Laptops to Smartphone's - Connected anytime, anywhere!

You've made the decision to go mobile - or more likely, the decision has been made for you. Now what?
Not so long ago, there was really only one solution. You spent several thousand rupees on a laptop, and you got used to carrying a big shoulder bag full of kit and cables. But inevitably, mobile devices have got smaller, cheaper and more powerful.
Nowadays there's a bewildering array of options, each with a slightly different degree of connectivity and processing power. But if you know what you want to do on the road, and how much data you will need to send and receive, the picture should become a bit clearer.

Smartphones
As the name suggests, these are phones with a bit extra on top. A Smartphone packs the memory and processor power of a small computer into the case of a typical mobile handset. Even the cheapest mobile phones these days include a basic calendar and address book. The equivalent applications on a Smartphone come much closer to what you would expect on a desktop PC - and perhaps most importantly, they are able to synchronise with their desktop equivalents. So if you put an appointment in your Outlook calendar, the details will be copied to your Smartphone next time you sync up (and vice versa).The built-in phone connection lets you send and receive emails or look at websites on the move. But if you plan to do a lot of typing or reading, you'll probably find the small screen and numeric keypad rather restrictive.

PDA / Pocket PC One step up from the Smartphone is the PDA (personal digital assistant) or Pocket PC. Rather than a keyboard, they have a touchscreen much larger than the screen on a Smartphone, and learn to recognise your handwriting. Like a Smartphone, they include email, diary and address book programs which do benefit from the larger screen. They also include mini word processor and spreadsheet programs - in the case of Windows-powered Pocket PCs, you'll feel immediately at home with Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.