driving the ultra-mobile enterprise

A proud member of the NC State Wolfpack family, Brandon Hill has had his finger on the pulse of tech industry since joining publishing his first news article 1998. He has covered all of the latest breaking news and milestones that have occurred in the industry over the past six years, and that experience transfers over to DailyTech. When Brandon isn't reasearching news for DailyTech, he's either spending time with his loving girlfriend Elizabeth, chatting on various automotive related websites or tending to his eBay business.

Now is a great time to be in the market for new portable machines to outfit employees. Never has there been such a wealth of available computing platforms, device categories, and downright desktop-competitive notebook systems to cater to a broad audience.

Today, I will take a look at three different categories that are now defining the mobile sector. These three categories are by no means that only ones available to businesses to choose from, but they offer the widest range of possibilities from a business perspective.

Netbooks

When ASUS basically invented the “netbook” category with the original ASUS Eee PC 4G, most saw the notebooks as toys that were only meant for kids or general consumers who didn’t need much power to run heavy duty applications. However, over the spread of a year, the category has exploded to become the fastest growing segment of the notebook market.

Much of that gain can be attributed to numerous companies like Acer, MSI, Lenovo, Dell, and HP jumping in to grab a portion of the market; however, a lot of those gains can be placed at the feet of Intel. The company’s tiny Atom processor has given netbooks competitive performance in a tiny form-factor — couple this advantage with impressive battery life and you have a cost-effective solution for small businesses.

With most netbooks offering 1.6GHz processors, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drives, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and WWAN options, the tiny machines make suitable partners for employees on the go and they won’t slow anyone down with their sub-three pound frames. The machines are more than adequate for most productivity duties and can even handle light photo editing. With prices around the $300 – $400 mark, they also provide a cheap way for mobile professionals to get a near “full-size” laptop experience without the full-size bulk. Read More »

As I have mentioned in previous articles, solid state drives (SSDs) are a promising technology in the area of computer storage. For years, notebooks have been saddled with relatively slow hard disk drives (SSDs) when compared to faster offerings on the desktop. When desktop HDDs were spinning at 5,400 RPM or 7,200 RPM, mobile HDDs were stuck at 4,200 RPM. Now that we have desktop HDDs spinning at 10,000 RPM, the fastest available mobile HDDs are spinning at 7,200 RPM.

Despite the steady increase in spindle speeds for mobile HDDs, there is still room for improvement. Mobile HDDs are susceptible to shock, while the faster 7,200 RPM HDDs are noisy, add vibrations to the notebook chassis, and are often power hungry. This is where SSDs come in to save the day.

SSDs were once reserved for military and government use due to their high-tech features and exorbitantly high price tags. Over the years, SSDs have steadily dropped in price, although they still are priced much higher than HDDs on a price/gigabyte ratio. However, that price premium also brings superior read write speeds, lower power consumption, silent operation, and immunity to shock and vibration that would otherwise be harmful to HDDs.

The ASUS Eee PC 4G was the first notebook to really introduce the general consumer to the idea of SSDs as a primary storage system. Although the Eee PC 4G was equipped with a relatively slow processor, the notebook’s 4GB SSD more than made up for the processor’s deficiencies and made for snappy desktop performance in both Linux and Windows XP. Read More »

In my previous discussion on increasing the battery life of mobile computers, I touched on such areas of improvement as the choice of processor, advanced LED-backlit displays, and power-sipping solid state drives (SSDs). While all of these advances in mobile technology are key areas that are helping in improving battery life, we still need to look at one key area:  improving the actual battery.

When it comes to next generation batteries, there are two promising advances that mobile users should look forward to in the coming years.

Silver-Zinc Batteries

A company called ZPower is promising to leapfrog existing lithium-ion battery technology used in today’s laptop with its silver-zinc batteries. According to ZPower, its silver-zinc composition holds 40 percent higher energy density than comparable lithium-ion cells.

The batteries are water-based which makes them as safe to use as alkaline batteries. There are also no risks of unexpected flare-ups which turned the notebook lithium-ion battery world upside down in 2006. Also, according to company officials, the batteries are also 95% recyclable which makes them a great pick for companies that want to maintain a “green” profile.

ZPower’s silver-zinc battery has been in development for a number of years, and ZPower CEO Ross Dueber expects that a major OEM will use its batteries during 2009. Read More »

It was not so long ago that notebook users were constrained by annoying cords. At first, it was just the power cord that kept people tethered to a wall socket most of the time. As battery technology progressed over the years, the reliance on the power cord has become less of an issue for most new notebooks.

But it’s not just the power cord that has been a hindrance; notebooks have been strangled by serial, PS2, parallel, modem, Ethernet, and finally USB cables. However, we’re in a new computing age and wireless technology is revolutionizing the way we interact with notebooks.

Here are a couple of key wireless technologies that corporations should look at when selecting new notebook machines for employees.

Bluetooth

While it’s true that RF dongles can be used to wirelessly connect a mouse to a notebook, Bluetooth is the absolute best way to go. Since the Bluetooth radio is actually housed within the machine, there are no unsightly or obstructive dongles jutting out from the notebook chassis.

Bluetooth is a relatively low-power wireless protocol and allows mice, printers, and even cell phones to be connected to notebooks. When an integrated touchpad or TrackPoint just isn’t your cup of tea when sitting down in a hotel room while away on business, a Bluetooth mouse is a welcome friend. Read More »

It’s imperative that companies have notebook computers that function properly 100% of the time with absolutely no downtime. Time is money, so anytime that a notebook is out of commission due to design defects or equipment malfunctions, a company’s employee(s) could be left reeling when away from the office or out of town on business.

In order to combat downtime and provide the most reliable notebook platform for the ultimate mobile warrior, here are a few ways to improve the durability of a notebook. Read More »

For mobile professionals and businesses alike, power consumption plays a pivotal role in the day-to-day activities of mobile warriors. Laptops now exceed desktops in sales in the PC market, so it’s inevitable that businesses are looking to outfit more and more of its employees with laptops when the time comes to upgrade computer systems.

It used to be that businesses were faced with either high performance/non-portability with a desktop system or poor performance/high-portability with laptop systems. Thanks to advances in processing technology, laptops are closing the gap when it comes to performance when compared to their desktop counterparts. Read More »