Used Laptops Make Mobile Computing Affordable

Laptop computers have long been a business-class tool with a price that was out of reach for most consumers. Even businesses could not afford to supply all of its employees a top of the line laptop. Prices are now plummeting to the point that almost anyone can afford some sort of laptop or notebook computer without going into debt. This is a boon to many consumers, but students will benefit the most.

In the past to purchase a low cost laptop or notebook, the quality of the device would be sub par or horribly out of date. Now with the wide availability Refurbished Laptops a high quality, relatively new laptop computer can be purchased for oftentimes less than half the new list price. This can mean a good laptop for under $1000.00, and many for less than $500.00.

The speed in which technology is evolving is break neck, and daunting for many businesses and consumers to keep up with. A top of the line computer is less than adequate in 6 months and outdated in a year. While this has been a burden to keep up with, it also means that there are always plenty of used laptops available for sale. Lower income consumers and schools can now afford technology that is only a year out from the manufacturer and is still a viable and powerful tool.

Wireless Internet capabilities are an important reason students need laptops more and more these days. With the power of a desktop computer in a students backpack school work can be done anywhere at any time, and wireless Internet allows the needed research to get homework done fast. This can make homework easier, faster, and fun.

In the past consumers had to choose between a light and portable laptop, and a rugged boat anchor that could withstand a great deal of punishment. Now rugged laptops are available that are easy to carry, and powerful in use. There are still choices to be made, and extremely sturdy laptops can be purchased at the cost of weight but such tools should not be required at a consumer level.

Most major manufacturers carry refurbished laptops and notebook computers. Websites such as Dell, HP, CompUSA, and TigerDirect offer a myriad of used laptops in a wide price range. Amazon.com is another distributor that can provide used computer parts, but the major manufacturers are more likely to have a better selection.

Honeywell Dolphin 9900 Mobile Computer

The Dolphin 9900 comes with a wrist strap for all day comfort and a magnesium alloy environment resistant casing for resilience against the wear and tear of data gathering. This is perhaps one of those devices that come with a pretty good camera because image scanning forms a core part of this device’s function.

The combination of seamless voice and data communication between you and your mobile workers, and GPS-enabled location-based functionality gives you the ability to achieve real-time connection to your employees, your supply chain and your customers – improving productivity and customer service.

Adaptus Imaging Technology enables capturing more frontline data to improve operations, expedite processes all leading to your ability to increase profitability

Running on Windows Mobile 6, the Dolphin 9900 from Honeywell is one of the more heavy duty B2B Windows Mobile devices available today. The 9900 comes with a bar code scanner. It isenhanced with excellent battery life and wireless full area LAN for direct and real time communications with your workforce.

Specs

* Intel XScale PXA270 624 MHz processor
* 640 × 480 pixel camera and bar code scanner
* 256MB RAM
* 1GB flash memory
* 2500mAh extended life battery
* SD memory card slot
* Bluetooth connectivity
* Wi-Fi support

Honeywell Dolphin 9900
Honeywell’s Dolphin 9900 heavy duty B2B device is now readily available, and will be powered by the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. It comes with a wrist strap for you to keep it close at all times, while the magnesium alloy environment resistant casing is good to go up against daily rough-and-tumnle use. Good idea to include the bright orange stylus that makes it a whole lot easier to see even if you drop it among a pile of junk!

Meet Your Mobile Computing Needs with the Toshiba Prot

Toshiba has taken mobile computing to the next level with its Protégé R500 series notebooks. They have stolen the thunder from other competitive models because of their sleek design and performance. These ultra-portable notebooks are extremely light and thin. One among them is the Toshiba Protégé R500-S5004 Notebook,which has been a favorite with both students and businessmen.

Whether you are sitting at home, office, or travelling, the Toshiba Protégé R500-S5004 Notebook is a great choice. Powered by the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor, this laptop simplifies your work. You can run several demanding applications simultaneously—thanks to its 1.2 GHz speed and 2 GB memory capacity.

The solid state drive gives you safe and reliable access to your data. You can store up to 64 GB of information on the hard disk. You can also get customized laptops available at Portable One online seller, which sells notebooks at reasonable prices.

The Toshiba Protégé R500-S5004 comes with wireless internet facility, so you can chat with your friends and clients, and also download your favorite movies. It features built-in Bluetooth technology, so you can connect any Bluetooth enabled device like cell phones, headphones and mice without any bothersome cables. Interestingly, you can charge your digital gadgets like MP3 player, cell phone, and others through its USB port.

The 12.1” widescreen display offers stunning visual clarity and rich colors. These Toshiba – Protégé R500 Series have a standard 1280 X 800 resolution to deliver clear images. The Toshiba Protégé R500-S5004 Notebook was awarded elite EPEAT Gold status, which is the highest rating in environmental standards for laptops by EPEAT.

Weighing only 2.4 lbs, this silvery laptop is compact and stylish. I feel the Toshiba Protégé R500-S5004 Notebook is a great buy.

Nokia N97 Smart Phone A Truly Advanced Mobile Computer

Expected release in June of 2009, this should be the world’s most advanced mobile computer.

The N97 is the newest phone in Nokia’s line of products based on the S60 platform (5th Edition).

The target market for this phone is definitely the younger crowd who wants a modern, powerful phone but prefer features and capability to trendiness and brand name wow-factor.

It’s designed for the needs of Internet-savvy consumers and anyone is into gadgets, phones, or simply be someone who loves having the latest and greatest in the wireless market.

The large 3.5? touch screen display makes it very convenient to operate and with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard you can text all day long with ease. The screen resolution is 640 by 360 pixels, which is close to the resolution many full sized desktop computers were offering 10 years ago. It seems that touch screen smart phones are the current trend right now.

The Symbian OS-based smartphone also features a music and video player, a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and the internal memory is 32GB, and that comes standard on the phone. In addition to the internal space, expandable memory card slots can hold data cards of up to 16GB in size, to store music, photos, or videos. That’s a total storage limit of 48GB, which blows any other device clean out of the water.

The Nokia N97 introduces the concept of ’social location’. With integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass, the Nokia N97 mobile computer intuitively understands where it is. The Nokia N97 makes it easy to update social networks automatically with real-time information, giving approved friends the ability to update their ’status’ and share their ’social location’ as well as related pictures or videos. The Nokia N97 makes it easy to update social networks automatically with real-time information. Integrated social networking utilities update your MySpace and Facebook information right from the main page. Nokia Maps is included as well, which gives you access to national and local maps whenever you need them.

As a phone with a sliding keyboard, it is a little thicker than phones that do not have a physical keyboard but it is directly comparable to the thickness of phones of the same type. It is less than 16 mm thick and does not seem too large or small in any way.

The fully functional integrated web browser can view practically any website that a desktop computer could; making it easy to surf the web, especially when using the Wi-Fi.

Packing the N97 smart phone with all these great features will make it one of the priciest mobile devices out there but as the saying goes “you get what you paid for”. With a tag of around $700 without a contract discount, Nokia N97 is perhaps the most expensive mainstream smart phone available.

 

The Nokia N97 will certainly be the flagship Smartphone of Nokia for quite a while.

Baldwin Foods Looks at Quality with Rugged Mobile Computing with LXE

Baldwin Richardson Foods, headquartered in Frankfort, Illinois, with manufacturing facility in Macedon, New York, produces bakery fillings, syrups, sauces, toppings, beverage mixes, condiments packets, and other food products. “Our operations were all manual. We wanted to automate and had looked into different bar coding systems over the years, but nothing was the right fit,” says Craig Czajka, the IT manager at Baldwin Richardson Foods.

 

Mobile data collection systems provide real-time visibility for batch traceability, raw materials levels, and finished goods inventory.  Innovative vehicle-mounted, hand-held, and wearable mobile computers must be dependable, tough, and reliable. Wireless computers extend corporate networks to mobile workers in demanding conditions and only rugged mobile computers drive down costs and improve customer satisfaction.

 

 

Based in Norcross, Georgia, LXE offered Baldwin Richardson Foods a full range of turnkey services, including radio integration, project and installation management, network design, technical support, and repair services. LXE helped the company transition to real-time visibility and gain control over raw materials, production status, and inventory transfers, warehousing, and distribution to customers. “Bar coding doesn’t fix things, it just makes things faster,” says Czajka. “We had to fix our processes first. The knowledge LXE had about working with our Ross ERP system was very valuable to us. Some of the other vendors we looked at had started to support Ross, but they weren’t there yet.”

 

LXE helped Baldwin Richardson Foods design a wireless network and mobile data collection systems to support new processes that provide real-time visibility for batch traceability, raw materials levels, and finished goods inventory.

 

Previously, production was carefully controlled, but the handling and storage of finished products relied on fork-truck drivers using paperwork. Raw materials were delivered to “cook decks” where cooks manually recorded the contents and amounts of each ingredient used in a batch. Completed products were stacked in cases on pallets at the end of the production lines. Fork-truck drivers cruised among any of the five to seven lines running that day, looking for full pallets, which they would pick up and deliver to a staging area for transfer to Baldwin Richardson Foods’ distribution facility. Paper order tickets informed drivers of the truck bay to deliver each pallet. Some production runs last for three days; others are completed in a shift. During production runs there were very few updates to the ERP system when drivers relied on paperwork. Backlogs developed and jobs often were not closed until three to six days after the actual production run ended. Because there were very few updates during production, data in the ERP system was often several days behind, making it difficult to accurately manage inventory.

 

According to Wayne Baxter, of BaxTek Solutions, in Snellville, Georgia, a leading systems integrator that works closely with LXE in the quality PartnerPass program, “The increasingly significant role of food traceability makes the value of collecting real-time data less of an option and more of a necessity. Finding vendors with rugged data collection products is absolutely essential. We found that in cold-storage food plants and other food processing and warehousing situations, LXE has a vital role in HACCP [Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points].”

 

BaxTek Solutions (www.baxtek.com) is one of the leading Systems Integrators in the barcode verification, data collection, and supply chain industry that offers a diverse suite of products including RFID, RF Terminals, Printers, Wireless Access Points, Software, Remote Portable Terminal and Printer Management and Repair Services.  The company specializes in traceability and tracking solutions for the food industry from “farm to fork.” 

 

 

 

 

BaxTek Solutions

www.baxtek.com

Tina Nagaitis

Marketing Manager

Solutions@BaxTek.com

866 722 9835