I SEE THE PEOPLE WORKING, AND SEE IT WORKING FOR THEM [495]

It may be strange that I even have notes to share on using a laptop computer, as more people than not will have a computer in this form. However, I have only started using one in the last month, which was not by choice, and my experience has reinforced why I would not do so willingly.

The computer I use at work was initially a desktop computer, a “tower PC” housing a large motherboard and spinning hard drive. This was later replaced by a “thin client” desktop PC that used a smaller solid state drive, used less power, and more similar to the specifications you can find in a laptop computer – as battery capacity has improved, and as processors’ power consumption has been reduced, any remaining gaps caused by compromising for a more mobile form factor have been reduced or eliminated.

The local final step has been reached, and I have now been given a laptop computer to use. I have never been given a laptop to use before, and I have never considered buying one myself, and I remembered looking at this thing like I was a caveman discovering fire. My immediate thoughts were that I hated the tiny keyboard and trackpad – I really can only use a full keyboard and mouse, having the space on a desk to do that – and the screen was too small, despite being of average laptop size.

This laptop was not for me to work from home, as I don’t do that, but it does keep me at work marginally longer by physically taking it out of a locked drawer every day, then packing it away at the end. The secure internet connection that was required was easier to implement through software, but it means more manually logging into programs and remembering login details to work.

Instead of having two screens on my desk, I have now also been introduced to the idea of the monitor-based docking station, the keyboard and mouse from my old computer now plugging into the one monitor left on my desk, to which the laptop connects through a USB-C cable and becomes the secondary screen, half the size of the one it replaced. It looks odd, and it makes me want to get an eye test despite being due one anyway.

On top of this, I am afraid of breaking the thing. It has a plastic case, and I have already once dropped it into its locked drawer harder than I expected, so I am dreading when I will fracture a corner, or break a hinge, or open and close the laptop enough times to over-flex the ribbon connector between the screen and the rest of the unit. The act of locking, in an eclosed space, an electrical device still warm from over eight hours of use, still gives me reason for concern – the desktop unit stayed in the open.

Of course, this is all nitpicking. Advances in computing, components and miniaturisation mean that the components of the average consumer computer will be similar regardless of whether you have a desktop or laptop model, and previous compromises that had to be made for a more mobile form factor no longer apply, battery capacity on laptops now allowing for all-day use on one charge – the difference between desktop and laptop is now down to personal preference, unless you require a gaming PC with enough fans to keep the processors cool.

But when you are given a situation where wireless internet connections drop out because you need to log back into a program to re-establish it, or when you realise the USB-C connection wasn’t charging the laptop at the same time, or the mouse suddenly stops working for some reason, you realise that solutions for many still involve compromises for some. For me, thankfully having the space at home for a desktop setup, desktop computers are the simpler choice because they cause less anxiety - mostly because I only have to use them, not handle them.

WHATEVER IT IS I’M AGAINST IT [241]

Warning: I came across something that made me think of the eternal British phrase, “you what?!”

I am currently on my third iPad since 2012, and outside of working at home or writing, which I do with a desktop computer, the iPad is my main computer. Because its graphic processor is superior to my bigger machine, my iPad is also my video editor, cutting shots by fractions of a second using the swipe of a finger. 

For these reasons, and because my desktop computer has a keyboard with proper keys, I have never owned a laptop computer. I have not yet encountered the need to take a computer from one place to another, proving how much flexibility I expect of my phone – my iPad has never left the house because I know how much it costs. Whenever I have used another person’s laptop, I either find the trackpad too fiddly, requiring me to plug in an external mouse, or I have tried to press something on the screen, only to realise my error. It does sound odd, but that is just how I work.

What I can’t understand is the release of keyboards for the iPad that include a trackpad. The first iPad went on sale in 2010, and anyone that needed to continue with a separate keyboard and mouse, or are not in a position to use a touch screen, will have found their own solution by now – I’m guessing this is Apple’s way of mopping up anyone that wants both a tablet and a laptop, but not one of each, although the combined cost of an iPad plus a Magic Keyboard, whether it includes a trackpad or not, passes the cost of many laptop computers.

Doesn’t a tablet computer also come with a trackpad the size of the screen? I can see Apple’s Magic Keyboard supports the gestures you would usually make on the screen, like using two fingers to zoom in or out of a web page or other object, but having the trackpad there does not instantly tell you to use that instead of the screen. Placing your finger on the trackpad, or moving a mouse creates a small blue circle on the screen, like a target on the old game show “The Golden Shot,” but again, you could point straight at the target.

There has been a great amount of convergence in technology over the last few decades, as evidenced by few people having a camera separate from their phone, or a television that does not access the internet. But adding a cursor to the screen of an iPad suggests a couple of threads are being unpicked. The primacy of the finger, over a stylus in operating an iPad was already challenged by the introduction of an electric Apple Pencil in 2015, in the name of productivity apps like Adobe Photoshop. Perhaps you can use your fingers at home, but not at work, just like you expect an expensive restaurant to provide you with a knife and fork.

I don’t know what point I want to make, as this is my reacting to something that doesn’t sound right, but what helps others to work changes how I would work, so therefore, I’m not doing it.