Ultramobile PCs have always found themselves to be the tweeners of the mobile world: too large to be easily pocket-size, yet too small to be usable as full-fledged computers. While the landscape just a few years ago was marked with products ranging from Samsung's Q1 to the OQO, often costing way too much money, now cheaper smartphones and Netbooks have crowded in on either side with portable power to spare.
The Viliv S5, currently an import-only product, returns to the scene of the crime with a lower-cost Atom-based touch-screen device that runs full Windows XP, has Bluetooth and GPS compatibility, and even pulls up its own haptic-feedback on-screen keyboard. You'll need it, since the 4.8-inch screen's extremely fine resolution gets a little hard to manage. While a physical keyboard would have been nice (as would an SD card slot), the bulk of the S5's thickness goes towards a battery that boasts impressive life.
Read the rest of our review of the Viliv S5 UMPC.
And would you ever buy a handheld UMPC as opposed to a Netbook or an iPhone/Pre/Android phone? Sound off below.
At least one Psystar customer has received their Open Computer, as I continue to await mine.
(Credit: Psystar)
Mac clones large and small are popping up all over the place these days.
Psystar has managed to get past a tumultuous week earlier this month to get Open Computers into the hands of its customers. The Open Computer is being sold with Mac OS X Leopard as a preinstalled option for Psystar's customers, in what is expected to at some point draw some legal attention from Apple.
Check out this video on Gizmodo of the Open Computer, which sounds like an airplane taking off, in all its glory. I ordered a unit two weeks ago that was supposed to ship on Monday, but I haven't received an updated notice that it has left the factory. My colleague Rich Brown in CNET Reviews is also expecting a review unit for a formal review of the product, so watch for that in the coming days.
Engadget also found video of the Oqo handheld computer running Mac OS X Leopard, the result of a project undertaken by a forum member at Oqo Talk. I wouldn't call the Oqo Leopard model ideal, as it takes a full 2 minutes and 30 seconds for the system to boot. But if you wanted a preview of a future Mac mobile Internet device, this might be it.
The Oqo was novel when the company first debuted: a small, ultra portable PC weighing 1 pound with slide-out QWERTY keyboard. But that was eight years ago.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a little feature Monday on the latest model ("latest" being relative since it actually launched in March of last year), in which it describes how the Oqo is being forced to "defend its niche" against the rise of the mini-notebook from the likes of Asus and Hewlett-Packard. The company cut the price, added Microsoft Vista, and bumped up the storage in September. The Oqo Model 02 is now $1,300.
With the rise of the mini-notebook, the UMPC is essentially toast.
(Credit: Oqo)The Chronicle also reports the company is doing $20 million in sales these days, after a lot of early hiccups, and boasts some high-profile customers, like Craigslist's Craig Newmark. While that's admirable, it's certainly not going to be enough.
We've reported on the rise of the inexpensive mini-notebook, and consumers are clearly finding them compelling as a secondary machine. Plus, the Oqo--and every other UMPC--has been hobbled from the beginning by high prices and an identity crisis, so Asus, HP, and soon Acer and several others, should have little trouble swooping in to eat Oqo's lunch in a fairly efficient and dispassionate manner.
To be fair, the Oqo is certainly pretty--the screen is bright and clear--but it's not very consumer friendly. It's heavy and with the slide-out keyboard, the form factor is more smartphone than mini-notebook.
But the biggest weakness of the Oqo is the price. Why someone would opt for the Model 02 instead of, say, the Eee PC, or now HP's Mini-Note, confounds me. The Oqo is $1,300. The 7-inch Eee PC from Asus starts at $399 with Windows XP, and though the keys are tiny, functions more like laptop and isn't that much bigger than the Oqo. The Mini-Note from HP comes with Vista starting at $599.
Speaking strictly in terms of technology, what Oqo has done to fit a full PC into such a small package is obviously impressive. But usability and having a distinct usage category are so much more important when looking for mainstream consumer success in the gadget world.
Via Technologies is shipping samples of the new Isaiah processor targeted at low-cost compact computers.
Via Isaiah Architecture die plot
(Credit: Via Technologies)Via's current C7 processor is already used by Everex in its CloudBook, by OQO in the Model 02, and by Hewlett-Packard in thin-client computers and in certain models that the computer maker sells in China. Both the C7 and Isaiah are x86-compatible processors, meaning they can run the same software that Intel amd AMD chips do.
Samples of the Isaiah-architecture-based x86 chips are now being shipped "aggressively" to customers with a release timeframe of May-June, said Glenn Henry, CEO of Centaur Technology, the Via subsidiary that designed the chip. The first generation of Isaiah-based products will be pin-compatible with the C7 processor family and offer two to four times the performance, according to Henry. Fujitsu is manufacturing the chip.
Isaiah is targeted specifically at the low-cost "thin-and-light notebook area," Henry said. The same market segment that Intel is targeting for the upcoming Atom "Silverthorne" processor. (Intel prefers to call this segment "netbooks.")
Correction: Isaiah's TDP (Thermal Design Power or power envelope) is not confirmed at this point. However Henry said that Isaiah will consumer more power than Intel's Atom processor.
Other differences include: Atom uses a more simple "in-order execution" design compared to Isaiah's Superscalar, out-of-order design. Because of this more sophisticated design, Isaiah may deliver higher performance than Atom, though independent benchmarking will be the final judge.
Via will need all the technological advantage it can muster just to avoid getting buried by Intel's marketing juggernaut. Intel is "formidable but won't take it all. We've already got design wins. The cost to a manufacturer to change their whole design is quite high unless there's some real benefit to it," Henry said.
Henry also noted that Intel is following Via into the low-cost, small-device market--where Via has been a player for many years--not the other way around.
Via is also planning a dual-core version of Isaiah but Henry would not provide any more details.
An E4 Camera Back from Megavision uses an OQO Model 1.
(Credit: Megavision)Hey, look, someone found an interesting use for an OQO!
My helpful colleague Stephen Shankland brought this to my attention. In place of a separate laptop, this camera back from Megavision comes with a built-in UMPC from OQO to operate the image sensor, and review and store photos.
Now, this product is definitely not for the casual photog, and neither is the price. (It's not listed, but is probably upward of $10,000.) But it is a creative use for the category of tiny mobile PCs that most consumers have shunned thus far.
Actually, Megavision, makes a variety of camera backs for medium-format cameras used by commercial photographers--the kind that take photos at 39 megapixels and create files 50 megabytes and larger--and most of them use the OQO. Check the rest out here.
Note: This blog has been corrected to reflect the new price of the OQO Model 02.
I wonder if it's OK to feel bad for UMPCs. They're cute, cuddly (OK, maybe not) and perhaps even useful, but unfortunately, not very practical. The PC industry wants us to buy them, but very few of us are biting so far. Part of the problem is how expensive they are--more than twice the price of the cheapest notebook--which is why the price drop of the FlipStart is fairly good news.
(Credit:
FlipStart Labs)
Not great news, though. Chopping $500 off a UMPC that was originally $1,999 is nice and all, but it's still $1,499 for a palm-sized computer.
OQO also recently lowered the price of its Model 02 ultramobile PC just a few months after its launch, bringing it from $1,499 to $1,299.
The FlipStart debuted earlier this spring and keeps its same feature set: it's still a 6-inch-by-4.5-inch miniature notebook, with a 1.1-Gigahertz Intel Pentium M processor and a 30GB shock-mounted hard drive.
It runs the full version of Windows XP Professional or Vista Business and has a variety of cool inputs, but it's difficult to figure out why exactly the mass consumer would need one of these in light of options of powerful smart phones that are much cheaper and more portable. And if power plus mobility is what you want, notebooks are getting smaller and easier to lug around.
Will a bigger hard drive and a slightly lower price tag move more UMPCs for Oqo?
Oqo has updated its Vista-powered handheld computer, and knocked 33 percent of the cost, bringing it down to $1,299.
Oqo Model 02 gets an update.
(Credit: Oqo)The San Francisco-based company has increased the hard drive capacities of both versions of the model 02. The entry-level went from 30GB to 40GB and the higher-end from 60GB to 80GB. Plus, now there's a 32GB flash-based option. They've also slightly upped the CPU speed to 1.6 Gigahertz.
But it has yet to solved the in-between nature of its concept. It's still either clunky yet powerful PDA or an awkwardly sized laptop. New CEO Dennis Moore declined to say how many have sold to date. He did say that the company has sold "thousands per month" and that the second quarter of this year saw more sales than all of 2006, as did the third quarter. The model 02 was announced at CES this year and began shipping in March.
Though $200 cheaper is good, the product likely be attractive to more customers when the price is in between too.
It's been a big month for the handheld ultramobile PC, or UMPC. We reviewed not only the clamshell-like Vulcan FlipStart, we also got our hands on the sleek and sexy OQO model 02. Both these pocket-sized systems run full versions of Windows (either Vista or XP), and fall somewhere on the gadget spectrum between an ultraportable laptop and a PDA-like smartphone. The same could be said of two other second-generation UMPCs we've looked at recently, the Sony VAIO UX390 and the Asus R2H.
Sony VAIO UX390
Of course, the story is rarely as simple as that, and the much-hyped UMPC platform mostly fails to live up the industry's (perhaps unrealistic) expectations. Thanks to clunky interfaces, high prices, and poor battery life, we have yet to see one that we'd consider useful in day to day real-world situations. My colleague David Carnoy says much the same thing in his column, provocatively titled, "Why you'll never buy an ultramobile PC."
The UMPC is still largely an idea in search of a purpose, leaving us with a series of concept pieces that look nice in a showroom, or as executive toys, but other than that, we're hard-pressed to figure out who the target audience is.
Each model we've reviewed has positive aspects as well as one or more fatal flaws. If someone could magically pull together all of the best parts of the different UMPCs on the market, add a decent battery, and also not make us feel like these delicate devices will fall apart if we look at them funny -- we might be on to something.
Sony's VAIO UX390 is an excellent example. The slide-up keyboard is handy, and we liked the multiple input options (keyboard, touch screen, and pointing stick), as well as the solid state hard drive. The device as a whole, however, is expensive, offers limited battery life and is a little too big for easy toting.
OQO model 02
The OQO model 02, has a great slim form factor and a large (for a handheld device) bright screen. Its keyboard is one of the better thumb keyboards around, but a pointing stick is your only mousing option. The battery life is very short and actual performance is somewhat sluggish compared to other UMPCs, making this a device that has the look down, but needs some work in the other categories. Even worse, the Sprint and Verizon WWAN-enabled versions have just been further delayed.
The Vulcan FlipStart, the long-delayed UMPC from a company started by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, takes a different approach. This device looks almost like a shrunken laptop. The blue clamshell design offers more protection for the screen and keyboard than the other models, but as a whole, it's a pretty big brick to lug around. It did however have one of our favorite features--a tiny 1.5-inch touchpad, which turned out to be the easiest way to manipulate the mouse pointer on any of these UMPCs.
Vulcan FlipStart E-1001S
In truth, all these machines are fine for Web surfing, which is what most people seem to use them for. From personal experience, working on a Word document (perhaps writing a product review) is a chore on any of these keyboards, but possible in a pinch.
While we await the release of the newest much-hyped ultraportable PCs--the Samsung Q1 Ultra, and the HTC Shift--we'd like to challenge system makers to combine the OQO's slim design with the FlipStart's touchpad and the VAIO UX390's solid state hard drive, plus a decent battery and a dual-core processor. Too much to ask? Of course it is, but we can dream, can't we?
I got a chance to play around with OQO's new baby, the Model 02, at last night's SF Tech Sessions meet-up, and boy, is this gadget hot. Well, sort of. It was surprisingly not that hot considering it was smaller than a paperback book and running Windows Vista.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
The Model 02 was announced a couple of weeks ago at CES, and the upgrades from the Model 01 are noticeable, especially the scroll sensor on the bottom right of the display, which makes browsing large Web pages like Crave a breeze. Its 800x480-pixel screen can handle a fair amount of apps and Web browsing without making you squint, but if you want to get closer, there are built-in zoom buttons on the backlit keyboard.
At $1,499, the Model 02 is aimed at business professionals who need a PC on the go, but with some pretty beefy specs capable of much more than just spreadsheets, it works well for nonwork too.
Last year's OQO ultramobile PC (or UMPC) was a great-looking, high-concept piece of equipment that was perhaps a little ahead of its time. Poor battery life and anemic performance kept the palm-sized PC from capitalizing on the system's initial buzz.
The eagerly expected follow-up, the OQO model 02, keeps the original's sliding screen design but adds upgraded specs; a new, ergonomic, backlit keyboard; and options for every flavor of wireless connectivity out there.
The OQO2 uses a VIA processor, up to 1.5GHz, and can hold up to 60GB of data on its shock-mounted hard drive, along with 1GB of RAM and an 800x480 display. We especially liked the built-in HDMI port for outputting to an external monitor.
The OQO model 02 should be available by the end of March and starts at $1,499.
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