I was reading about the Asus Padfone and it got me second guessing some of the things I have written. Am I wrong that the phone will be primary with a wireless link to other display devices? Or… perhaps I am correct and these are just steps along they way. That happens when a trend is major as I previously discussed. The problem with my solution is battery life. What the Padfone brings is the large battery in the tablet. Having a full time high bandwidth link will require major improvements in battery technology. That will come but it isn’t here right now. Perhaps each device should be able to stand on its own. If so then what happens to my dream of the phone as the central device? It stays alive in a modified form. Rather than transmitting the display perhaps the devices are sync’d so each has the same programs and all that needs to be transferred is current status and data. This will minimize data transfer and hence battery consumption. Switching from device to device won’t be quite as seamless but the basic idea will be there. As battery technology gets better we will eventually reach full integration but right now we’ll have to be satisfied with incremental steps. As I’ve said before, this is going to be interesting and a lot of fun to watch.
Rethinking Things
Posted: May 30, 2011 in Convergence, Smartpone, TabletTags: Asus. Padfone, convergence, trends
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paulplatt 
[…] Rethinking Things […]
You mentioned Battery Life. What I find amazing is that we have gotten memory down to a size that is amazing but for battery life we can’t seem to come up with something that will last a while. To add additional power power to various devices requires adding additional weight. It seems to me if we can create memory chips that hold a lot of memory or apps on a device as big as a pencil easer why can’t we come up with battery life that will last longer than 4-6 hours and still be of reasonable size and weight.
Batteries are improving but not at the rate other technology is changing. As the phone takes on a heavier workload, it needs more power. Part of the problem is that we are asking our phones to do a lot more. For example, using the GPS in a phone will shorten the battery life. There is technology that will help but as that new technology comes along we just ask our phones to do more. Also, we are demanding that our phone be slimmer and weigh less. That means reducing the physical size of the battery. This is why wireless charging is so interesting. Imagine if your phone automatically charged when you were in your car without you having to do anything. Unfortunately, that isn’t doable today.
I hear you on this. Yes I would love my phone to charge while I am in the car, bus, train, plane, boat. It would be cool. We are able to get internet connections now to find a way to take this and apply it to charging the phone, pads, tablets even notebooks. Think there might be a project here…..