First up, the iPad with me runs iOS 4.3.3, which is the latest version available right now, though iOS 5 is on the way and looks to transform the device. This iPad has 64GB memory built in, which is smaller than the 160GB hard disk of my netbook.

Pros
The iPad is lighter and more portable than my Acer AspirePrime netbook. It also gives waaaaay better battery life, which is an immediate plus in my books. My Acer is out of battery max in 3 hours, while the iPad sees me through a full work day and is still not dead by 10pm.

The iPad is always on, always connected, polling my email, running Yahoo Messenger and running other services as well. The slim profile makes for extra portability and I am able to carry the iPad along to settings that a netbook would have been clumsy to take to.

Before this time, I used to swear by 7-inch tablets, but The 10.1-inch display of the iPad has made me a convert. Having a display that large makes a huge difference in typing out documents, browsing web pages, managing emails and other tasks. From now on, it’s 10.1″ (or thereabouts) all the way for me when it comes to tablets.

Typing on the iPad’s onscreen keyboard is excellent. Superb, really. The display and keys are large enough to type as I would on a proper PC keyboard. I just hammer away! it really feels good typing long documents on this tablet.

Web browsing is great, but avoid Flash-based sites. They just don’t load at all. Music playback quality is great (stunning actually), though I would have loved if the speaker was louder.

Cons
Where the iPad frustrates is with Apple’s gadzooks approach to everything.

Want to send an email attachment? You have to open the app for that file, select the file and send from there. Want to send multiple attachments in one mail? Be my guest.

Want to copy non-media files from PC to the tablet? Look for workarounds or forget it.

You can’t send or receive files by Bluetooth to/from other non-iOS devices.

The iPad does not support a range of video types, and iTunes won’t sync those at all. You have to convert first on PC to get iTunes to copy them over for playback on the iPad. I haven’t had to do that in years, so I just haven’t bothered. I’ve got the video end covered by my Nokia E7.

Open or Closed
The iPad is a mixture of great and terrible. It is a stunning device that limits you in many ways. While there are tons of apps to make up in part for some of those limitations, finding them in the AppStore did not prove easy.

For example, in searching for a Documents Editor, I had to use a wide range of search phrases, each turning out a different set of documents editors that are not thrown up at all when I use other search phrases. Crazy. Tedious. I spent hours finding certain apps. Hopefully, the search performance will be improved some more over time.

If Apple would open up iOS some more, nothing would hold a candle to the iPad, and it would wipe out the competition. But as it is, many people who don’t want to look for workarounds and hacks to maximise their tablets are forced to look elsewhere.

There will always be those who are satisfied with what it offers, as well as those who cannot live with its lockdowns. Its the way the world rolls.

Conclusions
Has the iPad been able to replace my netbook? Not entirely. Some tasks are still easier to carry out on my Acer than on the iPad. For, example, complex formatting of WordPress articles, and medium to advanced graphics editing.

Still, it has done a fairly good job of replacing my netbook for my most common tasks.

My first outing with the N900 was back in April 2010. Between the first and second comings of the N900 have been six (6) phones, namely: HTC Touch Pro2 (July 2010), Nokia E5 (August 2010), Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro (September 2010), Apple iPhone 3GS (November 2010), Palm Pre (November 2010), and Nokia N8 (November 2010). I still have the N8 and I am devoting it to a totally different purpose in the fields that it shines (stay tuned for more on these pages).

The N900 is an exciting, compelling and extremely powerful device. The battery life was its weakest spot on my sheet. Still, I had been pinning to have one back in my hands for a while. Then I got an opportunity to own one again and took it. The first thing I did was update the firmware to version 20.2010.36-2.002 a.k.a. PR 1.3.

I had a hectic day yesterday – I spent all morning out of the office with the N900 on me as my only phone and mobile office.

I had charged it fully and unplugged it at about 10.00 p.m. the previous night. All through the night, it ran an email sync cycle of 30 minutes. It was also configured to sync my contacts and calendar entries every 4 hours from 6am to 6pm daily.

So, how did the N900 hold up?

Sweet Desktop-like Functionality and Ease of Use

First stop was the banking hall to carry out some transactions. Standing on the queue (yes; its no news that long queues are back in our banking halls), I was attending to mails. One of those mails required me to provide a link to a URL in my response. It was here that I remembered how much better as a computing device the N900 is compared to anything else I have used recently.

I launched the browser, typed out the homepage of the site I needed. Once that loaded, I simply tapped and held the desired link on the page. A drop-down menu popped up and I selected the option to “Copy Link Address”.

Back to the email client where I was typing my response, tapped the point where I wanted the link inserted, and hit Ctrl + V on the keyboard. There it was. Click Send. Done. And all with a full view of the display. No onscreen keyboard to hide anything from view and limit viewing. The N900 just romps over the competition with this. Note that scenarios like this are commonplace in my line of work.

I had also missed that keyboard and the many shortcuts that make so many tasks a breeze to carry out on this Maemo 5 device.

Battery Life

Remember that I took it off the mains the previous night. Leaving home, I had an active Bluetooth connection with a Bluetooth headset, since I was driving. There was an active Skype connection too. I spent two hours at Airtel’s waiting area and had the N900 to keep me from dying of boredom. In addition, I was consistently active on Mobility Nigeria and attending to both personal and official mails, besides browsing websites of interest.

From Airtel, I made a few other stops. Anyway, I finally got to the office after 1 pm and the N900′s battery got emptied at around 1.30 pm. ‘Dayo and I didn’t think it was a bad performance, seeing that his Blackberry device was almost out of juice too by the time we returned to the office (and he had only fully charged his at 5 am that day).

I am still in the process of conditioning the battery of the N900, so perhaps I can still get better battery performance. We’ll see and then I will re-visit the battery issue then.

Laptop Now Stays At Home

The N900 is the closest thing to a mobile computer that I have ever used. again, as before, there is no compelling need to lug my netbook around any longer – except for when special needs are required.

N900 versus N8?

I was amused to see the mild outrage that greeted my naming the N900 my smartphone of the year 2010 from some quarters. I didn’t say the smartphone of the year, meaning that my needs were in view in arriving at that decision. I have no doubts that the N8 outshines the N900 in certain areas and will qualify as the smartphone of the year for many others whose needs differ from mine. But in my line of work, the N900 is the more appropriate device.

As already hinted, you will be seeing my N8 deliver in its areas of strength as an excellent media tool for the Mobility Nigeria team, so continue to expect excellent materials on and from the N8 multimedia monster. But for daily personal use, the N900 is it for me. For now.

In the mobile world, it is no news that Android is here to stay. It is the fastest growing mobile computing platform at the moment and is likely to remain so for some time.

Opportunities for Android app development abound and if you have been thinking of becoming an Android developer, an opportunity is here.

Fasmicro’s MASTERs is a workshop that will bring core experts across the globe to Nigeria. The maiden edition will be held in Owerri in February 2011. The MASTERs will comprise of two modules, independently delivered, as follows –

• Module I: Mobility Computing & Android App Development
  Feb 14-16, 2011
• Module II: Embedded Systems -FPGA, Microcontroller –PIC and SX, and CAD
  Feb 17-19, 2011

Module I is a hands-on Android course designed to provide essential skills and experience with developing applications on Android mobile platform. Throughout the course, participants will develop real-life applications, which can serve as basis for their future Android projects. Eclipse and Android SDK are used as the development environment throughout the class.

The goal is that after this workshop, participants can develop real life-applications or where applicable, introduce relevant courses in their tertiary institutions.

You can obtain more details about registration on the MASTERs 2011 webpage.

Help Mobility Nigeria earn some referal income: If registering for the event, please include our name (Mobility Nigeria) and our email address (mobility[@]mobilitynigeria.com) during registration.

One feature that simply makes one re-examine the term “mobile computing” is the ability to plug in external USB storage to access, view, copy, delete and even edit files on such storage media. Well, the future is here. Now, your smartphone can replace your PC. Well, that is if you use a Nokia N8.

The USB-on-thee-go feature on the Nokia N8 supports a number of hardware items – flash drive, keyboard, mouse and some external HDDs. I don’t have a USB keyboard available, so I didn’t get to try that out. As for the others, my reports are below.

2GB USB Flash Drive
I plugged in the USb adapter and then my 2GB flash drive. The N8 promptly (and I mean promptly) opened the built-in file manager – and there was my flash drive (that’s the drive labelled “Yomi 230408″ in the screenshots).

I was able to open, edit, copy, paste, move and delete files without any issues. And the N8 handled everything speedilly.

250GB External HDD
I also gave it a go with my LG 250GB external HDD.

Here’s what I got:

The N8 simply replied, “Connect USB cable to the device”. It didn’t recognise it. Of course, Nokia had said that it wouldn’t work with external disks that require electric power above certain levels, so no problem.

USB Mouse
Will this thing really work with a USB mouse? Watch the video below to find out:

Anything else?
For the kicks, I plugged in the iPhone 3GS. yes; cheeky me.

Sorry, but the USB icon on the N8 just kept flashing. No error. No connectivity.

Conclusions
USB-on-the-go on the N8 delivers exactly as Nokia said it would – and then some. It works without issues with the flash drive that I tested, it works with a USB mouse, and I have read reviews that say it works with a USB keyboard too.

The interesting thing is that the N8′s 680 MHz processor handled it all smoothly (and I will come to the device’s performance in another part of my series on the N8). Just like the cameraphone war is not always about the megapixels, apparently, the CPU war is not also always about the GHzs.

Now, I can carry my PC along with me everywhere I go. Got a file on a flash drive that you want to give to me? No problem; my mobile computer – the Nokia N8 – is up to the task.

There are those who want to define how much closer to PCs smartphones are by other yardsticks, but functionality is still the primary factor in measuring it. The USB-on-the-go functionality makes devices like the Nokia N900 and more especially the Nokia N8 closer to PC functionality than any other smartphone on the market. This is simply years ahead of others. Simple.

Engadget Editor, Joshua Topolsky, was recently away from the office and tried to get some work done on his iPhone 3GS, but ended up with a very frustrating experience.

His complaints include:

1. lack of multi-tasking
2. unreliability of on-screen keyboard for chatting
3. intrusive notification system for SMS, calendar events, and push IM messages

Joshua says:

Basic functionality, like calling people, email, and certainly document editing still feel inelegant and clunky due to the onscreen keyboard, and the lack of multitasking makes moving around through those typically important tasks difficult to say the least. The experience on an Android device, S60, the Pre, a BlackBerry, or even Windows Mobile just makes more sense. Let me say that again: those experiences make more sense. Now I’m not saying the execution of those experiences is better across platforms, but the philosophy of letting users multitask is more natural to us. The iPhone doesn’t even have a method for switching between recently used or favorite applications.

We don’t work like this on our computers — why does Apple think we want to work like this on our phones?

These issues are not just being discovered. They are established deal-breakers for people who work on the go (on their mobiles). They are the reasons an iPhone is a No-no for me. The iPhone is a sleek, friendly device if you are into media and do not necesarrilly need to work on your phone. The user interface is lovely. But try to work, and…

I know that ‘Dayo has been talking of buying an iPhone recently. Unless Apple delivers a multi-tasking, QWERTY keyboard version of the iPhone, something tells me that he is more likely to regret going that route. I know his work schedule! But then, I believe in miracles.

Read Joshua’s full account: Taking the iPhone 3GS off the job market.

Several reviews of this device have been on the internet for some time now, and it has been a mixed bag of opinions. The 97 is also available in Nigeria already (shameless advertising: call 08084391076 to order your unit from our parent company, Alireta).

The question is: what do you think so far of the N97? Impressed? Underwhelmed? Indifferent? Not-so-big-a-deal-anymore? Tell us!