10 things we hate about ComputerWorld's "10 things we hate about laptops"

There's an article at ComputerWorld titled "10 things we hate about laptops" that's all about the shortcomings of current laptop technology. Since it's Friday and there's not much else to write about, we thought we'd take a few minutes to go though the long, whiny list of stupid complaints and rebuff them one by one.

1. Battery life still bombs

[Lee] oversees a team of 50-plus laptop-carrying doctors who sometimes are forced to stop a patient exam and go search for an AC adapter cord so they can continue making notes on the patient's records

If you need long battery life, buy a laptop with long battery life. We've reviewed models with battery life in the region of ten hours - and that's a full working day (though perhaps not in a doctor's case…). Recharging a laptop at the end of a day isn't hard and there are ways to stretch battery life still further. And besides, even lesser laptops let you swap batteries when one is dead.

2. Laptops get banged up and broken

"A lot of these laptops are assembled in China, and let's face it, they are flimsy," says Long Le, IT director at Atlas Air Inc.

Anything that's designed to be carried around is going to get banged up and some laptops are more resilient than others. You wouldn't expect a Smart Car to cope with being thrown around off-road, so why would you expect a cheap, flimsy laptop to survive life in the field? If you need a laptop that can cope with being banged around, buy appropriately.

3. They're tough to fix and they die young

Not only do laptops live shorter (and more difficult) lives than desktops, they definitely go down fighting…

A laptop that spends its life sat on a desk will last just as long as a desktop PC - it's the moving around that causes problems. If you need to use laptops (rather than desktops), then you simply have to accept that like so much in business, their benefits aren't without cost.

4. They get lost

Laptops don't get lost, people lose laptops. Admittedly, it's impossible to solve such a user problem, but hard disk encryption will mitigate the financial losses associated from a lost or stolen laptop.

5. They're difficult to secure, digitally and physically…

Whether they're being hacked while using an insecure public Wi-Fi connection or being stolen from the airport men's room, laptops are vulnerable to theft in ways their deskbound cousins never are.

Apart from the fact that easier to lose or steal, laptops are no more difficult to secure than a desktop. They run all the same software and can use all the same network security measures. Sure, someone can peer over your screen to see what you're typing, but if you're working on something that's commercially sensitive, why are you doing it in public?

6. ...and security precautions make users nuts

Between passwords, screen locks, complicated procedures to log onto virtual private networks and the risk of getting booted off an "insecure" Wi-Fi connection, well, it's not always easy for users to get online just anywhere.

But you still deploy security measures on desktop PCs, right? HSPDA modems provide a secure 'anywhere' connection if you don't trust public Wi-Fi networks and there's no reason for VPN access to be any more complicated than standard Wi-Fi.

7. Wi-Fi is still the Wild, Wild West

The challenge of configuring laptops for wireless connectivity, and keeping them up to date, is probably the single biggest nightmare IT professionals face daily, they say.

Unsecured Wi-Fi should be a no-no for anyone who's concerned about security - it should be VPN or HSPDA all the way. Keeping a laptop up-to-date is no different than magaing a desktop and tools like Centrino Pro make remote management much easier.

8. Laptops spawn a new breed of uber-entitled user

Those glossy ads of people effortlessly using laptops in a diner, or on a mountaintop or while driving, all give his users ideas. Bad ideas. Ideas that make them expect that they can be online anywhere and everywhere.

We were angry when we realised that Cadbury's hadn't trained a real gorilla to play the drums, too.

9. They're too big or too small.

That's like saying desktops PCs are "too beige".

10. Software performance just ain't the same.

Big applications just don't work as well on a laptop. Sure, your standard-issue laptop can chomp along nicely on a complex inventory spreadsheet or a 275-slide PowerPoint presentation. The problem comes when users want to multitask between the two, say when creating a presentation.

What a load of rubbish. Unless you're looking to play Crysis at 1680 x 1050,a laptop is no less capable than a desktop PC. And if you really need to run a weather simulator, do you really need to do it on the train home?

[ ComputerWorld]