[Bob Russell]

Have you ever counted the problems and wasted time dealing with bleeding edge mobile devices? UMPCs, PDAs, smart phones, tablet PCs, Vista PCs. How much time do they waste and how many headaches do they cause? Unless a device needs to be reloaded, it's usually just small things once you get started, but they can really nickle and dime you to death.

How many "workarounds" do you have to figure out? How many software or hardware failures have ruined your day or caused you extra work? How much time do you invest because things aren't simple and easy? How often do you sit there waiting for something to finish instead of doing real work? Personally, I'm beginning to long for a simpler and kinder sort of technology.

Let me give you a couple of quick examples that only touch the surface:

Tablet PC

I could have bought a standard XP laptop like I use for work. That's a solid laptop, and except for all the overhead that goes with security and workplace software for a computer, it's reliable and nice to use. But instead I bought the new Lenovo tablet with Vista with all kinds of dreams about mobile computing in conjunction with my desktop.

On the surface, it's a wonderful hardware device, a powerful laptop, a great companion to my desktop PC, and I love the tablet functionality.

But it has it's issues when you want to be mobile. It's too bulky and expensive to just grab it when I am on the go. I don't know that I really want to take all my important files on the go anyway, due to the potential for data loss. Backups are a pain. I have to be careful what I put on it if I'm going to be mobile and don't trust Vista's total encryption solutions. It takes too long to undock it or start up or enter sleep/hibernate. Updates and access control windows keep popping up, and delaying me just at the time I turned it on because I wanted to get something done.

Battery life is good when I'm careful with it and the battery is new and charged, but even 4-5 hrs means I need an A/C cord which is a pain to carry around, or I need an extended battery for the docking station. The docking station undocking procedure is time consuming and annoying. It doesn't always deal well with screen orientation and settings or KVM switches. Vista and software updates or background processes interrupt me and waste battery. Plus you have to be there during updates to keep hitting "Okay". And, of course, there are some application incompatibilities with Vista as well.

My dream of making it a paper organizer and paper file replacement and ebook device is clearly not practical for me when I consider all the ramifications. Could it be done? Yep... if I were still in high school and could revolve my life around making it work. But is it worth the headaches for my busy life now? No way!

Was the ThinkPad was a bad choice? No. It's a great computer. But trying to work it as a true mobile device in conjunction with my desktop was too much to aim for. Instead it's probably going to become my primary computing device as soon as I can wean myself off of the desktop PC. (And that transfer in itself is going to be a project.) Of course, I chose a lower screen resolution in order to get dual Wacam and touch screen capability, so now I'm also stuck with an underpowered and low resolution display for everyday computing.

Bottom line... nothing I've mentioned is really a show stopper. But all together, these things make me wonder if it's worth the trouble. And lest you think it would work fine if I made the right decisions about how to use it, remember that most users have no clue how best to use a mobile device. We all have to learn by trial and error what process and usage patterns work best, and what sort of system backups, maintenance and security issues each of us cares about.

Smartphone

With smart phones it's even worse because you are dealing with very limited devices to start with. Playing media (audio, audiobooks, video, movies, etc) comes with all kinds of format and media management challenges already. You need to get just the right peripherals. Whether it's BT headphones or earpieces or wired accessories, or simply choosing the right carrier and plan for phone and data services, it's a chore. Then you have to find and load and configure the right apps and keep track of registrations. You find that it takes too long to turn on the phone or connect to the internet or switch applications. You have to take care of security and backups. Even when you're on the internet, you need to figure out which sites are actually useful and not just frustrating or slow. And you have to deal with crashes or application software peculiarities. Like when I switch to another call, now I have the option to switch back or hang up on all calls. All I want to do is hang up on the current call. Do I hit the hang up button, or will I lose everyone. That happened to me the other day and I had to just say, "Let me hang up and call you back!"

Not to mention hardware problems. My Treo 700p has had an interesting history. Besides returning the first one after a day because of a bad keyboard, I had to recently replace it because of a digitizer problem and audio problems. Found out later after some research that it's an issue with the impedence of the headphones that can cause you to hear audio in only one ear. I shouldn't have to research to find out something that simple. I shouldn't have to buy Palm headphones to be able to hear stereo sound.

So now my replacement Treo 700p is eating my expensive SD cards. Guess what? It's been about 60 days so my last replacement device from the extended warranty is no longer covered, and it takes another warranty replacement if I can't get it serviced at a Sprint service center. That also means that my extended warranty no longer covers another incident for probably another year so it's worthless. I don't mean to pick on the Treo - while I'm fed up with this one, Treos are pretty nice. The ones I've had are still slow and limited, but they are about the best we can do these days with the current technology.

My point is that I (and probably most of our readers) could likely write 100 pages about things that are a hassle or are time consuming or that require some effort to figure out. Take listening to music wirelessly from a Treo. Did you know it takes a program to provide the protocol for that and some stereo bluetooth headphones? Or you could plug in a transmitter into the plug to use with it if you don't mind another piece of equipment to deal with and keep charged. Suppose you want to listen to audiobook rentals from your library. You have to get set up on line with the library. For me that meant getting another library card and talking with the library to get the info. Then confirming the formats work. Finding the autiobooks on line. Configuring WMP and getting the device to show up properly with WMP. (Btw you probably also need the very cool Pocket Tunes Deluxe to even be able to do this at all.) Downloading them to the device which takes longer than you would expect. Etc etc.

No wonder consumers are looking for "consumer" devices that are advertised to be simple like the iPhone. It's also a huge advantage for the Sony Reader with the Connect e-book store. A simple solution that requires minimal effort to use it. I'm convinced that everyone wants the same basic sorts of things to one degree or another, but people just don't know it yet and technology can't quite support it very well yet. They are scared off by difficulty and uncertainty. They just want something that works and doesn't take a lot of effort and time. Even if it's just a clever ad that makes it look smooth and simple. I used to consider that such a shame. Now I'm one of "them", looking for something easy and simple!

MP3 Players

Even my Zune mp3 player drives me nuts because things are not as simple as they should be, and I could make a career out of getting the most from the limited 30gig space. So I basically just settle for what I loaded in mass the first time around. I could use a workaround to put DivX files on it, but it's not worth the effort. I could hack the registry a bit to make the device show up as a mass storage device, but it's not worth it either.

No wonder Blackberries are becoming so popular despite limited functionality. People like the way that they just work.

Wrap Up

Anybody else out there starting to weary of chasing technology which is not quite ready yet? Are you ready to choose less sophisticated product types or settle for more basic types of usage patterns in order to get some peace of mind and relief for the wallet? Or have you just got the mobile technology bug, and love to stretch the bleeding edge to support your favorite capabilities no matter the cost in time and money?

Maybe it's a sign that I'm an old "fuddy duddy", but right now, I'm becoming convinced that reliable and easy is better than time consuming and problem plagued. Even if it means I have to do less with my devices. Well, that's how I feel today, until I get my next great idea about what I could do with a handheld if only I had the new model which comes out next month...