They Make No Sense for Corporations
Would someone care to explain to me why I and 98% of all corporate workers have to have two keyboards sitting on his desk? This is like having a car with two steering wheels. If most people would stop and think about it, they’d realize it’s ridiculous to pay for two keyboards when you really only like one of them. The laptop form factor has outlived its usefulness.
If this isn’t a case of “that’s just the way it’s always been done” on steroids, I don’t know what is. The fact that corporate IT departments issue laptops and then the first thing all the new employees do is…go shopping for another keyboard that we’ll actually use is ridiculous. A keyboard without a 10-key is like a sports car on snow tires. Less than ideal.
And it’s like this everywhere. Go walking through any major company, and you’ll see setups just like mine. Laptops with vestigial keyboards that don’t get touched. And when we travel, guess what happens? We take an iPad with us to read because our laptops are too unwieldy to use. Because the keyboard is in the way. Most companies issue laptops that are big black heavy boxes. There is nothing light or mobile about them unless you think walking around with your bathroom scale under your arm is no big deal.
And it’s like this everywhere. Go walking through any major company, and you’ll see setups just like mine. Laptops with vestigial keyboards that don’t get touched. And when we travel, guess what happens? We take an iPad with us to read because our laptops are too unwieldy to use. Because the keyboard is in the way. Most companies issue laptops that are big black heavy boxes. There is nothing light or mobile about them unless you think walking around with your bathroom scale under your arm is no big deal.
My desk setup at work. There's no longer a need for TWO keyboards on every desk.
It used to be that you had to have the keyboard attached to the screen because that is where your massive battery was located. The one that gave you all of four hours of light usage. And that’s where the processor and heat sink had to be. These factors no longer hold true and can be placed behind the screen. And with the world going wireless, I doubt we’ll even need ports for much longer.
You can make a case for desktop computers. Not having to be mobile and getting a permanent connection to a power outlet will give it advantages that laptops will never overcome. And you can make a case for tablets; they are the true mobile devices that the world has been waiting for since Star Trek debuted in the sixties. But laptops? They are in this fuzzy in-between state. They’re getting by on inertia, but as tablets grow more capable a shift should start to happen.
Tablets aren’t there yet though. But they’re close. I tried using a Surface Pro recently and went running back to my iPad after running into device manager hell. And iPads don’t really support a lot of the software required in a Windows-exclusive corporation. But even now, especially with Surface Pros, it’s immediately apparent that tablets are the superior tool for the job.
You’re never going to hear this from a tech writer. They are too blind to see it for themselves. By the very fact that they’re writers, they’ll be the last to recognize the keyboard redundancy problem. Writers in general are pretty set in their ways, and it’s hard for them to fathom anyone not wanting a permanently attached keyboard.
It’s time for laptops to go away. It’s only a matter of time. Like zip drives and VGA monitors, they are relics of a time gone by and won’t be necessary in the very near future. As for the whiners who will complain that they need to have that powerful beast of a machine? Let them do what everyone else with an affinity for low-volume niche products does. Pay through the nose to whatever small company feels like mining that gold.
Sent from My iPad
You can make a case for desktop computers. Not having to be mobile and getting a permanent connection to a power outlet will give it advantages that laptops will never overcome. And you can make a case for tablets; they are the true mobile devices that the world has been waiting for since Star Trek debuted in the sixties. But laptops? They are in this fuzzy in-between state. They’re getting by on inertia, but as tablets grow more capable a shift should start to happen.
Tablets aren’t there yet though. But they’re close. I tried using a Surface Pro recently and went running back to my iPad after running into device manager hell. And iPads don’t really support a lot of the software required in a Windows-exclusive corporation. But even now, especially with Surface Pros, it’s immediately apparent that tablets are the superior tool for the job.
You’re never going to hear this from a tech writer. They are too blind to see it for themselves. By the very fact that they’re writers, they’ll be the last to recognize the keyboard redundancy problem. Writers in general are pretty set in their ways, and it’s hard for them to fathom anyone not wanting a permanently attached keyboard.
It’s time for laptops to go away. It’s only a matter of time. Like zip drives and VGA monitors, they are relics of a time gone by and won’t be necessary in the very near future. As for the whiners who will complain that they need to have that powerful beast of a machine? Let them do what everyone else with an affinity for low-volume niche products does. Pay through the nose to whatever small company feels like mining that gold.
Sent from My iPad
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