Laptops Desktops Monitors & LCDs Graphics Cards Handhelds Phones Software Networks Printers More »
search
advertisement
AnchorDesk

Lee Schlesinger
A quest for e-mail on the go: What works, what doesn't

Lee Schlesinger
Senior Technology Editor, ZDNet
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
TalkBack!Add your opinion
Even when I'm away on vacation, I like to keep in touch. I think anyone who's a vital cog in his organization (or who likes to think he is) learns quickly that important e-mail piles up quickly. I sometimes need a whole day after a week-long vacation just to sort through my e-mail backlog. So I recently tested several ways of extending my Net connection to my pocket.

All I wanted was some kind of data service that could run on a portable device. I wanted to be able to receive and respond to text e-mail messages--any other functions were gravy.

THE FIRST UNIT I tried was a basic Motorola PageWriter 2000 alphanumeric pager. I've been using this for years when I travel. It fits nicely in a pocket--which of course means it has a tiny keyboard and a minuscule screen. It also limits the length of the messages you can exchange. While this was a great unit circa 1997, I knew there had to be something better.

An evolutionary step up from the alphanumeric pager is RIM's BlackBerry 957 handheld, which receives e-mail forwarded from your desktop over a wireless network. I installed an agent application on my desktop machine and was able to get e-mail quickly and reliably.

Like most PDAs, the 957 provides basic calendar, contact, and to-do list applications. On the downside, responding to e-mail or entering any data is a bit tough. The BlackBerry's keyboard is about as tiny as the PageWriter's--tough to type on with your thumbs, and impossible to touch-type on. The 957 is lighter than the PageWriter, but longer and thinner, making it less well-suited for a hip pocket and better suited for a vest or shirt pocket.

MOVING FURTHER UP the food chain, I tested a Nextel i85 phone and service plan. Nextel offers a data service called Mobile Email, which is a private-branded version of ViAir's WirelessInbox service. To use it, you run software on your PC that, like BlackBerry's, examines your regular inbox and forwards the messages you choose to your phone. You can send back canned responses, or, using the phone's number pad, laboriously compose original replies.

Nextel also offers a range of wireless data services, providing things like headline news and stock quotes. The nice thing about the Nextel option was the ability to respond immediately to e-mails by voice. On the other hand, any kind of text response is excruciating, and the phone's tiny LCD screen--smaller even than the pager's--is not the best medium for communication.

Moving on to slightly bigger and better things, I tried out a Compaq iPaq 3835 handheld with an expansion sleeve, and a Sierra Wireless AirCard 300 wireless modem. The combination gave me wireless access to the Web, e-mail, and instant messaging.

Unfortunately, this wasn't an ideal combination, either. Connectivity was spotty--sometimes I couldn't get a connection to the AT&T Wireless CDPD network that provided the service. When I did connect, downloads went slowly, limited to approximately 12Kbps throughput at best.

The tiny size of the display window was also a big handicap, especially when viewing Web pages. And trying to compose a return message by tap-tap-tapping with a stylus on an image of a keyboard was only slightly easier than thumbing the BlackBerry's keyboard. Using a Stowaway keyboard probably would have been easier, but attaching a keyboard to a handheld and then having to find a flat place to compose is a bit of a chore.

I NEXT MOVED up the scale to a full-fledged portable PC, a Sony VAIO PictureBook PCG-C1VN. With a 600MHz Transmeta Crusoe CPU, it's not the fastest portable around, but it weighs less than 2.5 pounds and takes up only about as much space as a hardback book. The screen supports resolutions of up to 1,024x480 pixels, which means it's about as wide but only half as high as a typical display. I found that less annoying than the half-as-high, half-as-wide screen of the iPaq. Like most laptops, the PictureBook sports an attached keyboard, and offers the same range of applications I normally use on my desktop.

However, I soon discovered that compared with a handheld, a notebook PC is a pain to carry around. And I still had connectivity difficulties. I could use the AirCard in the notebook, but its throughput was very slow. I tried packing 802.11b wireless adapters, and they worked great, but wireless access points are few and far between.

Bottom line: I had some fun trying out these gizmos, but didn't find in any of them an ideal solution for keeping up with my e-mail while I'm out of the office.

Have any solutions for checking e-mail while you're on the go? Which are your favorite devices? Why do you like them? TalkBack to me!

Previous Story  Next Story 

Special sponsor stores

Virtualization

advertisement
Click Here