 3G are included in this phone. Not only that; check out the spec list known so far…

• 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU
• 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording capability and HDMI out
• 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera
• Google Android 2.1
• Wi-Max, EVDO, Wi-Fi and a mobile hotspot utility to share mobile broadband with up to eight devices over Wi-Fi
• 4.3 inch multitouch capacitive display at 800 x 480 resolution.

(Via JKOntheRun)

That’s pretty much the most highly specified phone in the world right now so you can imagine what the unsubsidised price is going to be! I guess buyers are looking at a $100 per month contract here and as for the phone, I find it hard to believe it would be less than $400 in subsidised form. That’s close to $3000 total cost of ownership over 24 months.

There are three other major questions too:

• Wimax battery life (Evo only has a 5.5wh battery) / Coverage / Speed
• U.S. / Sprint Only
• Summer availability (could be up to September 6 months away)

There’s also no keyboard which might put off pro users.

Choice is great and its also great to see Android smartphones reaching up into ‘2nd-device’ and MID territory so we’ll be watching to see if all the excitement translates to purchases or if people back-off based on price, new competitors or the size issue.

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

A phone I’ve had my eye on in Europe for quite a while now is the Acer Liquid. With a Snapdragon processor, capacitive touchscreen and a good-looking set of specifications you’d expect it to cost more than it does but if you’re in the EU, this little pocket rocket can be picked up for under 300 Euros inclusive of taxes. Unlocked! Compare that to the 400-500 that you’ll pay for a Nexus One and you see why it becomes interesting as a sub-year phone or a good device for keeping track of the Android ecosystem. The only problem is that it runs Android 1.6.

Fortunately, Acer will be releasing the Liquid E soon and with Android 2.1 it should bring some great improvements along with the possibility of multitouch, Google Navigation, Buzz and other features that are only possible with Android 2. Unfortunately, when I visited Acer at MWC there wasn’t anyone around to answer my questions so I was left like a schoolboy playing with the device to find out what I could.

Acer will have to keep the price down on this to compete with the incoming HTC Android devices but if they do, it’s a chance  make an lower-risk investment in Android at a time when new devices are coming in thick and fast.

Intel are certainly not scared of operating systems. While we were at the Pepcom MWC event yesterday we got to see the Aaava Moorestown prototype running Android. Clearly Aava and Intel just want to demonstrate that anything is possible so I guess next year we can expect Windows Phone 7 to be running on it!!!

Watch for two interesting items of news in the video.

• Moorestown is clocking at 600Mhz on phones at the moment but has a turbo mode that will peak at 1.5Ghz.
• There Windows (desktop) version of Moorestown will be called Moorestown-W

In my previous post I pondered over the idea that the Satio might be my next mobile phone. Don’t worry; I’m over it now!

It turns out that the Satio doesn’t run OVI maps (out of the box,) isn’t as fast as the Cortex A8 CPU might have you believe and with a waiting line of Sony Ericsson phones expected, I really don’t see it getting the long term attention it needs from it’s creators.

All that remains now is to wait for Mobile World Congress and if I don’t see anything there, the N82 will likely be my phone for the next year. It’s been good from day 1 and with Gravity, Opera Mobile and Ovi Maps to make it even better, why shouldn’t it be the perfect buddy for another 12 months?

Supplementing the N82 with a MID like the UMID BZ is working out pretty well and we’ve got the Viliv N5 and Dell Mini 5 to look forward to too!

If Inbrics really can bring the M1 to market for $200 then we’re looking at a very good value MID/Phone but somehow I get the feeling that the mention of $200 was really a ‘CES Press Special’  i.e. whatever you say in Vegas, stays in Vegas!  The market could bear $300 for something like this so there’s no reason it would launch at such a low price.

A capacitive 800×480 screen on Cortex with a full implementation of Android along with a nice design and that productivity-helping slider keyboard makes this a ‘must watch’ device. We would have like to have seen a larger screen for real high-end usage and we wonder how long this device will look ‘high-end’ considering the pace that new high-end smartphones are entering the market but it’s interesting all the same.

Here’s a video of the device at CES a few weeks ago.

Thanks to Netbooknews for ‘helping hands’ on this video.