I hate lugging a laptop with me when I travel, but like most of you, I need to keep up with my e-mail. Some of us also have to work on the road, meaning we need Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. But if your only concern is e-mail, though, why not get yourself a new smart phone like a BlackBerry, iPhone, or G1 (Figure)? Most newer smart phones do a great job with e-mail, and you can leave the laptop at home.

Smart phones used to be a small segment of the handset market. Only a few consumers could afford the high-end Treos and BlackBerries. Today, smart phones are the fastest growing category of cell phones, with new models coming out almost weekly. Not only do they handle your e-mail, you also can get Internet access for searches and other accesses. If you’re still using a standard voice cell phone, you may want to consider an upgrade.

I’ve been leaving my laptop behind for some time now. If I’m only going to be away a few days, I can easily get by without it. I have a Samsung BlackJack II company phone and an iPhone personal phone. Both can handle e-mail and messaging. Keeping up with my e-mail is about as easy as using a laptop. And, the iPhone has Wi-Fi and Internet access. I use the search function every now and then, and it is relatively easy over the cell network or by way of a hotspot. Both phones also offer maps. The BlackJack has GPS, and the iPhone has Google maps. I have used both.

In any case, I no longer need to unload my laptop to get through security or find a place for it on the plane. Do I miss some of the things I cannot do on a cell phone? Not much. I have made it a point to keep to my schedules and deadlines, so I don’t have to be hard pressed at the last minute to write an article, column, or whatever while on the road. There’s no computer bag or backpack for me, just a cell phone in my pocket.

Other Alternatives

Some people use one of the new mini laptops like the Asustek Computer Eee PC or Acer’s netbooks. I don’t like the smaller screen or keyboard, though some folks are happy with them. When I do my writing, I want a full-size keyboard and screen. Internet access is probably okay, although I have heard complaints from other users. Downsizing to a cell phone seems like a step in the wrong direction unless you decide you aren’t going to do full-blown PC-like work on the cell phone. E-mail and messaging, yes. Even Internet access in some cases. But that’s it.

Smart phones aren’t going to replace laptops completely. But I bet that more and more of you are going to find that they do fill a need and in some cases will relieve you of the burden of a laptop. The handset makers are working on making these powerful devices even better. At MD&D, we’re focusing on the design issues surrounding the next generation of smart phones, and we see a few things happening in the coming months to make these products even better at some PC applications.

• • Larger screens: Screens are already on this path. The iPhone set the standard, and others are following. The larger the better, of course, but obviously there are limits. The screen doesn’t have to be the touch type either, in my opinion.
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  • Better typography: The screens may already be big enough for some of you, and maybe they wouldn’t need to be bigger if they could solve the problem of scaling text to fit them. Companies are working on this now. Automatic text scaling for Internet access will go a long way to making searches and other Internet access more acceptable.
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  • Better browser: Cell-phone Internet browsers are terrible. I know it is related to the screen problem and text sizing, but they need to be better.
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  • Faster downloads: The newer 3G phones are pretty fast. I have HSDPA on the BlackJack, and it is fairly good. I haven’t tested download speed, but it isn’t as fast as my 2.5-Mbit/s DSL line at home. Still, it’s adequate. My iPhone has EDGE, which is only fair and so slow at times it is maddening. The new 3G iPhone solves this problem. As more 3G systems come on line, this will go away. Long Term Evolution (LTE) will fix it once and for all.
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  • Longer battery life: They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too. That’s true to some extent, but the truth is handset engineers have done a great job of giving us more power-hungry features while maintaining a decent battery charge. Yet as we make screens larger, add faster access, and build in more features like TV, battery charge is going to suffer. My BlackJack has the shortest life of any cell phone I have ever owned. It works great but only for a short time. I am lucky to get 2 hours out of it. On the other hand, my iPhone lasts for days. Go figure. It really is a major design issue.

While you can’t do all the things on a cell phone that you can do on your laptop, the gap is closing. If you don’t already have a smart phone, I bet your next phone will be. If you had to choose between a smart phone or a laptop when you traveled, which would it be?

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