The evolution of Portable Computers
In a bid to make computing more portable, many variations of computing devices between cellphones and laptops were born. UMPCs, MIDs, netbooks, smartbooks, tablets etc. sprung up over a period of time, but only a few were bound to survive. I feel the only contenders to last in the future will be netbooks and all-touch tablets like the iPad.
a) Netbooks and Smartbooks: When netbooks arrived in the market, they were generally criticized for their low processing power. But what people don't understand is that such devices aren't meant for power. They are supposed to be small and light, cheap, have long battery life and be just about powerful to do non-resource intensive work like, using office productivity apps, browsing the net, playing media etc.
This is why you see newer Intel Atom processors don't bring in a good performance improvement, but rather focus on lower power consumption. A device looking similar to netbooks will also present itself as a viable alternative -- the Smartbook. It's basically a netbook-sized device with an ARM processor; the same kind of processor powering smart-phones of today (unlike the x86-based processors used in netbooks). Thus, smart-books will run OSes like Google Android instead of Microsoft Windows. So, how are Smartbooks better? Since ARM is better optimized for low power consumption, Smartbooks will generally run longer than netbooks.
Now, traditional minded people will choose netbooks over these simply because they will have the freedom to run Windows-based applications that they are used to. But in the modern world, that's hardly going to matter since most of the applications will move to the web. I did some introspection only to find that most of the work I do on my netbook is on the internet. Be it writing this article, making spreadsheets, chatting, viewing photos etc. So at least to a majority of the modern world, the OS won't matter.
b) The dreaded Tablet: Sometimes I feel Apple is like King Midas, whatever it touches has a good possibility of turning to gold. I am still with the skeptics over the success of their iPad tablet. But as much as I hate to admit it, it could possibly be the most popular device in this "between a cell-phone and laptop" category.
The guys who created the Tablet PC concept must have probably thought it would be used in the field of design and art. But who knew Apple could totally turn it around and make a device for the average Joe from it. Although we can be sure that text entry isn't going to be one of its finest assets, the tablet will be pitted as an information consumption device. It would be a device that people would use to read their e-newspapers and e-books, browse the internet, enjoy audio/video comfortably while in bed or at a coffee table. And with the extensive support for apps, hordes of other things could be done.
All that is OK, but here's where the whole Netbook vs. Tablet debate comes in. We can 'consume' the same information even on a netbook, and plus we can type way faster, then why do we need an all-touch device? Tablets may be a fancy way to browse through photos, read books or play an accelerometer-employing game. But I just don't see the point to add one more type of computing device to my already handful collection.
c) The demise of the optical drive: This is one thing I certainly see being removed from a majority of laptops in the future. People are slowly using less and less of CDs or DVDs to carry data around. They rather prefer flash-based mediums like a pen drive or a portable hard drive. It is advantageous since you can use the medium over and over again, unlike regular writable CDs/DVDs that can't be reused. Second, transferring files over such devices is faster than burning a disc. Lastly, its less messier than stacking cases over cases of DVDs, since that same data can be stored in a portable drive the size of your palm. Don't believe me? If I asked to you move data from one computer to another, what would you do -- Burn a DVD? or use a flash drive?
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