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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."
OQO 1.0
The only real change I noticed from the original spec was a 20Gb HD, vs 10Gb in the first.
--H
..The keyboard looks awkward. With the device set up the way it is, there doesn't seem to be muc provision for placing it on a desk to enter data quickly (well, more quick than dual thumb tapping)
It does look sleek and sexy, but not the most practical. It fills in where a power user needs a PDA, and it seems to have the function built in to become a desktop. But the problem is that it's filling a pretty small niche of people who want more than a PDA but less than a laptop. It's not practical to use this as you primary work travel PC as the keyboard is a thumb-board and isn't good for quick entry. It is an ultimate PDA... but you've got to be a pretty high-roller to spend two grand on your glorified PDA.
Sadly it's probably a niche market item. I hope they find a way to make those innovations really work with a practical product, but I fear they'll be innovating in the field but not financially leading it. I'd love to try one out but don't see it as a practical addition to my tech tool belt.
CharlesP
wordtrip.com
the specification seems similar to a nano-itx board, although the dimensions (145 x 86 x 23 mm) seem a tad too small. instead of modding a mini-server into a cdrom drive, you could mod one of these boards into a floppy drive. add a microdrive and the ports you'd need and you'd be well on your way.
Just image a large warehouse filled with racks upon racks of these things running as an OpenMosix cluster... Super (space efficient) computing at its best. ;)
Please, please tell me all..
"I don't understand why this huge and useless connector is still included on most PC laptops."
There are lots of printers and dongles still out there. You just know the one guy who can't run his old copy of 3D Studio MAX is going to be a whiner.
"Derp de derp."
Really, what are the uses of these kinds of tiny devices? Heck, for PDAs as well. They're nice toys but they lack power, easy of use and most importantly, a good use. I've only encountered a FEW situations that made me think "Yes, a PDA would be a good tool for this job." and that mostly involves truck drivers and route planners. For the rest I can't seem to find a use for these things. And I'm supposed to seel em for crying out loud.
As I see it, TINY computers ( PDAs and these toys alike ) are like solutions waiting for a problem.
Hate me!
Was also unveiled. It is based around an iPod-like module which uses the same Toshiba harddrive as the iPod and a Transmeta chip.
I saw this device Thursday and drooled the rest of the day. While the rest of the show seemed to be a contest in who could put the most flatscreens in their exhibit, OQO drew a huge croud around their tiny booth in the gargantuan Microsoft display. Having held it and played with it, i can assure you that it's not vaporware. And if it is indeed vaporware, then they've managed to pull the wool over the eyes of many exhibitors who all got to play with this very chic device. While form factor is great, the best feature, i think, is the power dongle, which extends the device well past a simple "not a laptop but not a pda" category that is growing. It has vga, rj45, usb, and firewire all of the same dongle, with usb and audio on the device itself....oh yeah, and it does just fine playing back dvd's...Quite the gadget.
Just as an offtopic aside, I love whoever designed the FW400 'arrow' connector. Nice, easy, visual cue for my users as to how to plug the thing in, unlike USB which tends to have a 50% chance of being upside down if you're not paying attention. I think the FW800 plug is a reversion to a symmetrical design ( oval-ish? ) - if so, boooo.
FW400 guy, if you're reading this, I salute you.
Back, semi-on topic, this photo seems to be packing ( l-r ) a docking connector, USB and FW400??
YLFIi would love to see a pc card slot so that i could use a cdma cell phone/modem in it. talk about a full featured phone! skip the p900...
but, in terms of the market you describe, communications are key. and, there is not a slot. What good could it be in that market? oqo needs to be a bit more focused on the market for this product. fujitsu has been doing this for years, and some of the palmtop pc profiles are downright strange, yet driven by customer needs... barcode readers, technician equipment...
my wishlist would be: tablet pc driven, higher capacity hard disk, pc card slot for a cell phone, and a decent graphics card. battery capacity can be added by battery packs when needed. most people don't need the processor speed, but want to drive a decent monitor, though a 1ghz transmeta is so 2 years ago, not nine months from now.
They should be ditching ALL the legacy PC ports, and just putting USB on it. You can get many combinations of parallel, serial, PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard which will connect to USB, including all of them in a single dongle.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Subject says it all. I would rather not have the RS-232 port.