[ASLplease]

I'll be starting a business this spring that involves running mobile office from my pickup truck. I already have a laptop 17" screen and a regular cellphone.

What would you guys recoomend? A netbook? a smartphone?

What about my wireless bill? ie would it be better to have a fully decked smartphone that doubles as a 3g connection for my laptop? or would it be better to keep my cellphone and get a 3g dongle for the laptop?

I know there's alot of preference involved in most of this, so could you please explain why your choice works well for you?

[Regina]

Depends what you really need with you when away from your home base. Do you really need a laptop with you in your truck or can you deal with most things throughout the day with a BB or something similar? One thing to consider is that if you have a laptop in your vehicle, it will be vulnerable to theft which may contain information that is irreplaceable to you. Start off your business lean and go from there.

[ASLplease]

I can tell that you have had to think about this before. You bring up some very important issues.

I'll need a laptop with me because I'll be downloading data from medical devices that I'll have in the field.

My laptop will be my primary business computer. It may very well be vulnerable to theft, so I'll have to have an encryption system to protect patient sensitive data, and I'll also have to have a daily backup plan.

I will need merchant visa capabilities, and plan to use an internet website with a shoppingcart to handle most of those transactions. The number of transactions will be low, so the kind of efficiency that you get from a point of sale device is not necessary.

When I think about a netbook or smartphone, I am generally thinking of it being my command centre for emails, calendar, appointments, to do lists, contacts etc. And, I tend to think of my current laptop as the business computer, it'll hold the records, tools, and reference material.

Also, while I'm ranting about this, I'm toying with the idea of permanently wiring the truck with an inverter and power bar, I have a table top that is desing to sit in my lap, and I'm also considering an inkjet all in 1 printer in the back seat, with a basic file box to organize day to day paperwork. My product will be kept in luggage cases so that it can be easily moved to and from my house at night, and to and from the patient's house during the day.

[ASLplease]

dang, its good to have to write this down. I just realized that it will be important to have a tonneau cover for the truck box to shelter the luggage.

[herbie]

A Netbook will lock in your glovebox. And in a business-expense work needs Internet function, that's the ONLY legit use for one of those Internet-sticks.
We use 4 in the field in my business, 2 only have small SSD drives with the main tools, extra stuff on flashdrives. In our case, we're always within range of one of our own wireless transmitters, we don't need Bell or Rogers at all for connectivity. Even have a USB phone and Skype for calling the office if necessary on one set.

You get every function of your 17" except DVDRW (which you NEVER need in the field).
Employees get a portable system with a screen big enough to be useful.
We're actually hunting down more 7" EEEs as they fit in a pocket and can be used up a tower, ladder or on a rooftop more easily than a 9 or 10"

[ASLplease]

Hypothetical:
- Smartphone with bluetooth, wifi and 3g
- laptop with wifi and bluetooth

Would I be able to use the 3g to connect my laptop to the internet, while talking to a customer on the smartphone?

When I'm at home, does the smartphone connect to a home wifi router to save on bandwidth costs?

[tritium]

ASLplease wrote:

When I'm at home, does the smartphone connect to a home wifi router to save on bandwidth costs?

NO. At least my Backberry can't.. Don't know about newer models.

I carry both. Backberry for the quick emails..

Notebook to surf the net, do every day things that you can do on a desktop, but with a screen you can actually see.

[ASLplease]

I have an outdated Palm Lifedrive that is supposed to connect to wifi or bluetooth. I'll say 'supposed to' because after dusting it off a few days ago, and screwing around with for about 5 hours, I still haven't got it to either.

I think this is a good example of when it isn't worth screwing around with old crap. It makes me nervous to expect a laptop to do the job of a smartphone or a smartphone to do the job of a laptop....I see another 5 hours of screwing around!

[Canadaka]

the Nokia Booklet 3G is super sexy and has a built in 3G card. I'm not sure if you can get it in Canada yet.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/24/noki ... ni-laptop/

Otherwise I did a bit of research a month ago, seems the MSI Wind netbooks are a good pick for price/performance and they seem to have one of the best battery life.

Also with a smartphone tethered to a laptop, some internet plans for phones don't cover that and you will be charged extra. FUcking Telus started doing this for my phone, i have unlimited internet and used to tether it too my laptop, but not they will charge for it.

[Scape]

My Iphone connects via my home wi-fi network but for email being your primary check out BB as it was built from the ground up with corp email accounts in mind. I would say that overall a laptop would be better for you beyond that simply because of the ease of use. I know Dragon dictation can take your voice and convert to text quickly but for raw data a large keyboard is a must.

[Canadaka]

I actualy ordered a Lenovo Thinkpad T400s for a client last month, as a travel laptop, Its a small 12" laptop and is around 3.7lbs

We ordered it through the US Lenovo site since the Canadian one didnt have some options. We wanted the built-in 3G card with GPS and WiMax, for when that tech starts to penetrate in Canada.

Most of the new blackberries and smartphones all have wifi.

When you tether a smartphone to a laptop for internet you can still talk on the phone.

[ASLplease]

I did some reading tonight and fell in love with the HTC Touch pro2. It has a touch screen and its QUERTY keyboard is believed to be the largest so far. CNET reviews are very good and they recoomend it for business power users that dont mind a smartphone that is a bit on the bulky side.

I did some checking, and Telus is hitting people with outragous tethering charges, ie well beyond the .05 per MB rate. People are complaining of 8000 kb of tethering costing as much as $150. One guy got charged $1300 for about 1GB of tethering.

I checked online for tethering hacks for the HTC Touch Pro2 and they are working with verizon, but Telus is somehow detecting the tethering even when the tethering hack is in place.

Makes me wonder, I have an old Samsung A720 that allows bluetooth modem for my computer, I'm always assumed that I'd be paying for airtime only, but I think I'll use it very carefully the first time I connect to it.

[ASLplease]

I also read that a true 'Google phone' running embedded android is possible out this spring of 2010. I wonder if I should wait.

[Regina]

ASLplease check out the Canadian Tire flyer that just came out if you can. They just listed a Vehicle safe that you can bolt or cable to you truck. Comes in two size and the larger one which was on for $48.99 is made to hold laptops. Looked perfect if you need to travel with your laptop.

Product #37-9229-8

[EyeBrock]

I was actually looking at a NetBook for my lad as a Crimbo gift. I saw the LG version of the MSI Wind Netbook. Although it was pretty cheap, it looked and felt cheap too. I paid $150 more and got a 14" HP laptop, Dual Core 2Ghz, 320 HD, 3G ram etc.
From my techie store owner he reckons that the chip set in the LG/Wind netbook can only use 1G ram even if expanded. I also didn't like display, too much scrolling for me.

Just my opinion!