Ditching the laptop?

September 28, 2005 6:51 PM

Small, inexpensive 802.11 devices?

I've recently moved from an environment in which I drove everywhere to one in which I walk (or ride the bus) everywhere. In my past life I grew accustomed to having my 12" iBook on hand, but I've started to really feel weighed down by it.

What I'm looking for is a small, lightweight, affordable device that supports 802.11. Primary uses would be e-mail, simple web browsing and reading PDFs. Must fit comfortably in a backpack.

I don't care about games or organizer functions. I'm not particularly wedded to the PDA form factor, although they seem like a nice balance between cost and size. I like the design of the Treo, but I'd rather not have to pay for data service from Verizon, and pretty much anywhere I go these days has wifi.

posted by shaun to technology (7 comments total)

Here are two of my favorites. Both devices have built-in 802.11 and support for web browsing, e-mail, and PDFs:

The Nokia 770 has an 800x480 touch screen and very limited storage (no hard drive); it is designed mainly for web browsing. It's apparently coming out next month. It runs an open-source Linux-based platform. The press has reported that the price will be about US$350.

Or for around US$500 you can get a Palm Lifedrive, which has a smaller screen (320x480) but has a hard drive so you can use it to store lots of pictures or MP3s or videos or whatnot.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:16 PM on September 28, 2005

There's at least two different 802.11 solutions for the treo 650. As much as I love mine...I wouldn't want to do much email/writing on it. Unless I got a bluetooth keyboard...and at that point, it becomes as much luggage as a 12". There are some ultra small laptops.

http://store.palm.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1853744

http://store.treocentral.com/content/accessories/59-60--400.htm

I've found a trove of ebooks (somehow scanned in by more nefarious people) as well as a pdf reader
posted by filmgeek at 9:18 PM on September 28, 2005

I picked up a Zaurus SL-5500 a few weeks ago, for similar reasons--I wanted to be able to read web pages while riding the bus, without carrying around a laptop. It's a handheld Linux PDA with a 240x320 screen and a pull-out QWERTY keyboard. I've got an add-on 802.11b CF card, so I can connect to my wireless network at home or an open wireless access point.

Strengths: Linux, easy to add or upgrade software, large user community, cheap (refurbished units readily available for $150 or less on eBay), QWERTY keyboard, excellent screen. Very small and lightweight; when I'm riding the bus, I usually carry it in my pocket.

Weaknesses: battery life (2 hours, less with 802.11 active). 802.11 not built in: it took me several days to get the device driver for my CF card running, and I don't leave the CF card in while I'm carrying the Zaurus in my pocket (to avoid damaging the card). The CF card itself was $25 on eBay.

That said, I find the Zaurus works pretty well for reading web pages on the bus. (I mostly use it to download and read articles from the New York Review of Books.) I'm running wwwoffle, a web proxy server that caches web pages while you're online, then serves them to your web browser while you're offline. I've upgraded the Opera Palmtop browser to 7.55; it does a good job of laying out web pages for a small screen. Once I've got a web page open, I can scroll up and down without using the stylus, so I can read one-handed while I'm standing up.

It comes with an e-mail client, which I haven't tried. There's a PDF viewer available, but I didn't find it very usable for the handful of documents that I tried.
posted by russilwvong at 10:19 PM on September 28, 2005

I'm also salivating over the Nokia 770. It looks like it will fulfill the promise of the Newton, 10 years later. It looks to be totally awesome, and not vaporware. We can hope, can't we?

Check this out. It's not exactly what your'e looking for, but very cool. I'm building one myself -- I got all the parts -- just have to build an operating system for it. It won't be powerful by any stretch, but all I need to run on it is ssh.
posted by blasdelf at 11:08 PM on September 28, 2005

I second the Treo 650. I've had mine about a month now and really dig it. Loads of typing wouldn't be great, but it does allow me to leave the iBook at home a lot now.
posted by jdl at 6:10 AM on September 29, 2005

I have a Treo and a Nokia 9500. They are totally different machines. The Treo is an excellent phone which, in my opinion, happens to have email and web support. It isn't ideal for reading / writing for long periods of time but is a great all-in-one device if you're looking to ditch your cellphone. Getting 802.11 working on it is an expensive pain in the arse.

The Nokia 9500 is an entirely different type of device: it's too big to be useful as an everyday phone but as a laptop replacement, nothing else comes close. It has built-in 802.11 and you can get a hotspot finder that sounds an alarm whenever it finds an open network. You've also got GPRS as a backup for when you're out of WiFi range. The screen is 640x200 - perfect aspect ratio for ebooks, web pages etc. And the keyboard is fantastic - I've used it for hours at a time on flights to write complete reports, proposals etc.

The other thing I love about the 9500 is the fact that it just works out-of-the-box - all apps that you need are included (Opera, email, pdf reader) and are of good quality. Compare to the Treo, where I had to spend an additional £70 on software just to get it to do what I wanted.

The Nokia 770 does indeed look sweet - we've been told we'll be getting one next month for, cough, 'development' purposes - so will keep you posted. Doesn't have a keyboard though and stylus input is a tiring and frustrating alternative. Looks ideal for reading, not so hot for composing.
posted by blag at 7:34 AM on September 29, 2005

The Nokia 9500 looks very cool. Available for about $700 on eBay.
posted by russilwvong at 1:33 PM on September 29, 2005