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.
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.
Oqo has started to ship a new model of its handheld Windows computer. Now all the company needs is customers.
The new computer, officially model 02, is a full-fledged Windows XP computer that comes with optional broadband wireless from Verizon or Sprint. It costs $1,499 and is available here..
The trick is that it fits into a person's hand, similar to those devices from Samsung or Taiwan's Hi Tech Computer Corp. (Hi Tech announced a handheld Vista-based computer this week.). Sony has a few in Japan.
Oqo, however, can lay claim to being in the market the longest one in the market. The company had a coming out party in 2002 on the eve of WinHec. The first models came out with a Transmeta processor. (The new model uses a Via processor, similar to some of Samsung's machines.)
It finally launched its product 2.5 years later, followed by a subsequent upgrade.
These computers are cool, but you don't see a lot of them in the wild. So far, I've seen two: one was owned by a chip executive whose job it is to sell processors to companies making tiny computers and the other belonged to an industrial designer. Do those really count?
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