Experienced road warriors know the drill: Dash to the airport,
call important customers, board the plane, send e-mails, draft that
proposal, get a rental car, check in to your hotel, log on to the
Net, sync your PDA, prepare for your 8 a.m. presentation...it's
going to be a long night-scratch that, a long week. But as long as
you've got the right technology, it seems anything's
possible.
You may be jet-lagged, but that doesn't mean the work stops
coming. At least when you've got the right tools, you can stay
in touch and handle every priority. It doesn't matter if
you're out of the office on a sales call or on an extended
overnight trip. As long as you've got a working cell phone, a
PDA, a laptop, and the other pieces of your mobile arsenal, you
won't miss a beat.
Or will you? Some entrepreneurs are so busy jetting around that
they forget how important it is to update their tech
solutions-leaving them less productive than they'd like. With
that thought in mind, Entrepreneur has taken a closer look
at the latest trends in tools for mobile professionals. You may not
need or want everything here, but at least we can help you evaluate
where you are in terms of productivity-and where you need to
be.
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Cell Phones
Worldwide cellular phone handset sales have run at record rates
this year, driven largely by catchy new features like color
screens, cameras and wireless gaming capabilities. While these
characteristics have limited utility for most businesspeople, they
help build the phone population and underwrite the increasing
reliability and quality, as well as decreasing cost and size, of
cell phones. These devices are fast becoming standard equipment for
entrepreneurs who want to-or rather, need to-make and receive calls
no matter where they are.
| What to Buy and Why |
| Check out the latest cell
phones here. |
"You can never underestimate the value of voice
communications for the mobile worker," says Fritz Jordan, an
analyst with wireless consulting firm MobileTrax in
Emeryville, California.
Actually, many of the newer-or, at least, the more widely
available-phone features are of considerable value to the
business-minded mobile user. "We are seeing a whole lot more
functionality moving down-market," says Michael King,
principal analyst with research firm Gartner Inc. in San
Diego. "A basic phone from a year ago had a little voice
functionality, and that was it. Now a basic phone has a 100- to
200-entry phone book and Internet browsing capability."
Some new phones offer a familiar face: Microsoft Windows. Models
such as the new Motorola MPx200 run Windows Mobile software and
allow you to synchronize Microsoft Outlook calendars and contacts
on your PC using a built-in miniature USB connection. Other newly
released models are marvels of hardware miniaturization. The Nokia
6800 looks like a cell phone until you unfold it to reveal a full
QWERTY keyboard. The 6800, priced at $150 (all prices street) and
lower with a service plan, lets you compose, send and receive
standard e-mail. Soon, Nokia promises, it will also use the same
e-mail protocol as the popular RIM terminals, such as the recently
released $450 BlackBerry 7210, which sports a high-resolution color
screen.
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