I work as an online teacher, and enjoy a capacious desktop setup with a Mac Studio M2 Max and a 55 inch 8k screen (Samsung QN700B). But away from my desk, I’m an iPad user.
With airlines charging increasingly exorbitant prices for checked luggage, travellers are cramming more and more of their possessions into carry-on bags, which in turn must often be gate-checked as the airlines cram more passengers onto smaller plane. What is the business traveler to do?
Let me suggest you leave that 16-inch MacBook Pro at home. It weighs more than 2 kg, almost 5 pounds. Instead, pack an iPad Mini, at only 297 grams. For ordinary business applications — email, MS Office apps, etc — it is more than capable enough. Connect it to a large display, and you’ve got a tremendously mobile office. Here it is running Scrivener (my favorite word processing app):
Yes, the home screen is a bit comically large, but one could also use Stage Manager multitasking for a more Mac-like interface.
For just this purpose, ProtoArc has produced an outstanding travel companion in its Hub Mouse.
It’s an elegant design: solid white with a metal scroll wheel and centre button With attractive metal accents. It’s a nice color for those of us with other white input devices. There’s a USB-C charging port on the front edge, where it belongs. (Looking at you and the belly-port of your Magic Mouse 2, Apple!) Then, at the back edge, there’s a surprise: like a mothership discharging a landing craft, this mouse gives birth to…a handy little hub that expands a USB-C port into a three-fold connection: a pass-through USB-C (so you don’t lose that port), a still-handy USB-A port, and a 4k HDMI port for connecting a big screen to your Macbook or iPad.
And because the hub hides inside the mouse, it takes up no luggage space and never gets lost in a mess of cables and dongles inside your bag. With the hub, the mouse weighs 74 grams; without it, just 52. This isn’t a device that is going to cause your luggage to go over the weight limit.
Need to charge another device while using the hub? The hub supports 60W charging. Data transfer speed is 500 MB/s (5.0 Gbps).
A small button on the belly allows fast switching between devices, with two bluetooth modes and 2.4Ghz:
Users of Apple’s “magic” accessories will miss the gestures the are available on the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, but users of Windows will not find much missing here: there are two big buttons and a clickable scroll wheel in solid metal. The surface of the rear half of the mouse is ridged, matching ProtoArc’s design language for its EM01 trackball.
Cons: It isn't an expensive-feeling device: it's mostly plastic, and it feels like it. On my sample, there was some misalignment of the decorative chrome strip across the top. It lacks dedicated side-scrolling (but you can hold down a modifier key to do it).
Despite these downsides, it is a good fit for the needs of minimalist travelers. Next time I have occasion to fly, I will be leaving my heavier input devices behind, and take just my iPad Mini and the Hub Mouse.
Anyone have recommendations for a folding bluetooth keyboard to go with this setup?
