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OQO Price And Release Date Set
captainJam writes "After more than 2 years of development, the OQO is finally set to be released in October for a price tag of $1899. Initially the unit will only be sold through OQO's website. Those grumbling about the price should take into consideration that the OQO is by far the smallest and lightest XP capable handtop with a touchscreen, slide-out keyboard and Transflective display."
People who use this will have it bought for them by their companies, anyway.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
[Sarcasm]Gee whiz for only 1899USD you get a unreadable screen, with an underpowered CPU, too small harddisk, and battery life that does not exceed many lightweight notebooks![/Sarcasm]
On a serious note, what I do not understand about these companies, like the Tablet PC companies is that these devices are ideal complementary devices. Price the device at less than 1K and people will buy these devices. Price them near 2K and they will be niche devices that people will look at, comment as interesting, and move on.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Some intitial thoughts:
1. 256mb isn't terribly good. 512mb would be better. That said, it's _probably_ acceptable for the kind of usage they're talking about.
2. Who are they aiming this at? Photos seem to indicate business execs, which seems reasonable - they're the sort that actually use PDAs, and probably don't require huge amounts of multimedia power.
3. Docking _cable_? For nineteen hundred bucks, I expect to see an integrated docking bay, one with a slot that I can slide the OQO into. Specs mention some kind of desktop stand, but that sounds kinda cheesy, to be honest.
4. They need to make it a little more obvious that you're supposed to being using a Bluetooth cell phone with this thing for Internet access on the go.
5. Battery life seems like it's on the low side - 3 hours just isn't all that long anymore.
6. Security? If the corporate executive is using this thing, chances are he has some confidential info on it. An OQO seems easy to steal - is there any built-in encryption support?
So, cool idea, but a little too expensive. I could see this becoming something of a status symbol in the corporate world, though. "Think that's a PDA? Well, take a look at THIS!" Surprisingly, I think they've addressed their target market pretty well - replaces the Blackberry, PDA, and laptop.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Of course the price is high, this is the first one. The first device of its kind, in its size, with its robust feature set. It's new, it's revolutionary and nobody has one. Some people will buy that kind of thing regardless of price -- developers will buy it to design software for it, rich technophiles will buy it just to have one and people who have been waiting for JUST such a device, saving their pennies, are waiting in the wings to buy one. I won't doubt if they're sold out for a year, even if the thing doesn't work! The first SLR digital cameras were like that -- they cost THOUSANDS of dollars and people would snatch them up left and right. Because a few thousand dollars was PEANUTS compared to the time saved by these things.
However, if the thing is even moderately popular, expect to see scads of poorly made clones some time next year, followed by the introduction of a new "entry level" model.
Hey freaks: now you're ju