What Notebooks Are Entrepreneurs Carrying?-- A Surprise

Demo—the Unofficial Portable Brand Count

As an industry barometer, Demo is a great place to see a snapshot in portable computing brand trends. So what were attendees and Demonstrators carrying?

By and large the most common sight on th3 Demonstrator’s stage, tables in front of attendees and in the Pavilion were Lenovo and older IBM ThinkPads.

Nothing surprising there.

Surprisingly, the brand that may be on the rise is Apple’s MacBook Pro.  I counted 21 shiny titanium silver colored Apple portables. This is a new first at Demo. And over half of those had 17-inch screens. Sadly for Apple, none of the Macbook Pros were used on stage, or as part of Demonstrator Demos. I’ve been curious about the penetration of MacBook, every since I bought one late this summer but quickly became disappointed in its basic configuration (which lacks an integrated modem) and its limited WiFi range. Together those two features make MacBook a non-start in my line-up.

I recognize that I’m not your average potable computer user and integrated communications capabilities are much more important to me than “cool looking silver designs”

I had a brief discussion with Demo’s exec producer and my former boss, Chris Shipley, at my house a week ago. I asked her “how many Demo candidates had used Apple portables o show their products.” 

She said “none.” Her answer was what I had expected, since most of the products she’d evaluated for Demo had been produced before the show’s cut off deadline (which preceded widespread availability of Apple’s intel-based Mac portables

.

Chris asked me why I was disappointed in the MacBook Pro. I tolf her that I thought not including a modem in a $2,000+plus notebook was a stupid.

She said she “probably hadn’t used the modem on her notebook in “about two years.”

Well guess what, I now have the luxury of time to travel and to expand my personal interests. Virtually all of the places I now visit have phone lines, and a couple have strong WiFi connections. Apple’s decision to make me buy an optional $50 USB modem dongle is annoying and further proof that the company refuses to look beyond the narrow confines of

Silicon Valley

for real-world product configuration guidance in notebooks

.

Enough of that old rant. Three real surprises in my ad hoc notebook brand survey at Demo were the diminishing number of Dell branded products, the increasing number of Panasonic ToughBooks, and the presence of Lenovo ThinkPad X40 and X60s sub compacts with either EvDO PCMCIA cards or integrated EvDo modems (like on my X60s).

The reason I cling to my X60s like Moses holding on to his staff and waving the seas apart to let the Israelites fleeing Pharaoh and exfililtrate Egypt, Is simple: I rely on my notebook for communications, and I’ve not yeet been to any place where I couldn’t hit a WiFi spot, or catch a signal from Verizon’s EvDo network. And, if those two mechanism fail, I’ve always been able to find some kindly soul who would let me borrow a phone line to check in with my family, friends and associates.

So go ahead and ask what are the extremes I’ve tested EvDo? Well I’ve connected via EvDo from my boat, nine miles off

La Jolla

,

CA

, and eight miles into

California

’s Gold Country wilderness in the tiny berg of Rescue, CA. And, I’ve always been able to connect and I haven’t broken this itty bitty four pound notebook or made many typos because of my fat fingers pounding away on its small form factor keyboard.

What I really wanted to write about today was a picture of Demo as a snapshot of today’s portable computing installed base.  I’m happy to say that Apple is back, and that there’s real innovation in mobile computing. It's also a good sign that Toshiba was well resented, and not just limited to Microsoft employees attending the show (for whom this brand is a corporate tandard)

But hell, I have to shower and get dressed for my 40^th high school reunion. -- Jim Forbes from

Azusa

,

CA

on 10/01/2006.

here's the count:

Comments

[Leland]

Getting online via my cellphone doesn't burn up minutes at all, actually.

Although I will say that sending a fax from my iBook is easy since it's got a modem built-in. That's only happened twice in the seven years that I've owned a Mac laptop, though. thanks for reading and commenting--jim

[Mark Doherty]

I'd agree - to me - a modem is just so .... quaint. It's like missing a floppy drive (whatever that is).

I don't think I've used dial up for... 4 years? 5 years? I haven't even bothered to configure the modem in my last two laptops.

And we're not talking Silicon valley here: work has taken me to Greece, Croatia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Sweden and Norway in the last few months.
If modems are considered outdated in Addis Ababa, I think it's time to let them go.

until ubiquitous wireless connectivity arrives i stand by my criticism that a $2,200 notebook should have an integrated modem--which by the way represents only a $ adder to the cost of goods needed for assembly and would fit nicely in the MacbookPro's guts on the left rear side of its motherboard. I also travel a great deal, alas it's to places that don't have wifi but do have phone lines. I hink the MacbookPro is a nice design, easy to carry but suffers from an arrtogant design philosophy.
but thanks for taking the time to read my post, composing and leaving a comment. best wishes, jim Forbes

cheers, Mark