What Mobile Heavyweight Suits You?

So you have to buy a new PC but the old one has still got life in it and could be retire to the office if you had the flexibility to work on the go without needing glasses or extra large thumbs. What do you choose and why?

The solution will almost certainly viewed differently by everyone.



Today the UK’s largest supermarket placed the Samsung Galaxy Tablet on pre-order at £529. It is just 99p cheaper than the offer from Carphone Warehouse and Amazon. Will that turn your eye as it clearly is the best equipped tablet out today with that 7” form, Flash support and Androd 2.2 all of which Mr Jobs doesn’t like. It has twin cameras and phone capabilities and will start to make an impact on Monday, November 1st. If you want a tablet with legs look no further.


HP have just announced more on its long awaited Slate tablet which to the surprise of many is to run on Windows 7 not Palm’s WebOS. Its only a surprise given the ticket HP paid this year for Palm and begs the questions why and where is it going? The price on the tin is $799and will weigh in at 700 grams, with a 8.9” 1024x600 screen and with not only no 3G connectivity but the unproven Windows 7 fanfare. However it does have some impressive feature such as an intuitive Wacom digitiser. If you want a high end netbook with touch screen and tablet form look no further.

So what about the new updated 13.3” Mac Air or or its new 11.6” brother? Both come with no hard drives but instead use flash storage built into the motherboard. Both models are thinner being only some 0.68” max and tapering to just 0.11” some 0.10” less than previously. The same applies to weight with the 11.6” model weighing in at 2.3 pounds and the 13” one at 3 pounds. The Macbook Air has a full size keyboard and trackpad. The real difference is the flash storage which reduces weight, is more rebust gives more space for a bigger battery. The result is the claim from Apple that the 13” model can give some 7 hours and the 11.6” some 5 hours of battery life on a single charge. The flash storage also gives a near instant switch on and its claimed that you can leave the machines in standby mode for up to 30 days!

The MacBook Air certainly is packed with many new and improved features and if you are a Mac man looking for that portable solution it will be hard to beat. The price of the 11.6” is £849 rising to £999 for the 128GB model, whilst 1.86 GHz 13” with 2GB of memory and 128GB of flash storage starts at £1,099.00 rising to £1349 for the 256GB model.

Another interesting consideration is that of operating systems with mobile battles raging whilst the rest mainly divide between Mac and Windows. However Apple has now previewed its next major OS version called Mac OS X Lion and positioned it to arrive in summer 2011. Jobs claims that Lion is about "Mac OS X meets the iPad." Lion will deliver a Mac App Store , similar to the App Store for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This will enable users to purchase and download apps as they do today with a one-click download and automatic updates. Apple now plans to open a Mac App store this year for use on Snow Leopard.

So would you buy an iPad, a Galaxy, a slate or a new MacBook Air or something else?

Asus has launched the Eee PC Seashell slimline netbook in London. The 10” LED screen, has a power-efficient Atom N280 processor, 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, multi-touch trackpad, Windows XP Home and Microsoft Works. It weighs a mere 1.1kg, and is claimed to run for up to 6 hours. Asus are primed to also launch a number of other EEE related products in the next few weeks.



The 1008HA Seashell is clearly one of a number of Macbook Air and MSI has also announced its ultra-thin X340 and X320 notebooks will be released in the UK at the end of May. These weigh-in at 1.3Kg and measure 330mm x 224mm x 19.8mm. The X340 and X320 both offer widescreen 13.4The disappointment is the price with the X340 predicted to cost around £850 and the X320 and around £650.

Dell Adamo - Coming Soon

Dell has launched a web site to raise awareness for it’s upcoming Adamo. The site merely states ‘coming soon’.

The speculation in the market is that the Adamo is an ultraportable laptop squarely aimed at the Apple Macbook Air. Dell had earlier leaked out accessories available on its Web site for Adamo Thirteen, which it later deleted. The accessories included a 45 watt AC adaptor similar to the power adapter used in the MacBook Air, a DVD+/-RW slot drive which would indicate size constraints.

If Dell were to develop a ultraportable laptop that was light and importantly cheap in comparison to the Macbook Air then we could see a significant market shift towards notebooks and ultra light laptops.

All eyes now turn to the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which starts in a couple of days and is where announcements often get made.

Jobs says No to an iBook

Steve Jobs the man who gave us iTunes, iPod and iPhone is reported as commenting on the Kindle, "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore... The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."
The reality is that his current platforms are converging fast and he is unlikely to make a dedicated anything and the ebook is only one step away from his iWorld. His statements are more about his probable reluctance to produce a dedicated ereader which frankly we would both understand and support.

He also remarked on Google and their reported gPhone ‘Android’, "Having created a phone, it's a lot harder than it looks. We'll see how good their software is and we'll see how consumers like it and how quickly it is adopted. I actually think Google has achieved their goal without Android, and I now think Android hurts them more than it helps them. It's just going to divide them and people who want to be their partners."

What Apple and Google partners!!

Also this week Apple has unveiled their latest ultra thin utra light laptop 'Macbook Air'. It is 1.94cm thin, weighs 1.36kgs a 13.3" screen and incorporates the touch pad technology ofthe iPhone. Would we buy one of those and a iPhone full stop? Probably is the answer and the rest of the hardware becomes mere noise.