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The 12" was wider than I wanted to begin with; the 13" is only worse. (For reference, what I really want is an updated Mac version of this, ideally with a tablet display.)

If they brought back the name without the features, it would be pretty dissapointing.

BTW the only announced pricing I have seen is at least $1000.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/03/09/umpc/index .php
"Samsung plans to put the Q1 on sale in Europe before the end of June. The device will cost around 1,000 (US$1,190), it said."

Exactly what does this get you that a tiny subnotebook would not? Except looking like a dork as you stand around using it. Even using my PDA to read a lot, I prefer to sit down. If you are sitting down, a small notebooks is better has a real keyboard, holds itself up even in your lap to watch movies etc. With a tablet you have to hold it. Compare the size of the Samsung UMPC to the Sony VAIO. Almost the same, I would much rather have the Sony. Fold it and throw it in a bag. This thing will get scratched unless you carry it in a case....

Size:
Samsung Q1 UMPC: 779g 230mm x 140mm 7-inch touchscreen LCD
VAIO PCG-C1MSX: 998g 249mm x 152mm 8.9" LCD (only slightly bigger but real keyboard, bigger screen)

Jpgs:
http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/03/samsung_q1.j pg
http://www.transmetazone.com/articleimages/transva ioc1msx_perpspec2.jpg

More stuff on the VAIO, I think this one never made it to North america, but the could bring it back using the UMPC chips:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1 058

Put the same processor in each, which would you rather have, tablet or submini notebook?

I was intrigued by the above post so I did some searching and I think he's refering to the Casio Cassiopeia Fiva MPC-206VL. Looks like a nifty little computer. I'm curious about how "SLOW" it is. If I had one I would probably spend 90% of the time using ssh and/or browsing the web and neither of those applications require a lot of horsepower and all things being equal, I would rather have a longer battery life.

Microcenter has had them in Sharp Notebooks. The display model looked like a very nice ultraportable (reminded me of a Toshiba Portege - wish the Portege came with one). Apparently Sony has some VAIO models with Transmeta them as well.

You can find some retail Transmeta systems at Transmetazone.com.

Actually, Transmeta does deliver pretty okay products. Yes, I know, you'll say with processors, Intel pretty much beat them up after releasing the low-power Centrinos. But they were actually one of the first guys to go for in power-efficient processing. They did mobile computing a lot of good. The very first laptops that really caught my attention were the low-power Crusoe-run Twinhead notebooks. 6 hours on 300 MHz was pretty amazing a few years back. They still do nice jobs now and then (see a nice article here). I still drool over the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series, most of which run on the Crusoe. I for one go for portability as the first priority for laptops. (I can always just ssh into my main box if I needed anything other than emacs.)

They also have a number of impressive cluster servers. Again, having low power consumption is making their high-performance servers look good, even among today's Blades.

Any innovations are still welcome. At the very least, it's nice to know there are projects who keep Intel working on new ways to be better. :)

Now about that silly name...

I remember the notes that I took on electrodynamics, quantum devices and other math-rich subjects... there is no way to convert them to text, ever.

Nor will you be able to for awhile, of course. Diagrams, formulae, etc. are stored as graphics. But the metadata text labels you place on those graphics can be converted, & allow you to search and catagorize those graphics.

In general, students won't benefit from the tablet PC.

O yeah right, I can't imagine any way for anyone to benefit from any technological advance. We really should go back to stamping ideograms on clay tablets, everything since then has cost much more than it has been worth.

It will be useful (because it is - these areas are already served [teklogix.com] by existing wireless terminals).

O yeah, no campus anywhere has thought of setting up a wireless network, and no one has ever released curricular materials for free... O and don't forget they can't be made to run linux while selling for less than $800.

Nope, you're right, college students will never want something like this, they like carrying around 50lb packs, spending $100-$500 per semester on books, and keeping all their notes on dead trees.

a little googling found this based on the crusoe chop, and it gets 9hrs off teh battery, i think the site said the vaio works off of the crusoe as well.

be sure to link pics of th finished project in your sig when your done, id like to see what you end up doing with it.

I don't slashdot often and I wonder if this amount of misinformation and conjecture is the norm?

Just to clear a couple things up.

-Transmeta has their very own distro of Linux that is written for their processors. It's called Midori.

-The Code Morphing Software (CMS) does, in fact, use some system ram. In the TM5800 it was 16MB. I'm not sure how much the new chip uses.

-The Astro is developed to merge high performance with power savings, not provide one at the cost of the other. The chip has higher performance AND lower power usage then their previous offerings.

There is a preponderance of Transmeta information at http://leog.net/ and at Transmetazone

And there's more info about the U1 on TransMetaZone

I wanted the Picturebook C1MSX because it has built in bluetooth and 802.11b. The form factor kicks butt. The reasons I don't have one already are: poor linux support for built-in devices (said bluetooth, camera, etc) and the really low 384 max RAM. I can't live with that.

Now, the Toshiba Libretto L5 I can live with. Similar form factor, no silly camera, 512 RAM, bluetooth, 802.11b, etc, etc, etc. It has been my experience that Toshiba hardware has much better support. Check out the L5 here

This company orignally announced this product a couple of months ago. A write-up on it and some pretty pictures can be found here and here. What is really cool is that the company was started by people from Transmeta and notebook designers for Apple and IBM. Their plans are to release this thing by Christmas, and with that kind of background I highly doubt they are just blowing smoke up the public's ass.

Nope, because the author acknowledges that the prices are too high. He could have pointed you to transmetazone, but not all of those machines are available, e.g. the Fujitsu Biblio Loox T5. And apparently the author only uses Windows, because otherwise he would have told you that you can buy from Dynamism with no OS. BTW if you want to pay for small and use Linux, see Emperor.

Good subnotebooks are hard to find in the US. Do your local electronics superstores carry a broad array of truly portable computers? Mine don't. It's pretty sad when the ibook is among the best options for a notebook (not that I'm dissing the ibook--it's a good notebook-- but it does weigh 5lbs.). Anybody looking for smaller machines has come accross Dynamism, so I don't think the author is promoting them unduly.

Transmetazone should answer a lot of your questions.

Don't forget the Class Action suit that claims "defendants made false and misleading statements about Transmeta's business and its principal product." That would definitely explain its current market trouble.

Find out more about the Class Action suit against the company here.

Personally I would prefer a device with CF rather than an HD but for those looking for an HD in a webpad/tablet PC there are options out there (currently the only Crusoe based one available in the US is the (rather expensive) Frontpath Progear... take a look at www.transmetazone.com for some more info on transmeta based devices. Or, if you prefer, go build your own touchscreen device, like this guy did http://www.cdp1802.org/touch/

quite, but then where else are you going to find a review at all, let alone impartial, other than at www.transmetazone.com

Here's a couple:

There are many others under development.

Here's a couple:

There are many others under development.

It's a Transmeta laptop with a CD-ROM and a fullsize screen, in the kind of nice aluminum casing that Panasonic has been using on their M1 laptop (and that Apple has more recently been copying with their titanium laptops). It has a 7 hour battery life, 9 if you replace the drive bay with an additional battery.

Check it out!

Jon

Look at all that info... geez... use a *real* server dammit, instead of that ColdFusion/NT crap.

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