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Netbooks vs. Smartphones: Making business mobile

What we traditionally think of as a smartphone is changing, as data is overtaking voice in terms of use. However, netbooks are beginning to become more and more pocketable – but which is better for someone who wants an office on the move?

By Clare Hopping, 28 Nov 2008 at 17:33

As mobile manufacturers start to develop their products to encapsulate the whole business on the move ideology, it comes as no surprise that both Samsung and LG have jumped onto the netbook bandwagon to keep up with demand for more flexible ways of working.

Netbooks have been around longer than smartphones, but it’s smartphones that have accelerated in development.

A decade ago, the suggestion of a mobile phone with the capabilities of a netbook would seem impossible. Mobile phones barely included WAP, let alone had the ability to view full web pages on a 2-inch screen.

The PDA gets a makeover

As PDAs and mobiles phones merged to produce smartphones, demands to keep track of business applications became paramount and the PDA’s glory era faded away. Stable platforms such as Symbian, BlackBerry and Palm were developed to capture the working environment on a handheld device.

But PDA functionality was also injected into something a little larger; the netbook.

The first netbook was introduced to the market in 1997. The HP OmniBook 800CT ran on Windows 95 and featured a 1.3GB hard drive. It was a little beefier than the ultra-light netbooks we know of today, but with a 10.5-inch screen (albeit active-matrix rather than the 10-inch led backlight 1024x600 pixel screen of the MSI Wind released earlier this year), the OmniBook could certainly be regarded as a netbook.

New contenders for the PDA throne

But it’s the evolution of smartphones and netbooks that have resulted in people scratching their heads about which is the best mobile business device.

“It's really about portability and connectivity,” says Bjarte Vosseteig, director of products at Opera Software.

“Netbooks have the obvious advantage of bigger screens, better keyboards and better hardware performance. However, the smartphone has other advantages, such as better portability, a longer battery life and better connectivity.”

Smartphones may be a better option if you’re hopping on a plane and don’t fancy checking in an extra bag, but the size comes with a price. To make something fit in a pocket, the screen size is going to be the biggest hit. Although many handsets come with a large, high-resolution screen, in mobile terms, even a 3.2-inch QVGA display won’t do the same job as you’d find on the smallest netbook. Mobile phones - even high-end devices aimed solely at working on the move such as the somewhat old school Nokia E90 with a 800x352 pixel, 4-inch wide screen - won’t show a whole web page in its full glory.

“Whether smartphones or netbooks are better for mobile working, it all comes down to use cases,’ added Vosseteig.

“We know several companies are using Opera Mobile for their sales force, field employees, in store employees and more. With the power of the full web available today, and with business apps like salesforce and web front-ends for ERP, CRM and other business critical systems, a mobile phone with a full web browser like Opera is very flexible.”

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opened sourced - netbook v.smartphone

I am not sure what market netbooks are aimed at. I do not feel that the benefits of an 800x480 or 1024x600 screen over a smart phone for ad hoc web browsing on the move offer the \"killer\" application. The Linux supplied software does not offer the level of features that Office 2007 does - if indeed that is what is required for compatiblity. Not all netbooks/internet tablets will run Open Office and full compatibly with all M$ Office files is not assured. Linux is open source and there are far more applications under Linux than Symbian or Windows Mobile. Also most of these are free of licence costs and can be downloaded and installed for free. The Nokia N800 has a fairly good media player with OS2008 but in seconds you can download for free several that match anything I have seen and used on a desktop in the PC/Vista world. But, do I really want to spend the time to convert 720p Freeview recordings to 320x240 and wait for the slow USB transfer just to watch on a tiny screen? Smart phones (like the Nokia N95/N96) do not have the screen size, storage capacity or processing power to play back a DVD. The Nokia N800 is slighly better in having a larger screen, but the Atom 1.6GHz is up to the job and netbooks with 1024x600 and larger screens are better than Smartphones. Linux has a large choice of some very good software, much of which is free, but you may have to change the supplied Linux installation to something else. e.g. to run open office on the Nokia N800 you need to install Unbuntu as it has not been ported to OS2008 and Abiword is still not useable on this platform but is very good on some Netbooks. There are also a large number of games, but no game on a portable can match a 6GHz gaming machine and a 24\"-30\" screen. The netbooks could fit very well into school and college. Many classical texts are available in text or html, other material on the Internet - all for free. There are good dictionaries and encyopedias that run under Linux or XP - all free. With an appropitate set of resouces on the school\'s or college\'s intranet course material and assignments could be picked up and essays and work mailed to the teacher/tutor. The Nokia N800 will run over 7 hours and it is easy enough to carry a spare battery. A small (under 1.2Kg) laptop rarely matches this and costs very much more than a netbook at £300 when they do. Netbooks open up a newer way of learning and teaching and make it affordable for the majority, even in regions of the world where incomes are not as high as in the wealthier countries.

By limyau on Tuesday Dec 2