Mobile Transitions

I am self-professed road warrior ever since the day technology came down as mankind's mantra of convenience. I practically work on coffee shops and some of them have been my "unofficial office" already. I have been donning a whole gamut of mobile devices here and there, pockets to pockets. One morning, after my training class, I was chuckled by one of my trainees to the title of being the "Renaissance Batman", given the motley of mobile devices wrapped around my waist a la utility belt. Sure enough, I can almost be called as such, minus the thought of wearing these gadgets with a brief and a cape, in spite of the stealth of a mask.

Wayback 2001, I remember being one of the few to have a PDA swiveling in my belt. It was the Sony PDA back then. I have two of them in my lifetime, one after the other since my salary couldn't afford to grab them altogether. But before my Sony PDA, there was a Handspring Visor and two Palm PDAs. Here are the PDA's I have had as far as I can remember: Palm M105 > Palm M505 > Handspring Visor Prism > Sony Clie SJ30 > Sony Clie TJ37.

Then, out of desperate need to have a bigger screen mobile device, I bought a laptop. It was Acer Aspire 3620 back then. I still have it as my back-up laptop, or desktop, however I use it. Same time I have my company-issued Fujitsu S6130.

Now, with the ever-changing landscape of mobile needs, I have purchased three laptops in a span of three years. And let me reveal its grins and grimaces based from my first-hand experience:

HP Mini 1001TU: (Bought December 2008). While I am so enamored by its elegant black and glossy exterior, one major letdown it has is the meager capacity hard drive and a low-capacity battery. It's a 3cell unit that only has a 60GB HDD. Although I have no need for a high-capacity drive, I have a desperate need for a high-capacity battery since not all coffee shops have power outlets, and not all coffee shops with outlets are available most of the time. Most often than not, they aren't.

But a looker for this HP is the glossy LCD and a superb, crisp screen resolution. The LCD is covered with a glass panel, making it just one-membrane LCD, a really good design in its class.

Keyboard has been a legacy feature of HP, with a 95% keyboard. What is cumbersome on typing small keys, HP does away with it by churning out larger keys.

Toshiba Nb205-NB310: (Bought August 2009). An answer to HP's lack thereof. With over 9hours battery, I can endure almost an entire day of straight computing. Plus a 160GB hard drive to boot, I can save my fave movies as back up in case my iPhone conks out. Althugh I am not really pleased with its exterior, as I was teetering a buying frenzy for the HP Mini 5101 that time with a more elegant, business-focused exterior, Toshie NB205 was an average looker. But HP Mini 51010 took a long a time to come in the Philippine shore and I badly need a laptop portable enough for my upcoming business trip. So I grabbed the Toshie instead.

With chiclet keys spaced opulently with each other, the keys are a good design factor to use.

The silver design is just my only gripe since it usually magnetizes dusts and dirt which is more apparent than the black-coated netbooks. That is also one of the reasons why I was supposed to be getting the HP Mini 5101, not just because of its aluminum lid and magnesium alloy bottom.

Toshiba Portege T110: (Bought January 2010). Not long before I had my Toshiba NB205, I relinquish it out to give way to a yet another Toshiba. This time a Portege. The reasonbeing is that I need a bigger screen yet portable enough for mobile needs. I have been doing graphic works and floor plans that ogling them at a 10.1 Toshiba NB205 is alreday a sore for me.

Although, this Toshie has more unpromising feature than the others, I chose this out of having no-choice at all. Let me provide you with some: Grainy webcam. Audio is too soft. Although some tech forum dispensed an advise to remove Conexant Peeble Driver, and just use the HDMI driver, but I ended up having no audio at all. Processor can be a bit slow at times but is negligible. Battery is already at its 5%wear for a few days of use, despite the fact that battery has been well-taken cared of (as per batteryuniversity.com). Laptops ideally should only have 10% wear on the first year of use.

Its close competitor would be the HP Pavilion or MSI Wind U230. But they are powered by AMD+ATI combo, a known juice suckers.

But one thing I like about this is the elegant exterior. I will post another lengthy review of this once I have time.

So, how do you like the "reglatic" red(as Epoy fondly calls it, a nomenclature derived from the color of women's menstruation fluid) as a lappie.