Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Topic / Kerala-floods/  Working on the go: the complete productivity guide
BackBack

Working on the go: the complete productivity guide

Here's a look at the gadgets and apps that will help you get in tune with the new requirements from your workplace.

Apple iPad Pro.Premium
Apple iPad Pro.

The new-age office doesn’t really need a typical building, a workstation for you to sit and a PC that grumbles to life when you switch it on every morning. The always-on nature of many professions means you need to be connected enough to access your mails and documents from anywhere or any device, and also collaborate with colleagues to work on the same documents. We take a look at the gadgets and apps that will help you get in tune with the new requirements from your workplace.

Gadgets

Apple iPad Pro

With two different screen sizes, the iPad Pro range is now a genuine content creation and productivity-centric device. The 12.9-inch LED (2,732x2,048 pixels) display on the bigger iPad Pro offers the highest resolution ever in a tablet. The 9.7-inch version’s 2,048x1,536 resolution screen is no slouch either and also gets the True Tone ambient light detection feature to tweak the display’s brightness and colour automatically. In terms of the power, the iPad Pro line-up runs the latest and very powerful 64-bit A9X chip and the M9 motion co-processor, putting them in the perfect position to be laptop replacements for a lot of power users, including even video editors and graphic designers.

Price: 49,900 onwards (9.7-inch version) 67,900 onwards (12.9-inch version)

Apple Watch

The fundamental idea of a smartwatch was always to boost productivity. But that message got lost amidst all the noise about the design, battery life and the operating system. But if you set it up properly, the Apple Watch can be a fantastic productivity companion gadget.

View Full Image

By running certain apps on the watch, it will save you the effort of having to pull out the smartphone every time and yet discreetly multitask at meetings, respond to team messages, manage work travel, manage calendars and use Siri to do stuff for you. Apps such as iMessage, Slack, Skype, Todoist, Trello, Microsoft Outlook and many more now support the Apple Watch.

Price: 25,990 onwards

HP Elitebook Folio

Hewlett Packard (HP) has spent a lot of time attending to details, and it shows. The redesigned display hinge allows the display to be pushed much further back. The aluminium chassis and silver finish give an undoubtedly premium look.

View Full Image

It measures 29.2cm x 20.9cm x 1.24cm, if you pull out an inch tape—this has a smaller footprint than the MacBook Air 13 and is also thinner. It runs the latest generation Intel Core M processors and the very quick M.2 SATA SSD storage. The battery will last just upwards of five hours in most use cases.

Price: 1,27,200 (W8H14PA#ACJ); 1,45,445 (W8H05PA#ACJ)

Smartron tbook

The tbook resembles the much more expensive Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (78,990 onwards). The magnesium and aluminium chassis looks and feels premium. The 12.2-inch IPS display (2,560x1,600 pixels) is bright and sharp, and does well in terms of rich colour reproduction.

View Full Image

It is pretty much an all-rounder as far as usability goes—be it for reading text, working on documents or watching videos. The tbook runs on Intel’s low-power consumption Core M processor and a very quick 128 GB flash storage—basically, you boot into Windows in around 10 seconds. The battery life is impressive—it lasts a day at work on a single charge.

Price: 42,999 onwards

Apps

Todoist

This is a to-do list management app, which has collaboration and plug-ins for Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook Mail as well. You create a project, add tasks to it, individual colour coding for each project, sub-tasks, individual due dates, and urgency settings.

View Full Image

The Premium version adds location-based reminders, a flexible label system, task search, add tasks from email, calendar synchronization and automatic cloud backups.

Runs on: Android, iOS, Windows Phone 10, Windows, Mac, Android Wear, Apple Watch, Chrome extension, Firefox extension, Microsoft Outlook extension, Safari extension, Gmail app, Web

Usage fee: Free; $28.99 per year (Premium)

Pocket

This is the best app for people who read a lot, and like to bookmark interesting content for reading or sharing later. Apps such as Flipboard, Twitter, CloudMagic, Feedly and almost all web browsers are supported.

View Full Image

While the free to use version should be enough for most users, there is also a premium version that removes advertisements from the library, saves links that you pin so that the content is available even if the content disappears from the Internet, and improves search.

Runs on: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Mac, BlackBerry, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Vivaldi

Usage fee: Free; $4.99 per month (Premium)

Prezi

This is a cloud-based presentation app for creating presentations and slideshows. As a user, you’ll be able to select from templates, and build your presentation within that framework, or start off on a clean canvas and build what you need to, from scratch.

View Full Image

You can add text, images, charts and even YouTube links. Prezi allows real-time collaboration with colleagues, and more than one person can work on the same presentation.

Runs on: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web

Usage fee: $4.92 per month to $30 per month

Microsoft OneNote

OneNote is an app that power users will love simply because it makes getting organized easy. It syncs all the content across your PCs, phones and tablets. A user basically starts off by creating a notebook, with individual pages of notes. This logical structure makes it easy to locate notes later.

View Full Image

There are fairly comprehensive sharing and collaboration capabilities that allow you to give colleagues (or family members, for personal notes and checklists) access, and let them add notes and edit. You can type out a note, or even scribble using a variety of colours. OneNote can also “Convert to Shapes" for hand-drawn art.

Usage fee: Free.

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 06 Sep 2016, 11:07 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App