The Test Center Shows Off Five New Products

Products reviewed included the Ruckus 802.11n Access Point, a Fujitsu LifeBook T2010 Tablet, Lenovo IdeaBook, Samsung BlackJack II, and the Acer Veritron Desktop PC (with WiFi).

Kicking the presentation off, Moltzen and Lynn hailed the Samsung BlackJack II phone as a formidable contender to Apple's iPhone, with business friendly functionality and ease of use. In particular, Moltzen said, the smart phone tested with several hours of talk time, extensive battery life and a 2 mega pixel camera.

"The battery life really outpaces battery life on handheld devices we've looked at recently," said Moltzen.

While primarily a consumer product, Moltzen pointed out to solution providers that their enterprise customers will likely be using it to access corporate data in a remote setting.

"When you talk to your customers about their mobility solution, whether it's going to be any other kind of handheld, this is your chance to talk to them about mobility as a complete solution, not a point product," said Moltzen.

During their presentation, the Test Center duo lauded the capabilities and performance of two notebooks -- a Fujitsu LifeBook T2010 Tablet and a Lenovo IdeaBook. Standing head and shoulders above its competition, the Fujitsu featured Windows Vista, a bright screen and up to nine or 10 hours of battery life.

"One thing that jumped out at me is battery life," said Moltzen. "You can take more than a full eight hour shift without having to stop to power up, which can be an aggravating situation."

It also incorporated an impressive handwriting recognition feature. "The performance is really great when it comes to handwriting notes from the pen onto the screen and having the software to translate it," said Moltzen.

Giving the recently released MacBook Air a run for its money, Moltzen and Lynn said that the Lenovo IdeaBook was sleek notebook aimed for the enterprise environment but with a few embellishments -- at its thinnest it was less than an inch and weighed less than three pounds. But despite is sleek appearance, Moltzen maintained that, "The CIO is not going to mistake this for a gadget or a consumer notebook. This is a business notebook."

"Certainly this is not your typical Thinkpad," said Moltzen. "For solution providers, it forces consideration (of the question), 'do customers really need to sacrifice function over form in a small form factor?'"

In addition, both Moltzen and Lynn said that they were impressed by the Ruckus 802.11n Access Point device -- especially with its design that included no external antennae. Lynn said that the device was an affordable and efficient for small to mid-size wireless network, exhibiting significant throughput and ease of deployment.

"You have to be able to detect intruders or random access points that come into the network, and Ruckus covers that," said Lynn.

Rounding out the presentation, Moltzen and Lynn also discussed the benefits of the Acer Veriton Desktop PC. While mentioning that sales of laptops have long since outpaced desktops, the team hailed the product's wireless capabilities, along with its elevated functionality and small form factor.

"The wireless functionality is really terrific," said Moltzen. "Having a small form factor desktop with wireless really makes sensewhat this does is eliminate the need for one of those wires which is the Ethernet cable."