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Updated OQO Model 01+ with USB 2.0 and More RAM
xanthines-R-yummy writes "OQO has announced the availability of the OQO Model 01+. The new model has more RAM and USB 2.0, which were probably the main deficiencies in Model 01." They now start just short of $2k but they still look very yummy.
Please, i need one :)
keep getting smaller till we dont have to see windows anymore
being a blatant slashvertisment (I mean, there's not even an article about it, it's just a link to OQO's website), this doesn't really seem all that impressive. Especially in the $2000 range, when for that price I can have a decent desktop PC (with better specs than this thing) AND a decent PDA. Do people in "healthcare and public safety" really need this sort of computing power at their fingertips all the time? And if so, shouldn't there be a better way to give it to them then that horrific looking mini-keyboard? Of course, I'm biased, I suppose.
Going back to school for entry-level jobs?
According to TFA, it's 4.9x3.4x.9 inches, which as far as I can tell doesn't leave a whole lot of room for batteries. Considering that it's running a 1Ghz processor, and a fairly sizeable full color display for a portable, that has to be draining on the battery. I mean, it looks exceptionally cool, but I don't think I'd want one if I had to recharge it every hour.
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
Now, what the hell is an OQO? The writeup was a litle* lacking
* little = completely missing any and all relevant information. didn't want to waste time doing a real writeup, eh?
I don't know about you guys, but I am curious to know if its been hacked to run Linux (pick your distro)...
It is the only computer you need.
I was wondering how this works if you need more than the 800x480 resolution built-in monitor. However, I checked the specs and you can get video out of up to 1280x1024 VGA. It would be nice if it had DVI out.
Bradley Holt
For quite a bit less you can get a real laptop like the Dell Latitude X1. This one is also very small and light but has a real keyboard. This machine is _smaller_ than A4, weighs only 1.1 kg and runs linux very well.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
Of course, the downside is that it's kind of pricey. But, given what else is out there, it seems to sit nicely among its peers -- it costs more, but it seems to offer a lot more as well.
I have a small portable video device, an Archos 420, and while I got it pretty much just for the portable video and photo abilities, I do know it would be nice to hop on the internet for various reasons without having to stow my laptop -- after all, that's why I got the small portable video thing in the first place.
Something like this that not only can play video, but also surf the web and do pretty much anything a decent computer can do is great for portability. But kudos to the company for an ultra-small, high-functionality computer that doesn't skimp.
"Soon"
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
I likey likey. Please buy for me! That's even smaller than my TC1100. In fact, WAY smaller
-Tim
A colleague of mine purchased an OQO to test in our work environment, and though it worked well overall, the MAJOR shortcoming was its VERY limited WiFi range. We could not hit access points with the OQO that we could easily hit with several PalmOS and PocketPC PDAs. This was a real deal killer, because of its limited range.
Also, while its all-in-one cable was nice for travel purposes (minimizing what you have to carry) it was cumbersome on the desktop. We would have rather seen a nice docking station/cradle instead of the kludgy "friction-hold" stand/all-on-one cable combination.
It is certainly a stunning and elegant device, but it still needs some improvements here and there.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
No, seriously. I've commented to them and asked a number of times whether it supports Linux; and until it does, I will stick with my Zaurus. (Actually I only have a C860, no 4GB microdrive or whatever, but I don't come close to needing more than the gigs of SD I have.)
Linux is not just a gee whiz thing in the palm. Having all your full-blown apps in your palm is far, far more useful than any stripped-down PDA apps could be. Firefox? Check. Thunderbird? Check. GIMP? Check. Nethack? Doom? ScummVM? Vim? Emacs? GCC? Perl? Python? Ruby? Checkcheckcheckcheck...
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
That is something I expect when we are linked to some guys linux box on his home broadband. For a company that I have not seen a lot of retail physical shelf-space dedicated to, you would think they would have a decent server and net connection. As others have said, for the cost, I would rather have a laptop.
For quite a bit less you can get a real laptop like the Dell Latitude X1. This one is also very small and light but has a real keyboard.
Err, duh. If one wants a "real" laptop, then one would buy a "real" laptop. This is obviously for those who are more sensitive to size and portability than $$ or outright power. If you aren't willing to make that tradeoff, fine, this obviously isn't for you.
I want 6GB!!
Err, duh. If one wants a "real" laptop, then one would buy a "real" laptop.
Right, but I don't think that is why the mods put it up to +5 "Insightful".
This is obviously for those who are more sensitive to size and portability than $$ or outright power.
Sure, but why make a tradeoff if the features do not justify the ~$2K pricetag? The only advantage this unit has over a PDA costing a quarter of the price is the screen size.
For me, VGA resolution on a 4 inch screen does not justify $1.5 in additional cost.
If you aren't willing to make that tradeoff, fine, this obviously isn't for you.
Judging from the comments posted so far, it appears that it isn't for many people.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Linux is not just a gee whiz thing in the palm. Having all your full-blown apps in your palm is far, far more useful than any stripped-down PDA apps could be. Firefox? Check. Thunderbird? Check. GIMP? Check. Nethack? Doom? ScummVM? Vim? Emacs? GCC? Perl? Python? Ruby? Checkcheckcheckcheck...
You obviously haven't clicked through to the site. This is not some WinCE POS, it runs full blown XP. So does it run the most popular office suite on the planet, check. Firefox? check. thunderbird? check. gimp? check. Nethack? Doom? ScummVM? Vim? Emacs? GCC? Perl? Python? Ruby? Apps that 90% of the population gives a crap about? CHECK. Checkcheckcheckcheck...
(This is a serious question. I'm curious to know)
Now, don't misunderstand me. Those machines look amazing, and I would love to get my hands on one. But, apart from the initial 5-minute infatuation, I think I would simply place it in a drawer, where I would eventually forget that it ever existed. But, maybe that's just me.
Memory was the primary thing stopping me from getting one of these. It seems like 512MB of RAM is the magic number for good performance in modern operating systems.
Now I just hope I can buy one.
+++ATH0
Is it the smallest, most powerful, does it run Linux? Not really? It's the price of a really nice laptop? Why is the link here again? What's good about it? I'm serious. There is no indication, just some gushy praise and a link to the company website.
It just leaves the more skeptical and seasoned Slashdot reader wondering who paid who for this Slashvertisement to be here. I'm not sure what's more lame, this or the Xbox ad earlier this morning... it's hard to say, since at least there was an 'article' ( and by that I mean IGN advertisement ) attached to that one...
I guess I'll have to actually get work done instead of read Slashdot today...
I'm not going to click on a advertisement, so could someone give me the cliff notes version?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I seem to remember OQO showing prototypes of (back then) incredibily small PCs four or five years ago. It seems that their products have taken too long to materialize, and in the mean time the rest of the industry has really started to catch up with them. In the end, I believe their target market is too small; most folks will be happy purchasing a Dell that's 25% larger but less than 50% of the price -- and all the time, the trend of miniaturization across the entire segment marches onward. OQO will become a small footnote in the history of laptops -- a great idea, but too long on the drawing board and not to market soon enough.
I demo'd one of their 01 models a few months back and signed a nice NDA that prevented me from discussing this newer Model 01. What's missed in the announcement is that the older, original 01's also got a free wifi antenna upgrade and from 802.11b to 802.11b/g. This change was emailed out about 2 or 3 months ago when OQO Ebay'd a charity OQO, but this means that the 01+ now has the extra RAM & disk storage, plus USB 2.0, but *also* an upgraded radio. Many, many people had complained about poor, directional issues with the original 802.11b radio/antenna.
:)
Engadget also covered this and mentioned the Model 02 that they hope to see soon. My NDA bars me from discussing this, but since Engadget spilled the beans, let's just say that I was told there'd be an "upgraded Model 01" before the end of the year and a newer Model 02 out before the end of quarter 2 next year. The Model 02 should have some significant updates including *possibly* having a different CPU instead of the Transmeta among other things. Considering the Model 01+ actually happened, I can only hope the Model 02 will be forthcoming as well.
I for one didn't get the Model 01 simply because I steer clear of the first generation of new devices like this. The unit I demo'd confirmed why I didn't buy one. The upgraded 01+ looks appealing, but I'll probably hold out for the Model 02 sometime next year. But once I get it, I'll be a happy man... I'll have a Treo 650 (Palm-based, not a Winblows version) in one pocket and my OQO in the other.
http://blog.mobileoptimized.com/
http://mobileoptimized.com/
I can get a Sony Vaio TX with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a 60 gig drive, and a real keyboard that weighs 2.75 pounds. No, it won't fit in my pocket, but it will fit in anything I carry around. It also has the two holy grails of /. It will run Linux, and it is liquid cooled. :-)
No, I don't own one, and I don't work for Sony.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
It's a standard x86 PC with a Wacom tablet built in. There are no magic wismos here.
+++ATH0
watch the video carefully...
that web browser it safari in os x.
they just photoshopped it in!
The only advantage this unit has over a PDA costing a quarter of the price is the screen size.
Actually I thought the biggest advantage was the fact that it ran full up XP. It could, in theory, act as a desktop replacement if needed. At the very least, it plays in a mixed (desktops, oqo, laptops, wifi/lan) environment MUCH simpler than even a CE based device. Plus there is the benefit for developers of vertical apps that they don't have to code special versions of their apps for CE (and be limited by CE as well).
Now is it worth the extra cost over a nice little laptop? Depends. My bro-in-law is a cardiologist and carries an oqo in his pocket. Can't do that even with the smallest laptops. He can run Windoze software specific to his field directly on the oqo. Extremely valuable to him where even CE is not an alternative (can't run the software) let alone anything Linux or Palm based. For him it's worth it. This is OBVIOUSLY not a mass market device. It's for those who have dismissed PDA's as being "interesting" but underpowered and with a sparse selection of software.
So again, how was the parent posters comment in the slightest "insightful"? He merely points out the obvious, this is a niche product and alternatives exist for those that don't meet it's customer profile.
I hear the Model 01++ will feature that neat 6.8 Ghz optical-quantum technology. They probably won't be able to fit a terabyte of ram, but I'm hoping for at least 512 GB.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
now THOSE were cool.. i mean i like this and all, but i wouldn't dare pay more than $1000 for something I could break so easily.. its just not practical.. although it looks pretty damn cool.. seems like the libretto had much more support .. i could only imagine what it would be like today if they still developed them..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
you're all complaining about this, that, and the other, but you're missing the most important part: It's cool and you cant afford one. Thats why you are blasting it. Nobody needs a computer. Nobody needs a PDA. Nobody needs a fullsize anything. You need food, water, and shelter. Anything else is a luxury, and this is just one of the many things on the list of james bond like gadgets that you want, but wont admit because you've spent your money on the food, water, and shelter.
It seems there is no decent middle-of-the-road. You either have something like the OQO, or you have some piece of junk that desperately tries to be a mac mini and utterly fails because it tries to include legacy cruft(I haven't used the serial/parallel/joystick port in 5 years... why do they insist on including them? Would it kill your business to tell the remaining .5% of dot-matrix printer owners to piss off!?)
Are there any PC makers that are a good system with the form factor of the Mac Mini? I'd love to have a brick-sized PC that I could easily move from a dock at work to a dock at home. I'm not talking about a mobo or case manufacturer, but a complete system.
I agree. I would rather carry a laptop bag than be seen carrying a man-purse to carry this thing around. I get along fine with my treo 650 for the things I always need available, like secure shell, email alerts, etc.
...because Plutonians are teh suck
> For me, VGA resolution on a 4 inch screen does not justify $1.5 in additional cost.
I think a buck-fiddy is a GREAT price for a 4" VGA screen! Did you mean $1.5k?
The basic idea behind OQO is to fill the gap between laptop and PDA. MS came out with tablet pc, but the jury is still out on that one. I personally would like to see something like a "Mini Laptop" that has the following essential features:
#1 Rectangular landscape screen about 4" x 8" in size, with a keyboard about the same size so the Mini Laptop can be snapped shut into a compact case no bigger than a 6" x 9" 300-page hardcover book.
#2 Runs full Windows, or Apple, or Linux operation system.
#3 Priced under $1,000.
Then perhaps I'll consider buying one.
Sun and Fun
Yeah, I would say that $1.5 is a terrific price! What was I complaining about?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I have to say I like palmtop/ultra small notebooks. I have ever since the old IBM 486 systems. However, what realy does this system offer over the Sony VGN-U750P?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If you are like me, the first thing you did is to check and see if Linux runs on it...
Linux Devices Review
Tuxmobil list of successful installs
and
Handtops guide to installing Debian
Note:
It is also possible to make it a dual boot (of course!), just in case you actually wanted XP.
I have the largest iPod made, a 2G 20GB (thick one).
It is 4.01"x2.43"x0.875".
The total volume of the largest iPod made is 8.525 cubic inches.
The total volume of the OQO is 15 cubic inches.
So the OQO is about twice the size of the largest iPod made, let alone the average one.
So, the OQO is about the size of an iPod if a Ford F150 is about the size of a Civic.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Twice the price of a very usable laptop otherwise, and with a keyboard I can barely type on.
Pass.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's a standard computer, just with teensy hardware. It'll even boot from a USB device, like a CD ROM, for example.
Still, *covet*
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
The biggest drawback to the the 01 model was battery life. It only runs for 3 hours, about what a standard laptop does. What is so great about a device that is finally small enough to carry around and use all day when YOU CAN'T CARRY IT AROUND AND USE IT ALL DAY!!!??? When it dies with an hour to go before lunch and you have to leave it on your desk charging over lunchtime, then it dies again before you even start the commute home, what the heck good is that?
For him it's worth it. This is OBVIOUSLY not a mass market device. It's for those who have dismissed PDA's as being "interesting" but underpowered and with a sparse selection of software.
;)
/. poster is a mass market device consumer. Any comment from one of the members is mirrored back to them by the tribe. You or I could find a use for this device (although I would have a difficult time justifying $2K for it), but the vast majority of consumers, as reflected in the /. crowd, want a general-purpose device that has tons of bells and whistles.
I agree with everything you have written here, but I was commenting on how the GP got to +5 "Interesting" (with a few personal oberservations along the way). The mod system on this forum sucks, but it works better than most other forums, so what can you do?
So again, how was the parent posters comment in the slightest "insightful"? He merely points out the obvious, this is a niche product and alternatives exist for those that don't meet it's customer profile.
Which goes back to your point about mass market devices: the average
I not only concede that your bro-in-law could benefit from this device, but I can think of a whole host of people who need to have a scaled down, but robust, micro-microcomptuer in the field with them to perform their work. Surveyors, civil engineers, and geoscientists could also use this device. The only problem is that once you start moving into that group of professionals, computing power requirements do start to impact the price-for-performance metric. If you are talking about logging data from an instrument in the field, or taking field notes to record observations, then a PDA works great - I use one all the time. But to move into the realm of a hand-held PC, I would need to either get more robust performance for the price tag (nearly 4X a PDA), or get a laptop.
For people who can connect easily (via Bluetooth or other WiFi) to external storage or computing centers, like physicians in a hospitial or clinic, this device could be extremely useful.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
If only this had a built in phone. Even if it was just VoIP software.
- as-home-computer) Discussed on Sunday - http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/ 25/1445212
Perhaps Philip Greenspun's vision of the mobile phone computer is getting closer.
Link: http://philip.greenspun.com/business/mobile-phone
Warning: This post may contain nuts!
I'd drop $3000 on such a thing if I had it available. This thing has a Wacom pressure sensitive stylus, it's comparable in size to a CD player, and it is powerful enough to decently run Photoshop, or better in this case, Alias Sketchbook.
It's a real pain in the rear having to carry around a watercolour or marker set for colour sketching. Heavy, clunky, and a bit of a special effort. This I could get used to just having with me all the time. Clip it on my belt and go. The fact that it's a solid, if not amazing, laptop is just a bonus.
You can almost tell that ex-Apple folks designed it. Granted, they've addressed the most glaring design flaws (by increasing RAM and adding USB 2.0), but the deal-killer is still the battery life. Unless they can come up with better battery performance (I think it needs 5-6 hours) at a lower pricepoint, OQO isn't going too much farther, I suspect.
And yeah, a Linux/OpenOffice version of this would be pretty slick. It'd cut their licensing costs, too.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The oqo is simply too small to be useful. The only real market is Cx0's who want to run powerpoint presentations on a nifty little gadget. They might as well bundle it with a snazzy magnesium-cased projector.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of... sorry.
I use a Palm(One) LifeDrive and am very happy with it. I think people are too quick to dismis any PDA that doesn't have a cell phont built in.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
The OQO has very good linux support (albeit officially unsupported), available from their FTP site. I recall seeing the lead developer's email address posted as well, for bug reporting and such.
And I've not even had my Model 01 for a month. Granted, they didn't up the 802.11 chip to support 802.11g, and they haven't had a magical increase in battery life. They also didn't change the digitizer, which I find to be too unweildy to use, ever.
09
They should buy 3 and write a small program that makes persistant inane postings to slashdot, run the slashbot on the third one and get rid of you.
I am 63 years old and I have never heard of it.
I've looked at this and basically esclaimed it's almost everything I want. In fact, if they added two features I would drop the $2,000 for it.
1) Offer a version with a 100gig drive
2) Offer it with a CDMA phone module for Verizon incorporated in it so that I can use it to browse on Verizon's broadband cell service.
And you have a deal...as I would feel at that point that I have true mobility and adequate storage.
Other pluses
3. Compact Flash/Micro-drive port...so I can read files off my digital camera's memory card.
4. A built in camera to go with the mic, and allow for video and audio transmissions.
I agree with everything you have written here, but I was commenting on how the GP got to +5 "Interesting" (with a few personal oberservations along the way). The mod system on this forum sucks, but it works better than most other forums, so what can you do? ;)
Ooops, in that case, it was I who missed your point. Mea culpa.
They are too late. The HTC http://www.htc.com.tw/news/index.html mobile phone / pda thing will really fit in your pocket and be less than haf the price and... well be bought by lots of people now all major networks (gsm) will be selling their badged subsidised versions in October.
Someone has to say it.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Yah, remember that sweet lil fing? :(
I miss Tandy
There is no entry about remedy tickets in wikipedia. Lots of results in Google but I did not find any explanation about WHAT THEY ARE, only how to submit, retrieve, etc.
What is a REMEDY TICKET? It is a law enforcement thing, medical thing, Internet thing or what?
My officemate has one and its annoyingly SLOW. It chokes when playing Xvid standard definition video and **pauses** for seconds when simply switch apps. My impression is that the "1 Ghz" processor is the Transmeta crusoe. BTW Transmeta has stopped making processors! Sept 2005 PC World: "Former Intel competitor Transmeta has reorganized its business around licensing a technology that actively raises and lowers the threshold voltage"
No wonder the Transmeta crusoe died. I just wish it had died faster.
I found
this thingie here (jasjar) when this article got me interested in these type of products.
I have to say, I have two beefs with most PDA/Phone thingies. One is the lack of 802.11 wireless support. The whole "YOU MUST BUY OUR DATA PACKAGE" is getting tiresome. And the fact that there is very little sim card support. Why can I not have two phones and just transfer my sim card between them when I want to change?
But these seem to be getting closer.
Does it run OS X?
You could easily do #2 if you had a Verizon phone that'll work as a bluetooth modem.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
Yeah....but does it run Windows
Just had to ask...
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
unless he's the chairman or a large stockholder as well as a board member, blaming one for a company's demise is totally bogus.
Nice surprise OQO !!! We all waited for OQO 02 but the new OQO 01 is certainly a PLUS :) .
Here is a web site that has more info about these Handtop PCs :
http://www.minipcs.com/
It is exactly what I want in a portable computer but I couldn't justify spending $2000 on it. $1000 would probably having me check for change in the couch.
$750 and there would be no question about me buying one.
I like the idea of a removeable keyboard for a tablet. It just adds weight that you don't use very often.
Incidentally, the discontinued Compaq TC1000 used a Transmeta Crusoe processor as well. Wonder why they switched..
For $2000? You get a really tiny screen, a really tiny keyboard, and a laptop's battery life. Why not just get a larger tablet based PC? Here's one I've played with that had about the same specs as OQO and is a really small, and usable, form factor. For about the same price you get the same features but a more useful size. No you can't hook it to your belt. But really people, anything bigger than a cell phone on your belt and you look like a real goober. Given that it comes installed with Windows XP Tablet Edition, and has no Linux support to be found, I don't know that this crowd is going to accept something like this.
The GP is certainly right to bitch. Some of us don't have too much time on our hands and we certainly don't want to waste what little we have by Googling FOR SOMETHING THAT MIGHT NOT EVEN INTEREST US.
There. I've used up my time-waste allocation for today on this reply.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
We just ordered a couple of these for work to test out.
We are stuck in a bad position with PDA's (PPC and Zaurus).
The problem is we have a mobile workforce that needs a handheld form factor, with fairly complex (in house built) applications. Tablets are too big. The device has to have the option of "being holstered" to allow for the workforce to do more tradional gets your hands dirty type of work between data collection sessions
The PPC memory base is about 64 meg split between storage and memory. Fairly complex database driven applications can eat through that memory in no time especially if the particular user base has more than one application that they need to switch back and forth from.
The OQO seems tempting, because there would be no more need to "port" the parent applications to the PPC or Zaurus. And there would be no more need for the "feature" and asthetic tradeoffs that you have when you port to a device with 320x240 display and 32 megs of memory.
Sure battery life is a concern -- but when our user base can plug into a car charger betweeen work sites, it should be minimal. (The battery life of a PPC with the backlight on and constant usage is not exactlly anything to write about anyway....)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
the active pressure-sensitive touchscreen on the Latitude X1, and I'll agree with you :)
+++ATH0
Maybe instead of Remedy you should use something like Request Tracker - it's web-based, clean interface, and completely open.