Round 7: Networking capabilities

Samsung's little dream machine has all the capabilities of a Centrino laptop. This means you can take it to your local Starbucks and get online using a Wi-Fi connection. It also has Bluetooth so you can sync with your mobile phone without wires, or can use your mobile phone as a modem if you're out of Wi-Fi range.

We were quickly able to jump online at near-broadband speeds from just about Wi-Fi hotspot. Need to check your email while on a train? No problem. Want to log onto your office's Virtual Private Network (VPN) from your treehouse? The Q1 will let you do this and more without batting an eyelid.

It also has an Ethernet Local Area Network port, so you can connect to your home or office network simply by sticking a cable into the top of the device. Basically, the Q1 is as flexible as a fully limbered-up Russian gymnast. 

The Newton provides two PC card slots, but the Q1 has only one. These PC card slots allow the Newton to access the Internet almost anywhere in the world with any datacard that uses the standard AT command set -- not bad for a device that was designed in a pre-broadband era.

The Newton will communicate with most modern PC Wi-Fi cards for network access, and has an Interconnect external port supporting serial RS-422-compatible connections. There's also a built-in dual-mode infrared transceiver for wireless data transfer at up to 115Kbps (IrDA mode) and 38.4Kbps (ASK mode) within 1m. It might not be as fast or long-range as Bluetooth, but it's much less buggy.