Business Travel Gadgets are the most important need of any businessmen who relies on internet as a communication medium.
In today’s scenario, the most important thing for any businessman or entrepreneur is to stay connected and reachable, whenever and wherever. While on a business travel, your immediate need may arrive any moment, either from your colleague, your client or anyone else critical to your business.
As the business communication is also getting increasingly dependent on Internet, staying connected to Internet is nearly equivalent to staying connected to your business. And to serve this important business need, computing machines paired with high-speed internet accessibility are slowly becoming the pre-requisites of every tech-savvy businessmen.
While on the go, Mobile businessmen prefer a laptop or a Netbook for serving their computing and web based needs. People also prefer keeping a PDA or smartphone to get onto the web & e-mails lightening fast. 3G and WiMax service subscription is a default to these smartphones as they are specifically meant to facilitate Mobile Web.
We will talk about each one of the Mobile Businessmen pre-requisites in details below.
Laptops : The first and the most popular portable substitute for Desktop PCs has been Laptops. Laptops are powerful, efficient, portable and durable, a perfect way to carry out your business activities and computing work, anytime, anywhere. On the flip side, most laptops aren’t small-sized and light-weight, which makes it tough for them to be carried along just about anywhere (coffee shop ?). Laptops also cost you more than a desktop PC with similar hardware configuration.
When are they best suited…
- If you majorly work offline than online
- When you’re travelling for longer periods
- When you’re used to running multiple applications simultaneously on your work machine
Netbooks: The latest entrant in computing hardware industry, netbooks have been gaining instant popularity, majorly among the web-savvy crowd. As the name suggests, these machines are particularly designed for surfing internet and running light-weight desktop applications. It’s major advantage over laptops is Pocket portability. It might sound a little exaggerated that Netbooks can fit in your pockets but they are extremely light-weight and handy computing machines.
You can carry it without any bag and it will get you on the web within a minute or less after boot-up. The processor capability is relatively less but who really needs that extra efficiency when all what you’re doing is surfing web.
When are they best suited…
- When you want to move around and desire a hassle-free way to get onto the web any moment.
- When you’re supposed to do just web surfing, nothing much. That’s because Netbooks aren’t meant to facilitate heavy resource consumption (powered by cheaper, less powerful processors). More simultaneous applications mean poor Netbook performance.
- When you want a cheaper alternative to laptops
Smartphones/PDA : We’re all used to Mobile handsets for more than a decade now and have been using it mainly for the purpose of voice communication. It’s only been a couple of years when hi-end feature-rich Mobile phones have actually started creating waves in cellphone industry worldwide. Almost all major handset manufacturers are now selling Hi-end mobile phones, aka smartphones across the globe and over the years, the unit cost has gone quite affordable, thanks to over-saturated cellphone industry that keeps putting pressure on the cellphone OEMs to cut cellphone costs for surviving the tough economic times.
Considering the capability and hardware configuration that smartphones are coming up with, one can certainly say that smartphones are no less than Mobile Computer. Most smartphones come with 3G, Wi-Fi support and big touchscreens for better web browsing experience.
When are they best suited…
- When you don’t want to carry a netbook/laptop, just for checking emails on the go or twittering aside
- When you’re about to dump your old cellphone and looking for a better and affordable handset
- When you want another digital platform for keeping up with your web based work on the move
All these Hi-end gizmos have made it possible for the end users to live on the web, anytime, anywhere.
For cheap but powerful technology on the go, refurbished computers like these laptops from SCH trade are a cost effective solution for the small business man
chachacha
September 22, 2009 at 5:20 pm
What about what you need to leave a home so that when you get back you’re not hip with astronomical bills from your lanline phone company? Actually, what I do when I travel abroad is leave a TracFone at home so that my family can call me at any time, to any any country for the same cost of a local USA call. TracFone’s International calling plan has no roaming fees at all and, with it, you can call more than 100 countries across the globe from the US. They’re the only prepaid mobile phone that offers this service – for the low rate of a local call that is. Check out their plans oline – Also, the phones are very goo quality and affordable. You can buy at any discount store – Walmart, Kmart, Target, Best Buy,etc.
Prashant Sharma
September 23, 2009 at 12:24 pm
@chachacha Nice and cheap idea for staying connected with ur family..
business phones abroad
October 22, 2009 at 6:06 am
If you’re travelling abroad then you will want to consider a local SIM for your destination country to help you cut the cost of expensive roaming charges.
Cellhire offer “SIMSmart” which is a range of local airtime SIM cards where incoming calls often free.
http://www.cellhire.co.uk/content/simsmart.aspx
They also offer some great value roaming options when you’re travelling through several countries.
http://www.cellhire.co.uk/countries/europe-sim-card.aspx
These solutions are tailored to businesses because they are post-paid. You just get invoiced monhtly for your usage which means no messing about with top-ups and pre-payments.