8 New Notebooks For Road Warriors

Once upon a time, notebook computers were a specialist's tool, restricted to an exclusive group of heavily traveled workers for whom the deployment of expensive and fragile equipment was cost-effective. No more. With plentiful broadband and continuing improvements in remote access and communications technologies, almost anyone can be a mobile worker.

A recent study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 68 percent of corporate executives surveyed considered more than 10 percent of their employees to be "mobile workers," and 28 percent considered more than one-third of their workforce mobile. The same study found that one-third of executives believed that only specialized workers need to be mobile. As the price, performance and durability of various notebooks begin to approach those of desktops, it's beginning to make less business sense to keep people tethered to an office.

Slide Show: 8 Noteworthy Notebooks

"Mobility has become ubiquitous," says Kevin Roberts, product manager with Toshiba's Digital Products division. "Businesses have come to expect the added productivity that comes from keeping workers mobile. Toshiba wants me to have a notebook because I can take it home with me and still be productive there, and we don't have to stop e-mailing just because it's after hours."

Every major notebook vendor has launched new products in recent weeks. Market leader Hewlett-Packard, which shipped 18 percent of all notebooks worldwide in 2006, released new models earlier this month to capitalize on Intel's new Santa Rosa platform, as did Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer and Fujitsu.

Durability has also been a major driver in new product design. Panasonic, whose high-margin ruggedized notebooks drove the fastest channel revenue growth of any notebook vendor in 2006, launched new lower-priced "business rugged" models in April. Dell, No. 2 with 17 percent of global units shipped, announced its own ruggedized model in January. Lenovo has heavily promoted durability features in its new Santa Rosa line, including a "roll cage" to help protect the LCD screen, while HP has highlighted that it had avoided the battery recalls that have recently plagued other vendors.

Different Users, Different Needs

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What was once a relatively uniform user base has split up into several different subgroups, each with its own usage profile and demands for functionality. Vendors have followed suit, providing a plethora of product models with a wide variety of different combinations of functionality and price points. In practice, however, notebook users can be loosely grouped into three broad categories: road warriors, desktop-replacement users and field users.

The classic business traveler--the road warrior--hasn't disappeared, but may not always be in the driver's seat as far as the notebook market is concerned. This user base continues to grow as businesses take advantage of new mobile technology by expecting a more diverse group of employees to travel, but most of those users were early adopters, and have been relying on their notebooks for years.

Knowledgeable users expecting to use their notebooks to address a well-defined set of needs, road warriors can often demand more expensive hardware from their employers. They know what to expect from a notebook and are looking to milk every last drop of functionality out of theirs. Which precise mix of features they're looking for, however, can vary significantly depending on their precise job descriptions.

"Sophisticated users understand that they're making an investment, and are going to be willing to pay a little more," says Ann Avery, North America Commercial Product Marketing Manager at HP. "They're going to pick different spots on the mobility/performance continuum, but they understand the costs of not making that investment."

NEXT: The "true" mobile user.