I Can’t Decide!

I’d like to enter the sub-notebook space this fall. I want one of those light-weight and super portable laptops. Sure, I have a great laptop for work, but it is a desktop replacement. Super powerful – and super heavy. Not something I can just toss in a bag and go without planning (and grabbing a power cord!).

I want to be able to quickly hit web pages, email, connect to VPNs and even run Remote Desktop. I can do all these things on my HTC Mogul, but for long sessions that little keyboard goes quickly from convenience to pain in the butt. I want something a bit larger for sustained efforts.

There are some interesting choice these days and that’s what’s giving me pause.

For instance:

REDFLY

Celio corp’s REDFLY (I hate all cap. names) caught my attention earlier this year. Now that I can actually get one I’m having a hard time not impulse buying it.

What is it? They call it a “smartphone terminal.” It has no OS, no CPU or storage. It has a keyboard and 8” screen, looks like a sub-notebook and uses your Windows Mobile smartphone as the brains. Everything you could do on your phone, you can do on this – just bigger and easier.

What do I like about it?

Small and light
Long battery life (claimed 8 hours) – and if connected to your smartphone via USB (instead of Bluetooth) it’ll charge the phone too.
No OS to license and manage. Heck, no additional office apps to install.
Nothing installed means I can loan it out to co-workers with Smartphones. Or we could get a few of these and just grab one when needed. No profiles to worry about.
Connectivity – by this I mean that everything my phone can do (wifi / EVDO / Bluetooth) this leverages. If there’s a signal you’re online.
Huge geek quotient

What might concern me?

The web browser experience. Pocket IE is tolerable, but I’d want more. Opera Mobile beta is awesome, but shows the “beta” by how often it runs out of memory… Not redfly’s issue, per se, but a “platform concern”. I live in a browser when remote…
Will my WinMo remote desktop and VNC clients scale to the higher resolution?
Price. At just under $400 we’re in the Dell Mini 9 / Asus Eee PC territory.

I’m very intrigued by this gadget.

Dell Inspiron Mini 9

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Speaking of being intrigued, I’ve had a wee bit of geek-lust for the Dell Mini 9 since I first saw it announced last month. I like the options of Ubuntu or XP Home (no XP Pro though?).

Connectivity is one wrinkle I’d need to sort out before I could choose an OS though. While I lean towards Ubuntu, I’m not sure how easily I can “tether” my Mogul to use it for wireless broadband. With XP, I just use USB Modem to handle that (I once found a way to do it without 3rd party apps, but boy was that a pain to redo after each flash). And no, I’m not going to pay Sprint over $30/month for the phone as a modem plan.

What I like:

A full featured laptop for under 2 lbs and under $400? Awesome.
Bigger screen and higher resolution than the Redfly
SSD for storage is nifty.
Connectivity options (if XP) are right on par with the Redfly option
XP or Ubuntu, either one has more features and flexibility over Windows Mobile 6.1. Not even a contest.

Concerns?

More software to license (if applicable), install and maintain
Battery life? Not sure on the Dell, but I’ve read reviews on other players in this space mentioning 2 hours. Not enough.
Intel Atom proc. Just how fast is that thing? On a Smartphone there’s not much going on… but these may be running XP.

So…

Which would you go for – or what others should I consider? The newer Eee’s seem nice with the bigger screens in the same price range… I guess first I need to decide between Redfly vs. notebook before I decide which notebook.

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