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.
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?
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