Guess what the Fedex man brought me ;)? The phone (Samsung Omnia if you haven't read the title by now) actually got here really quick. Two days in fact when it came from China. That is record timing. I was also extra lucky in the fact that he came to my house twice today. I missed him the first time since I was at work but he came back later, which is great for me. So thus I have done an unboxing video for anyone that is interested and I will be posting my first impressions in a few days. Enjoy.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The UMPC is Dead
Just as the title states, I believe the UMPC is dead. The age of these fine mobile products with weird names (Samsung Q1 Ultra Ultra Mobile PC) is coming to an end. There are still some stragglers left behind still making a couple products but beyond that they are fighting a losing battle.
The original concept of the UMPC (or the Origami project as it was originally) was to have a portable, low-cost computer. Well companies sort of hit the "portable" aspect but they were far from the "low-cost" part, especially when they launched. The prices of these devices were $1000+, hardly something I would pick over a full sized laptop for that price, unless I REALLY needed something portable.
The first generation of UMPC's were all slates running Windows XP Tablet (mostly) and had passive 7" touch screen. The result of this was when everyone tried to write they would get vectoring. To top that off the OS was hardly mature enough to make use of the inking and touch screen. All of this combined with the high price resulted in what I can only believe as poor sales.
Now the second generation comes in and most devices now include a keyboard of some kind whether it be a thumb board on the Samsung Q1 Ultra or a small convertibale computer such as the Fujitsu U810. Still many people complained about not being able to type well for whatever reason (speed, comfortablity, etc.) and still companies could not get the price down to a satisfactory rate.
One such company did, Wibrain, with its $500 entry price which looked good to many consumers. I can only imagine that their first iteration into the market was a success to say the least as they will be releasing their new Wibrain L1 with an atom processor and other such additions.
Not all companies learned from previous mistakes and thus repeated them into a new product. One such is the Wilicom D4 which is A) Expensive at $1200 and B) Has a battery life of 1.5 hours. Jenn over at Pocketables currently has the device and through her use of it shows that it does perform well, but how can anything be "Ultra Mobile" with a 1.5 hour battery life.
There are still many, many more reasons as to how the UMPC has failed as a product but I am not going to get into that. I just decided to highlight some key concepts that showed the reasoning behind my opinion. I had hoped that the UMPC would suceed but they were easily beaten out by low cost netbooks, which doesn't appeal to me at all. There are MID's that will be coming out but I think that they will suffer the same fate as the UMPC. For now though I will continue to use my niche product and enjoy it thoroughly.
Sidenote - The OQO was released before the UMPC category was "created" so to speak so I believe they will still continue producing products long after.
The original concept of the UMPC (or the Origami project as it was originally) was to have a portable, low-cost computer. Well companies sort of hit the "portable" aspect but they were far from the "low-cost" part, especially when they launched. The prices of these devices were $1000+, hardly something I would pick over a full sized laptop for that price, unless I REALLY needed something portable.
The first generation of UMPC's were all slates running Windows XP Tablet (mostly) and had passive 7" touch screen. The result of this was when everyone tried to write they would get vectoring. To top that off the OS was hardly mature enough to make use of the inking and touch screen. All of this combined with the high price resulted in what I can only believe as poor sales.
Now the second generation comes in and most devices now include a keyboard of some kind whether it be a thumb board on the Samsung Q1 Ultra or a small convertibale computer such as the Fujitsu U810. Still many people complained about not being able to type well for whatever reason (speed, comfortablity, etc.) and still companies could not get the price down to a satisfactory rate.
One such company did, Wibrain, with its $500 entry price which looked good to many consumers. I can only imagine that their first iteration into the market was a success to say the least as they will be releasing their new Wibrain L1 with an atom processor and other such additions.
Not all companies learned from previous mistakes and thus repeated them into a new product. One such is the Wilicom D4 which is A) Expensive at $1200 and B) Has a battery life of 1.5 hours. Jenn over at Pocketables currently has the device and through her use of it shows that it does perform well, but how can anything be "Ultra Mobile" with a 1.5 hour battery life.
There are still many, many more reasons as to how the UMPC has failed as a product but I am not going to get into that. I just decided to highlight some key concepts that showed the reasoning behind my opinion. I had hoped that the UMPC would suceed but they were easily beaten out by low cost netbooks, which doesn't appeal to me at all. There are MID's that will be coming out but I think that they will suffer the same fate as the UMPC. For now though I will continue to use my niche product and enjoy it thoroughly.
Sidenote - The OQO was released before the UMPC category was "created" so to speak so I believe they will still continue producing products long after.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wibrain L1
The new Wibrain model definitely looks a lot nicer compared to the previous model wit the new curved designed compared to the old brick-like one. Many people thought it was hit by the ugly stick but personally I never had a problem with the design (though I would never be against improvement).
The Via C7 is now replaced with an Intel Atom CPU clocked at 1.3 GHz which should hopefully increase the power a bit more, though I believe they should have made it 1.6 GHz. I initially was looking at the Wibrain as a potential device but it just wasn’t “pocketable” and that is what I would want in a UMPC, if for no other reason of that then I would have bought the Wibrain as my initial UMPC. Well hopefully when it’s released I will be able to secure a demo unit and see how it compares to my OQO.
Courtesy of Chippy from UMPCPortal.
http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/07/wibrain-l1-atomhsdpassd-umpc-details/
The Via C7 is now replaced with an Intel Atom CPU clocked at 1.3 GHz which should hopefully increase the power a bit more, though I believe they should have made it 1.6 GHz. I initially was looking at the Wibrain as a potential device but it just wasn’t “pocketable” and that is what I would want in a UMPC, if for no other reason of that then I would have bought the Wibrain as my initial UMPC. Well hopefully when it’s released I will be able to secure a demo unit and see how it compares to my OQO.
Courtesy of Chippy from UMPCPortal.
http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/07/wibrain-l1-atomhsdpassd-umpc-details/
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tek is Home
Hey all. Guess what finally came back? The OQO ;). Took about a month and a little more. I finally get to spend some quality time with it again. I believe they just shipped me out a completely new unit since where the old OQO was damaged is now completely fine so that’s great =D. I plan on doing up a full review considering everything is working now so keep an eye out.
Also a new gadget is coming in, can anyone guess? Here's a hint: In Greek it means "everything".
Also a new gadget is coming in, can anyone guess? Here's a hint: In Greek it means "everything".
Friday, July 11, 2008
Samsung Omnia
I may finally have found my "all-in-one" device. This seems to be something I have been looking for for a long time now and it seems to deliever.
The Samsung Omnia sports a 3.2" with haptic feedback, a 5 Megapixel camera (Finally a good camera in a phone with a large screen!), and a QWERTY keyboard. These are things that I look for in a good device. Usually I must make a compromise for one thing or another. I watch a lot of movies on my phones in the past and I really enjoyed the experience. I didn't mind the 2.8" screen of the N95 but it sure as heck wasn't any iPhone screen so this finally seems to be a compromise of the two.
Also what I think is excellent is being able to text with a QWERTY keyboard. Sure it is on screen, not hardware, but it does have haptic feedback and I text a lot and I really do hate T9 with a standard phone keypad. As well the 5 megapixel camera is a huge bonus. Great point and shoot.
The Samsung Omnia, my phone, my PMP, my camera, my all in one device. Nothing is perfect but this seems to be the best compromise. I was initially looking at the Sony Xperia but the Samsung has a better camera and a screen that is 0.2" bigger, and when you're coming from a small screen world, every little inch counts.
The Samsung Omnia sports a 3.2" with haptic feedback, a 5 Megapixel camera (Finally a good camera in a phone with a large screen!), and a QWERTY keyboard. These are things that I look for in a good device. Usually I must make a compromise for one thing or another. I watch a lot of movies on my phones in the past and I really enjoyed the experience. I didn't mind the 2.8" screen of the N95 but it sure as heck wasn't any iPhone screen so this finally seems to be a compromise of the two.
Also what I think is excellent is being able to text with a QWERTY keyboard. Sure it is on screen, not hardware, but it does have haptic feedback and I text a lot and I really do hate T9 with a standard phone keypad. As well the 5 megapixel camera is a huge bonus. Great point and shoot.
The Samsung Omnia, my phone, my PMP, my camera, my all in one device. Nothing is perfect but this seems to be the best compromise. I was initially looking at the Sony Xperia but the Samsung has a better camera and a screen that is 0.2" bigger, and when you're coming from a small screen world, every little inch counts.
Day in the Life Of
Here is a post I made over at GottaBeMobile in their forums about how I use my OQO as well as some other thoughts. So I shall just post it here.
"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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