Ray Hendon

Ultraportables, which include the newest incarnation of thin and light laptops, the Ultrabook, are thought by some to be a threat to tablet computers.  The instant-on capability of Ultrabooks are believed to be especially attractive to those who have been buying tablets because of this feature. 

It appears likely to me that Ultrabooks and other thin and light laptops will do well in the market place, especially when their prices fall a few hundred dollars.  But whether they will dampen any of the enthusiasm for tablets is another matter.  Personally I think both form factors satisfy separate needs for different users.

One feature of the new Ultrabooks that will help resolve the question is whether they will serve their owners as competent eReaders.  Surely there are some prospective buyers who would prefer to own only one device rather than two—but only if the one could do the work of two.  Can an Ultrabook do both heavy duty computing and convenient eReading?  Can one design satisfy both these needs?

Certainly a dedicated eReader or a tablet have some advantages over a laptop, even a thin and light one.  Reading electronic books, for example is probably done best by a device that closely emulates the look and feel of a book.  The popularity of the Kindle and Nook are thought to owe much of their success to their similarity to printed books.

How essential is the look and feel,  though, to those who read a lot.   This article takes a look at the possibility of using these new, thin and light computers as an eReader.

To put this question to a practical test, I loaded the top three eReading applications to an 11.6” screen Asus UX21 to see how they worked.  The applications chosen to test are:

Amazon’s Kindle App for PCs, Macs, iPad, iPhone and Android devices

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• Barnes and Noble’s Nook Application for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone  and Android devices
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• Sony’s Reader Application for PC, Mac and Android devices

  

To give you a taste of the difference, I have taken screen shots of random pages from eBooks on the three applications I mentioned.

Beginning with Amazon, a screen shot of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, is displayed in the two column format for laptop viewing. The screen shot is taken of the Kindle application for PCs.

Screen of Kindle Reader in Two Column Format

The Kindle app is widely praised for its versatility of layout options, underlining, comments, bookmarks and especially its syncing abilities.  This app also has go-to options that ease navigation, and dictionary lookup for a highlighted word.  All these features work on Ultrabooks. 

Amazon also has a user friendly policy of allowing you to direct any book in your library to be sent to any device on your registered list of devices. Amazon is indifferent as to which device or how many you use for any their electronic titles.  It treats them all the same and syncs them in an effortless way. The moment I registered my latest laptop, the Asus ZenBook UX21, all books in my library were immediately available for reading.

The strongest features of Amazon is, in my view, the ease of use of its website.  It is easy to find books, send them to the device of your choice, and generally navigate their vast site.

Equally strong is the selection of books, magazines and newspapers. They claim over a million titles, but that includes some categories such as “Singles” that represent a new class of literature that is generally shorter than a book but longer than an article. 

The worst feature of Amazon is that they insist on using a proprietary format for their eBook files.  It has an AZW extension and works only on Kindle software or hardware.  Although all the free sites I use give the option of downloading their books in the AZW format, in practice it is not terribly inconvenient.  Amazon also can read PDF files, and they will convert your Word for Windows documents to a format that allows you to put them in you Kindle library.

The other downside to Amazon is that they use DRM (digital rights management) on everything, so there is no cutting or pasting using anything in the AZW format. 

The Nook eReader software also provides a good reader experience. The screen shot below is from one of their pre-DRM works. Don’t be fooled by the small typeface. My screen capture utility shrunk it because the Nook takes up more of the horizontal space of the computer screen than the Kindle reader, so it has to cut the size down to fit within the pasted space. In practice, the Nook screen is as readable as any other.

Screen shot from the Nook Reader using the dual pane format

All the formatting and user options are available for the Nook reader–font size, margins, highlighting, lookup, go-to. And the B&N syncing feature is excellent between devices, and they offer their reader software app for a wide range of devices.

As far as eReading goes, it is hard to find much to prefer of B&N over Amazon or vice versa.  Both are excellent and have almost identical features.

The same is true for selection of books. B&N’s inventory is huge, and they have a good selection of free public domain books—as good as or better than Amazon’s.

Nook uses the ePub format, as does Sony, although both will read many other formats as well.  They do not read Amazon’s proprietary AZW file format, however.

Something of an oddity: The Nook reader treats all ePub software as DRM protected, so they do not allow cutting or pasting of non-DRM books.  Even on the iPad, whose own iReader app allows cutting and pasting of non-DRM protected material the  Nook does not.

Sony’s reader app provides a good reading experience. The screen shot below is from an ePub file of a non-DRM version of Sherlock Holmes.

Screen of Sony Reader’s Dual Column Layout

As with the Nook, the Sony Reader software uses more of the landscape screen to display its materiel than the Kindle app, so my clipping software has to reduce it to fit the pasting space. But Sony gives one plenty of formatting options and page control.

Sony lags both Amazon and B&N with book selection and syncing ability.  Their books are generally priced high; they have few free books, and their selection doesn’t match its two larger competitors.

Sony makes its reader software available to fewer devices—no iPad, no iPhone, no BlackBerry, for example.  They have syncing available to the three types of devices they support, but I have not tried it personally.

I like the Sony reader app for its ability to read almost any kind of document regardless of format, except, of course, Kindle documents. I will always have their app installed on my computers in case a particular book is not available in the Kindle format.  And they allow cut and paste options for non-protected books.

I find all three of the reader software about equally enjoyable to use. The differences in layout and options are not terribly important. I find I use the Kindle app more than the others because I find more books on their site I like, and I like to sync the books among all my devices. Still, I maintain active use of the Nook and the Sony Readers.

Summary:

First, the reality of the size and convenience of specialized eReaders and tablets makes it clear that they have the advantage. It is not possible for an ultrabook, weighing in at 2.9 pounds, to be as convenient to use as a 7-inch tablet or even the pound and a half iPad.

However, it is also inconvenient to carry two devices if one will do. So, there will be occasions when a thin and light laptop could be a suitable substitute for a dedicated eReader or tablet. 

At bottom, all of these tested apps work well on an Ultrabook. And they would work just as well with the software from other vendors such as Kobo or Blio. If your eReading preferences include comic books, magazines or children’s books, then you might like a specialty reader designed for the formats unique to these publications.

While all the eReading apps work well on an Ultrabook, it still may not be your preferred way of reading electronic texts.  But they are completely usable as a primary or secondary eReader. The choice of one over another is more dependent on which site you prefer to use because of its particular strengths than to the characteristics of their eReades.

From my experience, I have given away my Kindle reader. I simply do not want to carry another device with me in my travels. Now that I have a 7-inch tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I use it as my eReader of choice because of its lightness and ease of holding in one hand. I use the iPad for e-reading infrequently, but there are occasions when it comes in handy. Its weight, though, makes it a second choice, especially for long reading times. 

I rarely use a PC or my ultraportable for reading, but if I do it will be on the ultraportable.  Its lightness and instant-on feature does make it a better choice than the older, heavier laptops, but it is not as convenient to carry as a tablet.

An ultraportable may not be your favorite way of reading electronic texts, but it serves as a completely satisfying vehicle for reading if you want to carry only one device with you or if an occasion arises when it is all you have to use.

Ray Hendon

A new generation of processors is now beginning to show up in computers on dealer shelves. HP, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba all have new models of laptops that feature Intel’s new Sandy Bridge CPU and some that feature AMD’s new Fusion chips.

Both Fusion and Sandy Bridge are completely new designs: they are all ULV (ultra-low voltage) that make for long battery life, and they are also much faster in doing everything.  The ULV features means that they can last almost all day with an eight cell battery running 1080p HD video.

Also both designs put a full graphics card on the same chip that houses the CPU.  This is an important step beyond the typical integrated graphics, because both the CPU and the graphics processor are independent—not sharing clock cycles to carry out their tasks.  And, both the CPU and GPU are built on 32 nanometer silicone—which is where some of the speed enhancement comes from.

These new chips are the future of the the laptop computer. We will never look back and want the old again. For one brief period, chip design and engineering have caught up with what computer users demand: fast, furious, fun, and free of a power cord.

These are astounding advancements, and for power users there will be no looking back. The new chips run all the old application programs faster than the older generation of CPUs, their screens are brighter with more resolution, and they are lighter and more compact.

Although the new chips were designed primarily for laptops, the focus of this article is mainly on the smallest models (the ultra-portables) of the notebook class—those with 11.6-inch screens.  These sleek new units are an inch and a half above the maximum size of a netbook and with much better processing power, HD graphics and keyboard comfort. The good news about these enhancements is that they come at a fairly low incremental cost.

Three New 11.6-inch Models Using AMD’s New Fusion Chips

Model	Weight/thick	Price + options	Picture
Lenovo x120eExternal optical drive optional	2.9—3+320 GB HD @7200 rpm+$20 for Blue Tooth	$450 +No SSD options  Brief review below
HP dm1zExternal optical drive optional	3.52 lbs, 0.8”320 GB HD @7200 rpmBlue Tooth	$450 +128GB SSD, add $290 Click for review
Sony YExternal optical drive optional	3.23 lbs, 0.99”500 GB HD @5400 rpmBlue Tooth	$550 + No SSD options

Each of the models above has a 1376 x 768 LED display and runs the same AMD dual core Fusion E-350 chip.  Each has an HDMI-out port.

The Fusion chip competes well with Intel’s Sandy Bridge dual core models of its i3 and i5 CPUs. A quad core Sandy Bridge laptop is already available in some laptops—listed as the Core i7.  AMD has recently released its quad core APU, but they will not make their way into new computers for a few months.  AMD insists on calling its new line accelerated processing units (APUs) rather than CPUs.

The Sandy Bridge chips are featured in the higher end of the ultraportable range with prices ranging closer to $2000 than to $500.  The AMD units are being used in the smaller screen models shown above.

For the larger screens Lenovo has a 14-inch ThinkPad, the T420, which starts at $1029 for a Sandy Bridge i3. Sony’s S Series has a quad core Sandy Bridge i7 with a 13.3-inch screen and a spinning hard drive that starts at $1499.  The spinner is replaced with a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) for a mere $2499. These higher-end devices will be the subject on another article, soon.

At the other end of the scale, just below the 11.6-inch ultra-portables, are the Netbooks.  Intel limits computers using its Atom processor to 10.1-inch screens, and Atom seems to be destined to remain the dominant chip in netbooks.  Fortunately, a new, more powerful Atom, the Z670, will be showing up in new netbooks within a few months, but it will still be powering a 10.1-inch screen and cramped keyboard.

Pricewise, netbooks begin at around $300 and range up to $600 for some options, so there is a little overlap between the netbooks and the low end of the ultra-portables.

The reason the manufacturers have extended the ultra-portable line closer to the netbook class is three-fold:

1. Keyboards on netbooks are all less than standard size, so typing on them is not as comfortable or efficient as with full-sized models.

2. The screen size of 10.1=inches is too crowded to read comfortably for web pages.

3. The Atom processors are underpowered for tasks such as 1080p video and multi-tasking.

The bottom line is that Netbooks were designed to do only a limited number of tasks, and many users found these limitations too severe.  In the recent past, moving up from 10.1-inches to 13.1 or 13.3-inch models was done by tripling the cost.

The new line of Fusion chips addresses all these issues. Larger screens are OK, the keyboards are full-sized, the screen resolution is excellent and fully capable of HD graphics.  The processing power of both the dual-core Fusion and Sandy Bridge is completely adequate for power-hungry applications.

I have tested the Lenovo x120e for the last month, and it is a quantum leap from the older Lenovo S-10 netbook. The keyboard, being a ThinkPad, is great. The x120e’s weight is a little less than 3 pounds and its size makes it convenient to carry. Lenovo has also implemented the faster boot and shut-down processes, which is greatly appreciated. The screen resolution is excellent, and HDMI-out works seamlessly on a HD TV.

The power of the AMD Fusion is apparent. Application such as Word for Windows and Windows Live Writer, which I use for my blogs, functions smoothly. My older netbook choked on Live Writer, taking several seconds to catch up with my typing and formatting, and taking exceptionally long to load.

The WiFi capabilities of the x120e are robust, and a 3G upgrade is possible, so the portability functions are excellent. Battery life with my 3-cell option is about three hours. Larger batteries yield much long life if your needs demand it.

Blue tooth on the Lenovo costs an extra $20, while the Sony and HP models include it. And Lenovo has not seen fit to make an SSD option available on its 11.6-inch screens.  Being an iPad user, I appreciate the instant on and off capabilities of SSD, so I wish it were available.  Both the Sony and HP models offer this option, but at a high cost, of course. A $300 price hike would put my model at over $800, and I would not have bought it, but some would like the option.

Down the road there will be many more of the 11.6-inch models appearing. Apple is rumored to be planning Sandy Bridge for its MacBook Air later this summer in both its 11.6 and 13.3-inch models. Acer, Asus and Toshiba will probably join in producing this new size of ultra-portable.

For my use, I am exceptionally happy with my new gadget. It was, for me, money well spent. I could easily have made a case for the HP dm1Z over the Lenovo, but in the end, the ThinkPad brand was enough to convince me to stay with Lenovo. I use word processing more than any other application, so the Think Pad keyboard carried the day for me.

The Sony model looks great, but it offers only a 5400 rpm spinning drive, although they do offer a 500GB drive as standard. This is slow, and slow is why I upgraded from my netbook. I hope Sony corrects this discrepancy with a 7400 rpm option. Speed is one of the hallmarks of the new line of chips, and to saddle it with a slow storage and retrieval system works against the major selling points of the new generation.

It looks as if there will be many of this new line of chips showing up in the laptop arena from now until the Christmas selling season.  From my experience, it was an upgrade well worth it.  In the past, small and capable spelled expensive.  This new generation of chips has broken that link, and now we can have small and capable at much better prices than ever before.

I confess that the Asus Transformer is an intriguing design, potentially solving several problems that has plagued the pure tablet from becoming a serious production device.

I sent my original iPad back before the 14-day limit for returns last April.  It was virtually useless to me for research, compiling and then writing and publishing articles.

I later changed my mind and got a new one a week or so later, because I missed some of the unique features that I discovered while evaluating it.  I could not and do not use it for production, however I use my iPad for many other things, but I use an ultraportable laptop and my desktop for all of my production needs.

Asus, with its new Eee Transformer, has designed its new machine to address some of the problems, and, from the limited information available from those who saw it in a pre-production model earlier in the year, it is worthy of consideration as a production device.

But the biggest news, just released today, is that the 10.1-inch tablet version without the keyboard will retail for a suggested price of $499. (Up-date 4/21: price for tablet is now official at $399, available April 26th.  Keyboard to be $150) Considering the raw specifications, this new gadget looks appealing at this price.

• OS: Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)
• CPU/GPU: Nvidia Tegra 2
• Memory: 512MB-1GB
• Storage: 16GB/32GB/64GB eMMC flash
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, WLAN 802.11 b/g/n
• Display: 10.1 WSVGA IPS screen with 1280×800 resolution with capacitive touch
• Camera: Front: 1.2-megapixel, Rear: 5-megapixel
• Interface: 2-in-1 audio jack (headphone/mic-in); 1 x card reader, SD (SDHC); 1 x docking port; 1 x Mini-HDMI; stereo speaker
• HDMI Type C (Mini-HDMI)
• Unit dimensions: 271x176x12.9mm, 1.5 pounds

Two USB ports are on the keyboard (hidden away behind covers), along with a full size SD/MMC memory card slot.

These are impressive specs.  It is packed with good power.  The Tegra 2’s dual core is excellent.  It is about the same weight of other tablets, and the keyboard will probably bring the weight up to three pounds.

It’s only drawback is that Android and the Tegra do not support Microsoft’s word processing or other Office products, so work-arounds are required.  However, Microsoft is promising an ARM-based Windows in the future.  This is good news for those of use who use their products, and it is unambiguously bad news for Intel.

The video below is helpful in getting an idea of what can be done with the tablet/netbook.  I can’t wait to get my hands on the keyboard and see what can be done with it as a netbook.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Video

The two reviews below are not full hands-on reviews of a production model, so read them with a suitable level of skepticism.  But their availability at Best Buy in the near future probably is a precursor of a raft of professional reviews by the computer industry pundits.

CNet Review:Click her for full review

Techcentral Review: Click for review and many pictures.

I will be anxiously awaiting the opportunity to test this new gadget.  I just bought a new ulatrportable, upgrading from a first generation netbook, so it is too late for my use in the immediate future.  But the idea behind this configuration holds out a promise that there may be a less expensive solution available when my next upgrade cycle comes around.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about eReading on the various operating systems that power many of the new tablets coming to market this year.  Some fear that the larger screens and new operating systems will not be able to read electronic texts of the major vendors.

Each of the major new tablets is reviewed below for its ability to read Kindle, Nook and Sony electronic formats.

Android Tablets

There are four Android tablets that are either out now or will be soon.

· The Motorola Xoom is on sale now at Best Buy and at Verizon stores.

· The LG G-Slate is expected this month.

· Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t have a date set, yet.

· Acer has its Iconia Tab A500 set for a date sometime in April.

All are slated to run Android 3.0, the Honeycomb version, and the first Android system made for large screen formats. The new version of Android is a source of much of this confusion. Earlier versions of Android were written for cell phones with their 3 and 4-inch screens. It appears that some believe that the new software will not work with the older eReader applications that were written with small screens in mind. The pictures below show the Kindle apps that Amazons offers its customers.

Note that the second icon from the left, the Kindle for Android, is depicted as a smartphone. This is probably the origin of some of the confusion. Android versions from the first through version 2.2.1 were written for this size screen. However, the new Android 3,0 scales these apps to larger screens with good results.  The problem of clunky graphics that plagued the iPad for apps that were brought over from the iPhone, are largely avoided by Android. (Update 4/23–Amazon announced a few days ago that they were re-writing their Kindle App for Adroid 3.0.  So any problems with the larger screens will be addressed with the new release. RH)

The Galaxy Tab 7 uses the older version Android eReading apps, and the Kindle eReader works well on it. The same is true for the new Honeycomb versions of tablets. I checked Motorola’s Xoom yesterday and the Kindle app scales well on the larger 10.1-inch screen. I can say the same for an independent eReading app from Aldiko. The reading page looks fine on both apps and all the font and brightness controls available on the small-screens  work as they are supposed to.

The only drawback to the scaling is that when the Xoom is turned horizontally, neither the Kindle app not the Aldiko switches to a dual-pane display—this feature isn’t available to the small-screen versions of eithr reader.  I suspect that Amazon will make this adjustment quickly, however. They made it for the iPad within the first month it it going one sale.

I mention this because on wide screens a dual- pane division is helpful to the reader. Long lines are hard to follow, and a dual pane window solves the problem nicely.

The absence of a dual-pane switch tells me that Amazon and Barnes and Noble will most likely rewrite their reader software for the larger Android screen.

The picture below is of devices for Nook eReaders.

They match up well with Amazon with the exception of a Windows Phone 7 app, but that will probably have one soon. The scalable properties of the Nook are the same as for Amazon and Aldiko, so Nook owners need have no fear of buying an Android tablet.

Other Operating Systems: HP’s WebOS and BlackBerry’s QNX

Kobo is the only eReader app available for the Palm/HP WebOS. The Palm Pre is shown on the far right in the picture below.

The Pre runs the Palm OS that HP now owns.  HP has enhanced the OS and blown it up for the larger tablet screens. It isn’t known how the older apps will scale to the new 10.1-inch dimensions of the HP Touch Pad’s. But I cannot imagine HP not taking care of this issue before releasing their new tablet, scheduled sometime in the summer of this year.

I feel confident that HP’s new WebOS will have a full complement of reader apps when the time comes for them to go on sale. HP has too much credibility in the industry not to be able to convince Amazon and others to build reader apps for its tablet and smartphones.

RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook has several options of bringing their existing eReaders to the new seven-inch platform. First, with their huge installed base of BlackBerry smartphones, no book seller is going to be caught without a new app ready for it the day it is introduced. (Rumor has it that April 10^th will be the day).

RIM has also said that the Playbook will be able to run legacy apps from its earlier OS days, so existing apps from Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, for example, would be able to run on the new OS. There is also the real possibility that the new OS of BlackBerry will be able to run Android apps. Company executives have dropped the hint that they are considering making it compatible with Android —their hardware inside the tablet is certainly capable of being programmed to do it, and I would not be surprised to see it happen.  (Update 4/23–the only eReading app ready on the day of its release was Kobo.  I noticed the Kobo icon on the home screen when I checked the Playbook out at my local Best Buy store.  Kobo will read ePub files, so early adopters of the Playbook will have plenty of reading material available from day one.  RH)

Windows Tablets

On the few tablets that run Windows, all of the major booksellers already have software for it.  If it runs on your PC, it will run on a tablet.

This is not true for Windows Phone 7, however.  The eReader apps will have to be re-written, but that is already underway. Kindle had their app pre-installed on Windows Phone 7 smartphones the day they were introduced. Also, there are no expectations that this new operating system will be ready for a tablet until sometime in 2012.

Whether they will be as easily scalable as Android, though, we cannot know for certain until Microsoft steps forward with more details.

Overall it looks good for those who enjoy reading on electronic devices. The options are growing daily, and many of the new tablets have features that exceed what we have come to expect from laptops and the iPad. With the syncing ability of the major vendors of electronic titles, it is easy to switch devices without losing your place and without having to buy new copies.

As more magazines and newspapers become available in an electronic format, we can expect more and more time spent reading our favorite material whenever and wherever we happen to be. This is the liberating power of the new technology.

The new Atrix smartphone from Motorola is an interesting concept in the cellphone/computer world. The Atrix, designed to run Android 3.0, is, to my knowledge, the first smartphone with the heart of a full-sized computer. Specifically, the Atrix has a speedy Tegra 2 1GHz dual core processor—a huge leap in processing power for a cell phone.

For a smartphone, this is overkill. But there is reason in Motorola’s madness.  They have a greater goal for their new system than merely illuminating a 4-inch screen and typing on a keyboard designed for the fingers of Japanese children. The Atrix has ambitions far above this lowly station in life.

They have in mind an optional accessory for the Atrix that provides an 11.6-inch screen illuminated with HD quality graphics, with full motion 720p movies and a full size keyboard. Not that the smartphone has these features, but it docks with an optional device that does. The “Lapdock,” as it is called, gives the user a package something that looks like an ultra-portable computer or a large netbook, although it is neither. However, it gives some of the functionality of these devices when the two are coupled. Note the picture below with the Atrix plugged into the docking port on the backside of the Lapdock.

The Lapdock is not a computer—it has no central processing unit, no storage memory, and almost no intelligence. All these things reside in the smartphone, which when docked, becomes available on the screen of the Lapdock. This is where the power of the Nvidia Tegra 2 comes in handy, because it furnishes the brains of the screen-keyboard combination.

The Lapdock is an extension of the Atrix, and nothing more. It can surf the web, it can retrieve files, do email, and take voice and written memos—all the things smartphones do. Its advantage is that you can do these things on a larger screen with a decent keyboard, and have a USB port for extra memory.

There is also an additional dock that allows the Atrix to be viewed on a full sized HD TV.  This, with the addition of a blue tooth keyboard and mouse, makes surfing look impressive.  I used it in the AT&T store where it was on display, and I was impressed at how well it works.

The price of the two units are $199.99 for the Atrix, with a two year contract with AT&T, and $299.99 for the Lapdock.  Data plans are also required to get these prices.

Nothing quite like it has been offered to the American cellphone public before, although in a sense it is a throwback to an earlier idea of a dumb terminal. There was a similar combination offered for the BlackBerry several years ago, but it didn’t go very far. Now Motorola is trying again.

I see this new wrinkle as Motorola’s answer to the tethering arrangement Research in Motion has between its 7-inch table, the PlayBook, and a BlackBerry smartphone. In this arrangement, the BlackBerry serves mostly as an antenna, while the Playbook does most of the computational chores with its own processor. There is some sharing of data between the two devices, however, so it isn’t that simple.

It will also be interesting to see if HP will sell a docking arrangement for their Palm smartphones.

There is another competing device, the Google Chrome 48, that is similar to the Lapdock. It, too, is a dumb terminal that has a small amount of intelligence and no storage. . The Chrome 48, however, relies on special apps on the internet to provide most of the computing power it needs. It also lacks the ability to run standard Microsoft word processing or number crunching software. Click here to read my original review of the Chrome 48.

Problems

The Tegra 2 is an ARM-based chip, so it is not capable of running Windows or iOS. Although the Atrix has a built-in Firefox browser, so the internet is open to surfing, it can’t read or write Microsoft Word or Excel documents, nor can it use any of the other many application programs most PC users depend on to get their work done. Motorola has tried to address this problem in a number of ways, but none of their solutions are, in my view, viable alternatives to having a full-fledged computer available.

One of the built-in applications is the remote control software from Citrix, where the activated screen can be used to view and operate your desktop from afar—if your corporate IT department permits such access through its network.

This software problem may eventually be solved if Microsoft writes versions of their legacy Office suite so that it will run on an ARM processor.  They have said that this will be done sometime in the future.  Also, there are Android apps that make it possible to edit Word documents, for example, and save them in a compatible format.  Dropbox and Sugarsync are well established at doing this.

This problem can also be solved by carrying a netbook, tablet or ultra-portable computer along with your smartphone.  And even though the Atrix/Lapdock combination is about the same size as an ultra –portable computer, it is no easier to carry than other, more capable devices.

Personally, I prefer local storage and native application capability of the full-featured laptops, but not everyone would agree with my take on this issue. Motorola seems to be banking on a large group of such users for its new system to be a success in the marketplace.

Video of the system in use:Click Here.

Hands on review by Engadget: Click Here

Netbook sales were robust in 2009, jumping eightfold in the United States, to 7.5 million devices.  Worldwide sales tripled to 34 million, but the rapid pace of growth stalled last year.

For example, according to the market research firm NPD, year-end retail sales of netbook computers in America fell 38 percent from a year earlier, .

The market research firm IDC predicts that worldwide sales will fall in 2011 by about 7 percent, but that would still be 32.9 million netbooks which would account for roughly 10 percent of the total PC market.

On the tablet side of the equation, there is an opposite story. The Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report shows the last year’s growth of worldwide tablet sales at nearly 200%. They expect 55.7 million tablets to be shipped in 2011, and total shipments of the mobile PC market (netbooks, laptops and tablets) are expected to reach 503.8 million units by 2014. Tablet PCs are expected to account for 35% of this share.

Netbooks continue to enjoy brisk sales in cost-conscious markets, including China and Latin America, and in sales to schools, which want an affordable way to equip students with computers.

But the limitations in the first generation of netbooks will continue being an impediment to increased sales. The first generation devices were under- powered for many tasks that PC owners demand. They were slow to boot, slow when forced into multitasking, had cramped keyboards and a 10.1 inch screen.

The new generation of netbooks is beginning to be sold. They feature multi-core processors with better battery life and much improved multi-tasking. Although the screen size is still small, and there have been big improvements in the keyboard, they are still somewhat cramped. The price, however, is still staying generally between $300 and $500;  this will keep the device in contention even with its limited functionality.

Such has been the fortune of netbooks. They got off to a fast start when first introduced, with growth in triple digits, but their growth rate began slowing even before the iPad came on the scene. The iPad turned a slowing growth rate into an absolute fall in total units sold, with growth now negative, as is shown in the chart above.

There is still a future for the netbook. Its low price, its low weight and long battery life make it more convenient to use than the heavier and bulkier laptops.  It also has an improved keyboard, is better at multi-tasking, and it has the huge advantage of being able to run a wealth of Windows software. These advantages still give it an edge on the tablet computers for specific uses.

Another area of competition is coming from the higher end of the laptop spectrum—the conventional laptops. These devices have more robust computing power, internal hard drives, and larger screen sizes. There is not much competition, though, with screens above 13 inches. The weight alone of a 14 through 17-inch screen makes them too heavy for comfortable portability, and their bulk is inconvenient when placed on a table.

The greater threat to the netbooks lies in the ultra-portable laptops. With screen sizes running from 11+  to 13.3 inches, their weight is generally  four pounds or less. Their processing power is much greater than the netbooks, with full storage spinning drives and even lighter weight and faster SSD drives becoming increasingly available. Prices are from $800 to $1000, but some go over $2000 with SSD built in.  This makes them too expensive for many netbook owners and will keep netbooks in the market.

From my experience with laptops, netbooks and tablets, my final mix will include only three computers: a desktop that will remain as my primary machine for heavy duty work and play; an ultraportable for mobile use when serious work needs to be done, and an iPad or some other tablet for supplemental and mobile use.

Stand-alone eReaders are also facing similar constraints in their market. Tablets, laptops, netbooks, and desktops all have eReading applications from the major suppliers.  A few, such as the Nook Color, have elements of use similar to both tablets and eReaders. A slew of new tablets coming to market this year, many with 7 inch screens, may provide another competitor for stand-alone eReaders. This part of the market is not showing signs of a major slow-down, however, so its fate is yet to be determined.