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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."
can it run linux?
So soon?
Too bad it runs XP.
"Hey y'all, check out the 1900 bucks of spyware I gots!"
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
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!
I think devices like these have the most potential for the public using Linux. Each one has virtually the same hardware, so there would be no discrepencies with drivers. Appears to be an all around handy little box, and the price is fairly reasonable in my opinion.
I, for one, welcome our smallest and lightest overlords yet.
[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"
Hardware: Tiny delight.
Operating System: Utter shite.
I'm at the site now, but it seems slashdotted. I want the specs, particularly the screen resolution. (I'm wondering what the screen res is for this "smallest handtop device", particularly since it can run XP and XP made a lot of VGA monitors obsolete when it insisted on greater than VGA as it's lowest supported resolution.)
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
For that price, I can get like 20 junk computers and build a Beowulf cluster. I don't see the point in this.
The OGO, the OJO, the OKO and the OQO ...
OhGOd !
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
I can buy a mighty fine Tablet PC for less than that. Sure it will be a bit larger, but it has a _tablet_ behind the screen. I can actually write on the damn thing and it recognizes my chicken-scratch.
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.
The Wikipedia article needs some serious work. Calling all knowledgeable nerds.
Kills two vaporwares with one product release!
I played with an OQO at Foo camp. It is the real deal.
The display is impressively clear in both low light and direct sunlight. As a whole, the produce is very well engineered and the UI felt relatively snappy.
It does run Linux and uses the same hard drive internally as an iPod. Battery life is fairly decent, given computing power, and the battery is designed such that you can upgrade to a higher capacity battery that is simply thicker than the original (making the entire unit thicker).
The screen is also touch sensitive and there is a stylus slot in the top of the unit. As such, one could definitely read email, browse the web, navigate meetings/schedules/calendars, and read documents without having to pop it open to use the keyboard.
The keyboard certainly does not have the feel of a full sized board, but is surprisingly usable for the size.
One of the neatest features is the "docking cable". Basically, OQO will provide a cable that has all of the various different ports -- usb, firewire, video, etc... -- hanging off of it.
The unit has a cradle that you can leave on your desk. It has VGA out. So, in combination with a bluetooth keyboard/mouse and an external monitor, you can drop the OQO into the cradle and it "just works".
Certainly not a primary machine for gamers or developers, but a damned nice little device for folks that want a portable computing device that offers a more real computing experience than a palm device, blackberry, or the like.
Those grumbling about the price will get a laptop from Averatec for about half the price.
[o]_O
some vaporware that may actualy materialize... it it too soon to call half-life 2 vaporware?
> * Active hard drive protection that safely parks hard drive heads upon detecting freefall
*That* is freaking cool. The longer the fall, the more time it has to react, and the bigger the mess that it just avoided. There have been times that I've experienced that slow-motion "aww crap, this is gonna be expensive" feeling, and finally someone builds hardware that can protect itself in these case. Very nice.
It probably costs more than $950 just for the individual components. Be realistic.
+++ATH0
... how does one put software on this device? There's no CD-ROM drive! I didn't see anything like that in the video, either. Any ideas?
... will descend after enough corporations splurge on this to recover OQO Inc.'s costs. Expect it to be $1600 by the middle of next year.
+++ATH0
But you're insane if you think just the COMPONENTS of this thing run the company $542 in cost.
What the hell is the matter with you? There are PDAs that cost $600 that aren't a quarter as capable as these things are.
+++ATH0
whats the deal with them having an adjustable backlight on a transflective display?
i thought most transflective displays had no backlight.
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
Lets be realistic. This thing is really cool, and I'd love to have one. But I'm not about to shell out $1900 on it. I suspect most others will react the same way, with a "cool, but..." response. It begs the question: "DIDN'T ANYONE DO ANY MARKET RESEARCH ON PRICE POINT?" I suspect that it wouldn't be terribly positive. Now, if the price was $999 things might be different. It might become my favourite travelling toy. As it is, I'd rather have a Blackberry or Palm for those times I leave my real machine behind.
anyways 2 years later, they are still claiming to have a unit "coming out in the fall".
If you want a tiny palmtop pc, check out the sony u-series, available in japan, or via dynamism.com importers.
The latest of the incredibly popular U-series, the 1.2 pound Sony Vaio U70/U50 is the lightest PC on the market. Among its many features: multiple quick-launch buttons on its glowing panel, transflective touchscreen TFT and fin-shaped stylus, pointing stick, scrolling control, external foldable keyboard, corded remote control, 1ghz processor, 20gb HDD, Windows XP, and much mor
You know, some of us actually left their parent's basement and need to make their own money, strange as it may seem to you.
I wonder what would have happened if someone like you had managed to make Steve Jobs ashamed enough not to start Apple Computer in his parents' garage.
May we never see th
I dunno. If what you need is a pocketable Linux workstation, the newest Zaurus, at $600 or so, is probably a much better option. It will even run X-windows apps with a little work and recompilation. Is the Oqo worth $1200 in convienience? Will recompiling the apps you need for the Zaurus cost you more than $1200 in billable time? It's unlikely.
I suppose if you're tied to proprietary apps, or just want to compile x86 code while sitting on the airplane toilet, the Oqo is a fine choice.
Windows users tied to windows-only vertical apps but requiring high mobility (FSTs, sales reps, etc.) will adore this thing. It will also let you play Starcraft while sitting on the airplain toilet.
"Nuclear launch detected!"
Of course everyone wants it all for cheaper, but there are a few things to consider here.
1. This is supposed to replace a laptop and a pda for an executive. This is not a primary machine for someone who is coding or gaming. Email, Word, Excel, Web browsing, etc. These are the target apps, so the specs speak to that.
2. This is a new class of device. The price point is obviously high relative to PDAs because it's NOT a PDA.
3. This is Rev. A hardware. It's been two YEARS in the making. How long before they rev the hardware and discount these Rev A models? (Bigger HD, 11g instead of 11b, 512MB instead of 256, etc.)
4. Gimme this form factor with a 1ghz G3 running OS X and I'm a buyer. Windows does nothing for me and the last app I would ever run on a Winbox is Outlook, but I guess to each their own. Linux is an option, but doesn't the touchscreen need drivers?
LAST - This isn't news. But that guy from Handtops.com (the only two links in the summary are to Handtops.com) is a shameless huckster. I liked the site until he started shamelessly promoting it without any real news.
Hello All. Here is a nice web site that discusses the new class of portable computers ultra pcs : http://ultraportables.net/ or http://u-pcs.com/
I guess I'll have to release another of my children into slavery and sell some stem cells.
Re your signature:
Don't you think it's a little limited to suggest that the only time we can engage in a critical discussion of the administration is during an election? Not only that, but I feel that elections are the most inconsequential of the ways that I can participate in our democratic institutions. How much weight does one vote have? You should re-read Anthony Downs.
Ceci n'est pas un post
Yes, in fact I own one. Again, it's not a quarter as capable as an OQO.
No USB
No Firewire
No hard drive (HELLO, MCFLY?!)
No x86 processor
Do I really need to compare specs on these things?
+++ATH0
Scary that the entry level version will probably be at least a third more powerful than this one, while the new high end model will likely blow this one out of the water. They can market the entry level one at $999 and the high end one at $1999, increasing their profits for those that feel that they must have the high end one, and making a lot on those who feel that they need one, even if it's the low end model.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I have seen too many /. threads turn into an OS flamefest. I submit that /. must be a bot that causes discussion to go off-topic to this beyond-tired rant. Comments?
This post violates my copyrights Now I can never release my "Best of Dasmegabyte.org" DVD set, featuring out takes and shocking interviews with the penis pill spammers who comment on my articles. I expect restitution to the tune of $10 US, which reflects the money I would have received marketting said DVD to my mom.
Hey freaks: now you're ju