OQO Ultra-Portable Impresses At CES

carpoolio writes "One of the most-talked about gadgets at CES last week was the OQO ultra personal computer (uPC). TechTV gave it a Best Mobile Device award, and deservedly so. It's a fully functional PC that fits in your pocket. Running on a 1 GHz Transmeta Crusoe processor, the uPC packs a 20 GB hard drive, 256 MB of RAM, and has a color screen that slides up to reveal the keyboard. The price? Sub-$2,000. Photos available on OQO's Web site. Similar devices have come and gone in recent years, but this one really looks nice." OQO seems to be slowly migrating from vaporware to a release date - a CNET News article notes that "OQO said Thursday that it will begin selling the device in the second half of 2004."

Comments

Re:That's weird

[Jeffrey Baker]

RS-232 is an extremely useful interface. If I had to choose a port to jettison from PC laptops, the parallel port would be my first preference. I don't understand why this huge and useless connector is still included on most PC laptops.

Re:That's weird

[Tackhead]

> Is that an RS-232 port I see on the side? If it is, why? Is there something wrong with just providing a few USB ports?

Data acquisition and sensing is one of the Really Cool Applications for an ultraportable. It's a hell of a lot easier for Joe Labgeek to h4x0r something together that talks RS-232 than USB. I'm glad there's at least one "legacy" port.

Re:I checked this out a couple days ago...

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I guess I am a niche buyer. But this is exactly what I'm looking for. Laptops are too big, PDAs don't have enough power (and also can't run x86 code).

I'd take one and two docking stations (one for home and one for work), but it has to run Linux.

So tired of waiting.

[Hexydes]

The said this thing would be out in late 2002, early 2003, late 2003, early 2004, and now late 2004. Who cares? They said the price was going to be $800. Then $1,000. Now $2,000. Who cares?

Neat idea, but the company really sucks at delivering. At least update your webpage. They are only 3 months away from not updating it in 2 years. That's just pathetic. They need to invest in some more resources and a PR team.

Re:Uses?

[CarrionBird]

I use mine a good bit. Basic text entry and word processing, emails, light web browsing, and the traditional PDA functions.

Plus it doubles as an mp3 player and voice recorder. Basiclly I use it when and where I don't want to lug around all the stuff that goes with my laptop. I can fit the unit and keyboard in a large coat pocket, along with my cell if I need net access. Look at the Dana, basically a palm os based laptop. For some people, that would do everything they need a laptop for. For many others, it would be woefully inadequate.

It all really depends on what you would do in a mobile setting and if you can tolerate the smaller screens.