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Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

Summary: With the young society so dependent on their smartphones, I question how much one can do on a smartphone by pushing it to the limits. Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

Zack Whittaker

By for iGeneration |

Do you realise how much time you spend on your smartphone each day? If you totalled it up, don't be surprised if you spend a good hour outside of phone calls glued to your handset, either texting, emailing, or browsing the web and more.

Seeing as the Generation Y are so fixed to their smartphones, whether it be an iPhone, a BlackBerry or dare I say it, a Windows Phone 7 device, I thought it'd be an interesting test to see how useful they really are for everyday tasks.

This isn't the first time I've done a live blog covering some seemingly pointless task for 48 hours. Living entirely in the cloud wasn't such a difficult thing to do in hindsight, whereas going fully open-source for the same timeframe was challenging, but was massively helped by your community spirit.

However this time I am walking away from my desktop PC and leaving my laptop in the office, as I embark upon a full two-day stretch of using nothing but my BlackBerry. (I would have used an iPhone for the second day, but wasn't able to land myself one, so my boring phone will have to do.)

The rules are simple. Starting Wednesday 1st December at 8am (check here for other timezones), I am not allowed to use any device other than a cell-enabled smartphone for 48 hours. Literally everything I would normally do on a computer must be done on the smartphone: through the web browser, downloadable applications or through good luck or sheer wishful thinking.

The only exception is that maybe a few times during the day, I'll be using the web CoverItLive interface on my desktop PC to simply run through comments, as the mobile interface limits what I can see of you, the viewer. Any live blog update made must be done on the smartphone still. By all means leave comments here, or in the live blog interface below. 

Topics: Browser, Mobility

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  • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

    Better challenge, turn your mobile phone and PC off for 48 hours :p The only difficulty I'd really see with your challenge is that you being the student and if you had some papers to write, well that might get a little difficult from the phone.
    Loverock Davidson
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @Loverock Davidson It'd be a tad hard to cover though, being without anything, at all.
      zwhittaker
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

        @zwhittaker
        Just kidding with you dude since people are dependent on PCs and phones now.
        Loverock Davidson
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @Loverock Davidson Yes, it would be difficult as a student, however, typewriters and word processsors still exist to get those papers done.
      gouletdrg
      Reply Vote

      • more to the point

        @gouletdrg
        if a bluetooth or USB connect to the smartphone exists, one can use an external keyboard with it in most cases. In which case, the problems become screen size and putting the smartphone in a position where the screen is visible while one is typing.

        Given the space and weight external keyboard adds, I'll be using a netbook for mobile productivity into the foreseeable future.
        A.Lizard
        Reply Vote

  • Fail from the beginning.

    The fact that you have to use a PC to check comments already demonstrates you can't go 48 hours on a smart phone only. So, you already have your answer. Now what was the point of your exercise again?
    frgough
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @frgough I haven't started it yet. And regardless, I can still check these comments (and respond to them) whilst using my phone's browser. I'll prove it tomorrow [b]when it actually begins[/b].
      zwhittaker
      Reply Vote

      • From your article:

        "The only exception is that maybe a few times during the day, I?ll be using the web CoverItLive interface on my desktop PC to simply run through comments, as the mobile interface limits what I can see of you, the viewer."

        Translation: I'll go fully mobile for 48 hours. Except that I really won't. But I'll pretend I will.
        frgough
        Reply Vote

  • There is "can" and there is "should"

    Can you go 1 week without food? Sure. It would suck though.

    While my iPhone has certainly displaced some of what I used to do on a desktop, there are plenty of things that would take me [b]far[/b] longer to accomplish on my iPhone than it would for me to go to my computer, wake it, and perform the task there.
    NonZealot
    Reply Vote

  • Go 48 hours mobile with a 3G ipad

    There's your challenge. I pretty much did it for a week in the Caribbean earlier this month.
    cyberslammer2
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @cyberslammer2 I wouldn't last more than 10 minutes.
      zwhittaker
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

        @zwhittaker Why is that? I did fine on my iPad....is it the flash thing?
        cyberslammer2
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

        @cyberslammer2
        Nah... but it might be the:
        no keyboard thing
        slowness thing
        tired elbow thing
        no-multitasking thing

        Keep comparing your toy to a REAL computer all you want. It won't change reality in the least.
        12312332123
        Reply Vote

      • "I did fine on my iPad"...

        @cyberslammer

        Well, there you have it. That should be an indication to you.

        Unlike people who tout all the 'certifications, degrees' they have in IT (erm, if they [i]really[/i] have them at all), people like Zack actually produce. These people are able to discern toys from tools. Of course, we are talking workload here, so I'm betting yours can probably be handled with a device like the iPad.
        SonofaSailor
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

    I don't think a phone would do it but an iPad with a keyboard docking station you could make it though a school year and the ipad would have paid for itself in the first year (of college) by using the app that you pay for a digital copy of the book in a lease type agreement. My room mate almost paid $400 for 2 books this current fall semester and ended up spending less than $150 for the textbook app books instead.
    ChristineK0313
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @ChristineK0313

      Whoa, ChristineK0313! You're in college, and writing run-on sentences like those?
      CaptOska
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

    But an iPad doesn't have a phone function, plus I wouldn't call it a mobile device per se, especially if you throw in the plug-in keyboard while you're at it. It's just a handful.
    zwhittaker
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @zwhittaker Is this really a phone challange? You are not making calls from your laptop (exlcuding skype). What are really leaving behind is your laptop/desktop, not your landline phone. A phone does not begin to subsitute for a laptop, when writing a paper, or working on a spreadsheet. I agree with Christine, the ipad could easily replace a laptop for 48 hours for most users. I understand that the ipad cannot replace a laptop for alot of tasks, but it can do alot. With logmein, or the like, you can access your laptop remotely. While you can do this from a smartphone as well, the difference is that on a ipad the app is usable.
      I just got back from a 5 day Turkey Day vacation. I brought my laptop with me, but I never touched it. I used my ipad the entire time. While I could have accomplished everything with my smartphone, it would have been hell with the tiny screen, and keyboard. With the ipad I did not loose any productivity, and thankfully I did not have to touch any office work, and was able to just do my own stuff.
      jhuddle
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

      @zwhittaker iPad does have phone function...have you used Skype for it yet?
      cyberslammer2
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Live blog: Can a student go fully mobile for 48 hours?

    @Zack Whittaker ,A few months ago i was waiting on my new computer , and while i was waiting , i only had a smart device to use. Making the best of it i could stream netflix ,google an my usual activity read the news an so on . But the problems came when i wanted to comment at forums , where my thumb couldn't type as much as i had wanted to say. My personal experience was the smaller the screen , the more life on the net sucked. Good luck !
    cybursoft
    Reply Vote
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