What Happened When I Left My Laptop at Home

A few weeks back I went to LA on business. I was going to attend the Digital Banking Summit where those of us in fintech compared notes on what is going on in our shared industry and how to evolve within it. The trip was sure to be a great one with the promise of new connections, increased knowledge, imparted insights and way better sushi than what I can get in Charlotte.

As I packed, I went through the usual process of doing my "outfit-a-day" planning and packing. Once done, I brought my suitcase to our foyer and left it there. When my Uber arrived in the morning, I'd just grab my luggage and go.

Everything was all set with my suitcase.

And then I looked over at my briefcase.

Bringing my laptop and having to take it out at security. Worst case, the security guards at the airport would have me turn it on and off in front of them. I'd have to count my laptop’s briefcase as my "second bag". The scarcity of space in the overhead compartments on the plane is always an issue these days and keeping my briefcase at my feet during the flight would make that miniscule space seem even smaller. In recent years, it seemed that there wasn't enough room to open my laptop and use it while on the plane anyway.

In short, I thought how nice it would be if I did not need to bring my laptop to LA.

Then I made a snap decision and decided that I would leave my laptop at home for the three days.

I decided I would use it as an opportunity to do an experiment with my new mobile device. I had purchased a Samsung Note 3 a few months earlier, trading in my iPhone 4S. I did so because the Note is a phablet and I simply wanted to manage my life on a larger screen. I decided to use my LA trip to see if I could manage my work life for three days on my new phablet, without my laptop.

It led to some pretty interesting observations, which follow below:

• The basics were covered nicely – The basics of being tapped into the home office involves reading emails, making necessary phone calls and using IM. On my phablet, the basics are a pleasure. I can read emails with greater ease on the large screen, make phone calls even if the large device looks unusual next to my head, and converse on IM with great ease. Simply put, having a phablet makes just about everything easier.
  

• I could read the websites that I pulled up – As each speakers at the Digital Banking Summit stood up and started their presentation, I pulled up the website for the companies that the speakers worked for. I could read everything on the phablet, even if the sites in question were not responsively designed for viewing on a mobile device. It was refreshing when contrasted against my memories of trying to use an iPhone for looking at websites.

• I could review most documents with ease – A couple of times each day, I would step out of the summit and dial into a meeting. Reviewing a Word document and/or a PowerPoint deck was often involved. In all cases, I was able to pull up the PowerPoint or Word doc on the phablet and take part in the review without issues. I could even read the text on the PowerPoint slides that I had pulled up on my phablet. I remember this being a major issue on my smaller iPhone, even to the point of being infeasible.

• Excel..... not so much – When asked to review some financial information in an Excel spreadsheet, I found that this was just about impossible. Excel on a small form factor still has a way to go before you can reasonably move through tabs, sheets and cells. In this case, my phablet was as inefficient as my iPhone used to be.

• I couldn’t create artifacts, not a small issue – If I had needed to make edits to a document, or create something from the ground-up, I would've needed to borrow a colleague's laptop. That did not happen, but it would've been an issue if that had arisen. Phablets and smart phones have a major functionality gap in creating Microsoft Office artifacts today. And there is certainly no meaningful competitor to Office on the market today that runs on Apple or Android.

In short, for those three days my phablet met my needs. Not having to travel with the laptop was indeed a pleasure. And I enjoyed the summit without that large distraction sitting on the table in front of me throughout the day.

Could I use a phablet as my "go-to" device all of the time? Not at this time. Creating MS Office documents remains a big part of how I move information. And not having that ability on my phablet, combined with the fact that the screen is perhaps a bit small for such a use, means that it cannot replace my laptop at this time. But a tablet mounted in a keyboard with a viable version of MS Office? That would likely do the trick.

Bottom line, mobile devices and what we use them for is changing at this time. The perfect device and device size remain to be determined. We should watch with interest at the changing form factors in mobile and anticipate the need to adapt.