I admit it, I have a big one. Sometimes being big is great. All that size is helpful. But sometimes you get made fun of for being big. Like at work, the past two days now. I pulled it out at a meeting and Scott made a comment both times: “Geez, Mike… that’s a big laptop.”

You see I’m of the opinion that you need to either go big or go small. No in between. That’s why I bought the HP Pavilion dv9428nr laptop. I wanted a machine that was still portable, but could act as a desktop replacement. And with a 17″ widescreen, dual core 2.20 GHz, 2GB RAM, I would say that it does the job well. On the other hand when I just need portability and small size, I go to my (now relatively outdated) HP iPAQ 2215 Pocket PC or to my LG Cherry Chocolate. On either one, I can check email wirelessly, surf the Internet, read RSS feeds, read books… They do the job and easily fit in my pockets. You see, I get these devices. They make sense to me.

Then there are the “in between machines”. These are the computers that don’t have a clear identity or place to fit in. For example, take the Asus Eee PC 4G. It’s small, but not too small. It runs Linux or Windows XP. It has a 800×480 monitor. It has USB slots, an SD slot, 802.11g, ethernet, and an external monitor port. It costs between $200 and 400.

It isn’t bad, but it isn’t great. It isn’t too terribly slow, but it definitely isn’t fast. So where does this fit in? What role does it fill? It may fit in my coat pocket during the winter, but it won’t fit in my jeans or shorts in the summer. It could work as a “couch term”, but if I wanted to do some serious programming or watch some quality video… eh, not so much. If that was the case, I’d just go get my laptop. If I wanted to check email in my car or in line at the post office, I’d use my phone or my pocket pc. The Eee PC would be too big. If I wanted to check my email or do some work while on travel or at a conference, I’d pull out my laptop. I wouldn’t need the small size of the Eee PC.

So where do these “in between machines” fit in? I can see buying the Eee PC if I simply can’t afford a powerful laptop. I’m sure there’s a market for that, but how big of a market? However, not all these computers are targeted at those markets. The Samsung Q1 is a small handheld tablet computer meant for video, email, Internet, etc. This is a case where they’re trying to put the desktop in your pocket, but with specs like a 900MHz proc and 512MB RAM, you just aren’t getting that.

This suffers from a lot of the same drawbacks as the Eee PC. Too big for real portability yet too weak for real use. However, this one isn’t quite so cheap. With a price tag of around $1000, you really have to want one to buy one. So I ask again, where do these “in between machines” fit in? Or maybe the better question is…

How big are you?

Back in my younger days when I used to write a lot of little tools, I would try to the same code build on both the desktop and the pocket pc. Two project files: one for visual studio and one for eMbedded Visual C++ (what’s with the big ‘M’ anyway?). So today I picked up the July issue of MSDN magazine and saw this article on sharing code between a mobile and desktop version of the same app in .NET. I’ve been doing more and more .NET so I was intrigued.

It talked about the controls and namespaces that aren’t shared between the two platforms, common pitfalls when coders try to port a desktop app to a mobile app and so on. Then it came around with this:

It is best not to share the UI layer of an application - just share the business logic.

That immediately struck a nerve with me, because my bread n butter app (soon to be released!) that I’ve been developing for a few years now, did just that: shared all the code between both platforms. That includes the business logic and the UI:

I controlled all of my platform dependent code on #define’s and subsequently built two executable. C# has some support for #define’s (although not as complete), so it could be done similarly. Checking Environment.OSVersion.Platform would be problematic because of JIT compiling and the assembly-loading-crashy-goodness that can ensue. So there’s one problem.

And for rich desktop apps like visual studio or outlook, this just simply isn’t an option:

The desktop version needs to be more UI intensive and provide a richer experience.

…Although I don’t think this is always true. For some apps, sharing the front end is completely ok. I’m not quite sure where to draw the line at where it’s not acceptable to share the UI though. It could be if the number of panels in your application becomes too cumbersome to control in a mobile app, then you need to split the UI. Or maybe simply if the size or scope of the app becomes too great that need to split the UI.

Or maybe it just comes down to the more advanced and more UI driven your application is, the less likely you are to successfully present a consistent interface on both platforms and not sacrifice some functionality that the desktop interface could provide.

…but what do you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbrowser

http://nfppc.access.co.jp/english/

http://park15.wakwak.com/~ftx/index_e.html

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=42017