Every one seems to be under the impression that these so called handheld devices are going to replace laptops and even PC computers. Well I do not agree with that and I believe that this is all hot air.
In fact a while ago I bought my self a new laptop as I was in need for another portable device. I am not going to say much about it here since the only thing that matters to me at the moment is that the new laptop is twice as powerful than my 5 year old laptop (which I am still using by the way). I say that with some certainty as I did a comparison between the two cpu's on the website http://www.cpubenchmark.net/.
I had to buy my self a new laptop because the old laptop is not any more at the state where it needs to be at. The CD/DVD drive on it does not perform the way it should and it is way too loud. I should have it fixed because I really need a functional CD/DVD drive since I burn a lot of linux distributions on it but than I decided against that and I just gave it to my mom who needs it more or less for skype and browsing of the web.
So now I go off with my brand new laptop to various coffee shops where I see other people who bring in there laptops and hand held devices. The vast majority of people use laptops of course so any statistic that would show other wise would be rather hard for me to accept. Now from that segment of people using laptops there is a considerable amount of them using the apple laptops. I understand that some people are big fans for apple and or want to a quality device and they associate apple with quality but this is where I am going to disagree with them. I would not buy an apple laptop even if I was to put linux on it. I just do not see the point of spending that much money on it. Apple has just become a luxury computer brand and every thing with that apple icon costs at least 50% more than it needs to so the way I see it I could buy two quality laptops for the money that I would spend on an apple laptop but that lets leave that for now and focus now on the hand held device segment of the people I see in coffee shops.
In essence that little hand held device makes you a passive participant. It is just good enough if you come to a coffee shop to meet some one and you go online for a few minutes to pass the time while waiting for that person to arrive. That is the only aspect of it that I would give it a thumbs up although I my self would never use such a device. Just the idea that you are a passive participant makes me uneasy about it.
I need a laptop not because I play games on it and I need the computing power but I need to be able to install linux on it and use a whole bunch of programs that probably would not run too well on a processor of a mobile phone or even a hand held device. For instance I here and there use torrents. So I turn on my transmission bittorrent client and I start downloading some files of the net. So when I go and check how much of my laptops resources it is using I usually find that it is quite a resource hog but of course what can one expect when downloading files at speeds well over 500 kb/s. So of course there are moments when the cpu usage for transmission hits above 10%! I do not think that any hand held device at the moment would be able to handle running a bittorrent client for an hour or more to finish the dowload of lets say the new windows 8.
Of course though I would say no to a hand held device that would fit in the palm of my hand like a mobile phone on which I could do the above mentioned and a lot more it is just that there is nothing right now on the market any where close to it. I have heard of a mobile phone with Ubuntu on it and it costs more than the new apple iphone and the apple iphone 5s costs two times more than my new laptop. So why would I bother. I just put my laptop in my backpack and I am off. It also has another accidental benefit to it I guess since when I am chatting with some one at coffee I am not using it of course because the laptop requires all of my attention. It is not like with some people as I am told that have there smart phones on the coffee table and they constantly glance at them so that it seems like the device is at the center of attention and the other person or persons that they are drinking coffee with. That does not happen with me and the way that I use technology. In my life technology comes always second and that will never change. Any one who wants to talk to me in a civilized manner is automatically awarded a step above any communication channel that I have with the internet and any type of activity on my computer.
Besides that only a laptop offers a screen large enough for me to chat on IRC with ease. How else would I be able to follow a conversation between dozens of individuals on #slackware,#gentoo,...and other channels.
On top of that I use network programs like arpwatch, nmap,...to keep a tab on who is on that public wifi. I think it is important to see if some one is doing odd things like changing mac addresses or even sniffing traffic although I would never open up my e-mail on a public wifi regardless of how safe I believe I am on it.
In essence hand held devices need to radically shift there purpose for me to ever consider them. I do not want to be a passive participant online. I want to be active and I need either a large enough screen and/or computing power that would enable to utilize various resource hungry apps. It would be nice if I would put the whole thing in my pocket instead of my backpack but until some thing major gets done in this area I am going to stick to laptops and desktop PC computers. As far as I am concerned there was no revolution in the computer world. The same thing was with the cloud. A lot of hot air and nothing has changed for me even though some have promised the end of desktop PC because we would play game on the cloud servers. I still laugh at that because I rather have more computing power than a small light weight portable device and that perspective is not going to change ever. So when ever a new more powerful line of processors come out I give my thumbs up and I give thumbs down for portable and weak hand held devices!
In fact a while ago I bought my self a new laptop as I was in need for another portable device. I am not going to say much about it here since the only thing that matters to me at the moment is that the new laptop is twice as powerful than my 5 year old laptop (which I am still using by the way). I say that with some certainty as I did a comparison between the two cpu's on the website http://www.cpubenchmark.net/.
I had to buy my self a new laptop because the old laptop is not any more at the state where it needs to be at. The CD/DVD drive on it does not perform the way it should and it is way too loud. I should have it fixed because I really need a functional CD/DVD drive since I burn a lot of linux distributions on it but than I decided against that and I just gave it to my mom who needs it more or less for skype and browsing of the web.
So now I go off with my brand new laptop to various coffee shops where I see other people who bring in there laptops and hand held devices. The vast majority of people use laptops of course so any statistic that would show other wise would be rather hard for me to accept. Now from that segment of people using laptops there is a considerable amount of them using the apple laptops. I understand that some people are big fans for apple and or want to a quality device and they associate apple with quality but this is where I am going to disagree with them. I would not buy an apple laptop even if I was to put linux on it. I just do not see the point of spending that much money on it. Apple has just become a luxury computer brand and every thing with that apple icon costs at least 50% more than it needs to so the way I see it I could buy two quality laptops for the money that I would spend on an apple laptop but that lets leave that for now and focus now on the hand held device segment of the people I see in coffee shops.
In essence that little hand held device makes you a passive participant. It is just good enough if you come to a coffee shop to meet some one and you go online for a few minutes to pass the time while waiting for that person to arrive. That is the only aspect of it that I would give it a thumbs up although I my self would never use such a device. Just the idea that you are a passive participant makes me uneasy about it.
I need a laptop not because I play games on it and I need the computing power but I need to be able to install linux on it and use a whole bunch of programs that probably would not run too well on a processor of a mobile phone or even a hand held device. For instance I here and there use torrents. So I turn on my transmission bittorrent client and I start downloading some files of the net. So when I go and check how much of my laptops resources it is using I usually find that it is quite a resource hog but of course what can one expect when downloading files at speeds well over 500 kb/s. So of course there are moments when the cpu usage for transmission hits above 10%! I do not think that any hand held device at the moment would be able to handle running a bittorrent client for an hour or more to finish the dowload of lets say the new windows 8.
Of course though I would say no to a hand held device that would fit in the palm of my hand like a mobile phone on which I could do the above mentioned and a lot more it is just that there is nothing right now on the market any where close to it. I have heard of a mobile phone with Ubuntu on it and it costs more than the new apple iphone and the apple iphone 5s costs two times more than my new laptop. So why would I bother. I just put my laptop in my backpack and I am off. It also has another accidental benefit to it I guess since when I am chatting with some one at coffee I am not using it of course because the laptop requires all of my attention. It is not like with some people as I am told that have there smart phones on the coffee table and they constantly glance at them so that it seems like the device is at the center of attention and the other person or persons that they are drinking coffee with. That does not happen with me and the way that I use technology. In my life technology comes always second and that will never change. Any one who wants to talk to me in a civilized manner is automatically awarded a step above any communication channel that I have with the internet and any type of activity on my computer.
Besides that only a laptop offers a screen large enough for me to chat on IRC with ease. How else would I be able to follow a conversation between dozens of individuals on #slackware,#gentoo,...and other channels.
On top of that I use network programs like arpwatch, nmap,...to keep a tab on who is on that public wifi. I think it is important to see if some one is doing odd things like changing mac addresses or even sniffing traffic although I would never open up my e-mail on a public wifi regardless of how safe I believe I am on it.
In essence hand held devices need to radically shift there purpose for me to ever consider them. I do not want to be a passive participant online. I want to be active and I need either a large enough screen and/or computing power that would enable to utilize various resource hungry apps. It would be nice if I would put the whole thing in my pocket instead of my backpack but until some thing major gets done in this area I am going to stick to laptops and desktop PC computers. As far as I am concerned there was no revolution in the computer world. The same thing was with the cloud. A lot of hot air and nothing has changed for me even though some have promised the end of desktop PC because we would play game on the cloud servers. I still laugh at that because I rather have more computing power than a small light weight portable device and that perspective is not going to change ever. So when ever a new more powerful line of processors come out I give my thumbs up and I give thumbs down for portable and weak hand held devices!
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