Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > June > 29 > Entry
Weekend minus a laptop: not so bad, actually
Over the weekend, I was out in San Antonio for most of Saturday and on Sunday, I had some family visiting.
But even if it had been a normal weekend with the usual mix of errand-running and advanced loafing, I think this still might have happened: I found myself hardly using my laptop at all.
It used to be that the mobile computer was such a fixture on my lap that you would have thought it had merged with my legs somehow, like the shut-ins who have to be pried surgically from their couches. But over the last six months I’ve noticed myself reaching for my iPhone more and more when I have to look up something on the Web, send an e-mail or, sometimes, even view an online video (as long as it’s not Flash-based, of course).
I’ve been without my laptop before, of course — when I’ve had to send it in for repairs, I’d find myself scrambling to power up my desktop computer, which sits upstairs, out of reach in most situations.
Last week, I got an iPhone 3G S, upgrading from my first-generation iPhone. It turns out it was quite an upgrade. The 3G network is much better now than it was when I first tested out an iPhone 3G last year — it’s more reliable, seems speedier and has a wider area of coverage based on what I can tell so far.
When we were out shopping, it was never a big deal to whip out my phone and do a quick Twitter check or check e-mail with 3G.
In my house, I use the phone in Wi-Fi mode; that’s where I noticed that the speed boost on the 3G S makes Web pages load quite a bit faster and reduces a lot of the lag time on opening apps, switching from Twitter apps to e-mail or photo pages and other things that I never even noticed were slow before.
It always used to be that it was just quicker and more efficient to do things on the laptop that the phone couldn’t keep up with. Those kinds of tasks (watching a DVD of “The Wire” or doing intensive editing of audio, for instance) are becoming fewer and fewer as the phone I use seems to get faster and smarter.
Back in the late ’90s tech analysts used to tell me that at some point in the future phones were going to overtake computers as our most-used, handiest digital device. I thought that was pretty crazy.
That day is almost here.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment Categories: Computers, Internet, Phones
Comments
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By cheap computers
September 29, 2009 6:23 AM | Link to this
It always used to be that it was just quicker and more efficient to do things on the laptop that the phone couldn�t keep up with.
By Vinnie
July 2, 2009 11:51 AM | Link to this
Great observation, Omar. My wife & I recently came to a similar perspective recently when talking about how nice it will be when traveling (on short trips) without laptops now that we have the 3GS. It is a sweet & sleek piece of electronic savvy that can be pumped full of cool apps via the ridiculously large selection available at the App Store. We are, happily, two more converts to the iphone masses.
By valerie
June 30, 2009 2:09 PM | Link to this
I completely agree with you - before I had the iPhone, I'd be on my laptop all the time in the evening and over the weekend (even doing mostly non-work related stuff). Now, I rarely take it out of its bag outside of work, and it's awesome. I may lose 10 minutes of my life to pointless twitter and facebook checking here and there, but it's better than pulling out the laptop and getting sucked in for hours at a time.
By Jodi
June 30, 2009 1:38 PM | Link to this
I'm so into my iPhone 3GS it is ridiculous. It's out of the stratosphere in terms of trying to even compare it to my ole Blackberry.