"So the OQO forum is pretty dead these days. I know they haven't really come up with anything new but it is nice to have some chit chat in here once and awhile so lets try to breathe even a little bit of life back here. If there are still OQO users out there reading this make a post about how you use your OQO in your day to day tasks and how does it still fit if you have been using it awhile? Do you find it a good computer or have u replaced it? What reasons? I would love to hear them. Of course I will post about how I have used it and plan on it. Sorry if this is a really long post but I had much to say ;) .
A day in the life of.... Mike the student. Wake up and hit the power on my OQO 02 (which is currently hooked up to an external monitor, mouse, keyboard, dock, etc.) while I go do my regular morning routine. Before I head off to school I quickly check my email to see what kind of junk I received or if I got any replies to ad posting on sale websites. I then check and make sure I have a couple T.V. episodes to watch during my boring class (more on that later) and download my Google Reader feed with its offline feature. I don't have HSDPA right now but I may get it in the future. I am still debating it but this suffices for now. That way I can read all the stuff I want to from websites without having to borrow a school computer. Then I put the little baby to sleep and throw it in the bag (with a belt clip case and double capacity battery) along with a standard battery (just in case) and a wacom pen. Now I am off to school.
While at school I only use the OQO for 3 of my 4 classes. Math is all done out of a work book. Right when my Social class start I can see my teacher moving the overhead projector around and I know that we gotta start getting ready to take down notes. I don't got much time before she starts writing and if she moves on and you missing something, your SOL. I quickly reach into the bag and wake up the OQO from sleep and grab the pen. Takes 2-4 seconds, nice and quick, if the OQO couldn't instant on like this I more than likely wouldn't use it and stick to old pen and paper. I fire up OneNote and open up a new page, full screen and begin jotting down notes. Now once and awhile the fan will fire up while I'm furiously writing and when I have the chance I double check that I don't have the fan setting on high. Generally I don't and it is just the OQO at work there but I do feel like people can notice and it may be distracting. After notes worksheets are handed out so I have no choice but to use a plain pen. I put the OQO back to sleep, and then begin receiving the “ooo's” and “ahhh's” from people and explain to people that it really is a computer, and eventually I can get working.
During lunch time I turn it back on and switch to portrait mode and read some feeds. Mostly talking to friends but looking to see if there is anything interesting. One thing I like about OneNote is that I don't have to worry about it saving after I close it, it automatically does it for me. I have notebooks assigned by subject and that helps to keep all my notes organized.
Next period is Chemistry. Generally this is an independent class. We have to teach ourselves as our teacher is incompetent but that is irrelevant. I have our textbook in PDF form and boy am I grateful that is one less book to carry. After awhile having everything in the bag gets real heavy so it is nice to be able to have it on the OQO. I have OneNote over top of the PDF so as I read and see anything that stands out such as definitions I will write them down and highlight them as needed. If I see a diagram I think is useful I will clip it into OneNote and I can write something else over top of it if I have to. I'll continue checking my feeds occasionally when I am bored. If I'm not making notes or reading my feeds I'll fill out an occasional worksheet but besides that, theres nothing else to the class.
My final one of the day is Career and Life Management (CALM). Absolute waste of time, but not totally. This is when I finish going through whatever feeds I haven't looked at yet and watch T.V. shows as I feel like it. I'll do some writing for my blog on it (now using the keyboard for the first time other than shortcuts) and post it when I get home or I will fire up a quick game of StarCraft to kill the time. A good overall entertainment device.
Then I am off home and hook up the OQO to charge and what not. Generally the double capacity battery lasts me the full day but there are times when I am running low so I would have just hooked up the standard battery instead. I finally sync my feeds, finish up any posts I started, and I just use my OQO as a regular computer for surfing and what not. I don't find this as a reliable primary computer as I have had troubles with my bluetooth keyboard random shutting off and messing everything up where the only way to fix it is to restart it. A major pain. I'm sure if I went and grabbed a USB splitter and used my USB keyboard it would be fine but I have been to lazy to buy one. If I want to study I can now refer back to any of my notes written down on a larger screen for easier viewing and no paper clutter or lost paper. I love it. And thus ends my day as a student :).
Now I have sent off my OQO to get the darn touch scrollers fixed and I hope to get it back eventually. I do miss it dearly considering that I can't lounge around the house and surf the web. I have to be tied to my desk to do that, it is a pain. Right now I started a new summer intern job as an I.T. for a company and I plan to use the OQO to watch videos as my internet access isn't limited there but I prefer any shows I watch to be on my sole machine.
Going back to school next fall though I do feel like I want to upgrade to a larger tablet. The OQO was my first machine to ink on it and I like it a lot but at times a 5” screen can be limiting, the fan can be loud, and sometimes the processor struggles loading large PDF files. There is no doubt that I still love the OQO and will continue to use it (if I ever get it back, week 4 or 5 I believe) during school I don't really need the pocketability. I know I will lose the option to have a math workbook coming back to school and will have to rely on paper again so something nice and large to do equations on will be nice (for physics as well, I killed many trees in that class).
For a future tablet I am looking into either the Dell XT or the HP TX2500Z. Both seem like excellent tablets but the deciding factor will be down to price from what I have narrowed down so far. I'll purchase it a little later down the road. I will mostly have to see what is up on ebay as up here in Canada, we get 0 (zilch, nada, nothing) deals on anything and no outlet to speak from either companies. Everything costs more for worse hardware and it is just stupid so I am holding out for ebay. I must plan to find a new way to integrate the OQO into my life if I do migrate to a full tablet but I don't mind, having choices is nice and I love technology."
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