Many people carry two or more gadgets with them, all with Internet access and the ability to run apps. But when you have your songs on one machine, your ebooks on another, and your games back at home on your PC or Mac, it means that you're disconnected from part of your computing essentials wherever you go.
One way to get around this is to use Web apps you can get to from anywhere, like WordPress and Evernote. Another is to use one gadget that replaces some or all of the others. Here's a look at the ways to do this, including a couple of new ones.
Buy an all-in-one gadget
The poster child for this approach is the Motorola Atrix, which debuted alongside a "webtop" attachment which was basically a laptop that only works with your phone plugged into it. The laptop itself was slow and prone to crashing, however, and could only run the Mozilla Firefox Web browser,or Android apps inside a window the size of your phone's screen.
A YouTube user named revowii, however, has leaked a video of the beta version of Motorola's Webtop 3.0 software. This build is based on the new Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, and uses faster native apps instead of a full desktop Web browser. It's also capable of scaling your Android apps up to match the size of your screen; especially handy if you have the media dock, which connects your phone to your HDTV.
Other upcoming all-in-one devices include the Asus Padfone, a hybrid tablet-smartphone that is now taking preorders in Taiwan, and the KT Spider, a design that includes a laptop dock and even a PSP-style gamepad attachment (but which may not come to North America). Toshiba has also released pictures of a concept design for an all-in-one Lifebook laptop.
Pick up attachments
Several Android smartphones and tablets feature HDMI ports, and the ability to mirror their screens on an HDTV. Bluetooth is also a standard feature, allowing you to connect a keyboard to your device. And the Asus Transformer is a tablet designed around the attachable keyboard concept; the keyboard is a dock which transforms it into a laptop, complete with an extended battery and a touchpad. Asus just recently announced a sub-$400 Transformer tablet ($150 extra for the keyboard attachment), which should be on the market soon.
Upgrade your software
Ubuntu, a popular desktop operating system upgrade for PCs and Macs, is now capable of running onAndroid phones. The phones switch to the full Ubuntu desktop when they are plugged into a large screen. This feature was demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in February. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu's marketing and some of its development, is trying to get wireless networks and handset makers to build the feature into their phones.
Meanwhile, modern remote desktop software and the OnLive app allow Android device owners to play modern PC and console games, or even access their home PC or Mac's desktop over the Internet. These require a fast connection and are best used with external peripherals, though.
