Drivel

No, seriously, this is a test of Drivel running under Ubuntu. I sort of have in the back of my head that if anything goes awry with my MacBook to the point I can no longer use it, I will splash out on a Dell Inspiron Mini9 running Ubuntu Netbook Remix – the Dell looks easiest to open up and upgrade, the Linux seems the easiest to handle (compared to something like Linpus Lite or whatever), the reviews all seem positive, the build options are flexible and I can get $100 credit with my leftover AmEx membership reward points.
The big thing right now (and honestly, this post is me thinking out loud) is not “what do I need a laptop for” but “what do I need a laptop for that an iPhone cannot do?” The biggest thing, obviously, is text entry. I can get my mail, surf the web, check my RSS feeds, diddle about with Facebook and Twitter and WIkipedia, all sorts of stuff – hell, I can even stream Absolute Radio now, even though it would kill my battery – but the two big things a laptop can do that the iPhone can’t are videoconferencing (via Skype) and long-form text entry (I wouldn’t want to write anything much over a Twitter post with the iPhone, let alone a thousand-word blog post). Plus, let’s be honest, anything on the web looks better at 1024×600 than at 480×320. Firefox 3, all the usual plug-ins and codecs, Zimbra (yes, my new job uses Zimbra for its collaborative groupware)…well, there you have it. Like it or not, there are some tasks that the smartphone is not yet up to, even the likes of the iPhone or the G1.
Of course, much depends on how long this machine here lasts, and when (if ever!) the Powers That Be from my first California job come looking for it again ;]