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Microsoft Origami Unfolds
College Student writes "Microsoft has officially unveiled 'Origami', a paperback-book sized portable hybrid (laptop & PDA). From article: 'The new machines will connect wirelessly to the Internet and carry full-sized hard drives, but they are not intended to replace current PCs....The new PCs are expected to sell for between $599 to $999, but Microsoft said it is possible to sell one for $500 if the manufacturer selects components carefully.'" More details at the official Microsoft site, and via Channel 9 a look at the system with the UMPC general manager.
Why no physical thumb board? Surely the screen could have slid up (a la Sidekick) to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard...it's good that there's an option for the onscreen thumboard deal in the lower corners, but it's intrusive and unnecessarily difficult (I have to learn a new key layout now?). The alternative,of course, is the stylus...and although I recognize the versatility of a stylus, I was still more than happy to retire mine when I switched from Palm to Sidekick.
Is this thing supposed to be a phone as well? The teaser site touts Origami as the "go-everywhere, do-everything mobile device", but in the screen shots I couldn't find any phone software, and I can't imagine holding this thing up to my ear (until Sidekicks became popular, everyone looked at me funny when I answered a call, and the Sidekick is about a quarter of the Origami's size).
Does it run Linux?
No...seriously. Does it? Or will it in the future? The device looks great, but I'd be happier running Linux on it than Windows. Unfortunately, I don't think Bill will buy back your Windows CE license if you do decide to switch. ^_^
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You can almost say the same thing about it and the Newton. In many ways it's like a more expensive Newton with a very similar form-factor and even the built-in stand.
It has some plusses and minuses though.
On the plus side, it's color (the Newton is grayscale) with somewhat better resolution, and its wireless stuff is all built-in (the Newton has pretty much the same wireless capabilities but only via PCMCIA cards). It's probably got a faster processor (not clear at first blush from the specs) but I'm sure that difference will be absorbed by software.
On the minus side, the built-in stand doesn't double as a screen cover like it does on the Newton. It's heavier than the Newton. I'm guessing that with its color display its battery life will be nowhere near the battery life of the Newton. It's not clear from the specs, but unless they made some big changes its OS is unlikely to be as stylus-optimized as the Newton's, and since the stylus is its main form of input that's a big drawback.
Over-hyped yes, but this will still have a niche of practical applications. First, it runs standard XP, which means you can now have your standard business applications in a smaller form factor.
Secondly, it is about the size as the Day-Runner that I used to carry around with me in the early-90s. OK, so now imagine a leather book-style case (like the day runner) that will hold a fold-up USB keyboard and mouse. You basically have an ultra light laptop.
I think the real niche for this is to replace traditionally embedded one-application devices like inventory systems. You can now have a much more full feature general computer. So now you can put a shoulder strap on this, plug in a USB device (like a bar-code or RFID reader) do your inventory, look up items on the locally cached database, and run custom designed perl-scripts on the data right there in the field. You will also be able to get away from highly proprietary systems and instead have lots of competing software and USB devide vendors and much better integration into your networks (since it is just a pc).
The bottom line is that you can now squeeze a standard PC into a smaller form factor. This will displace some embedded devices in places that we haven't even thought of yet. At this point, I see very little need for XP-embedded or CE, if I can have the full featured version running standard software. And remember, this is generation one. Future generations will probably have even a smaller form-factor with more powerful hardware.
The killer product in this market is simply a wireless display. Ideally this would have a e-ink, some wireless adapter, a smallish keyboard, and a custom chip that does VNC really fast and efficiently. Then you can use the cell phone network to get your actual computer and all of its capabilities from anywhere over the cell network or get fast response over a house/hotel local wireless network. Or 'rent' a virtual computer from the phone company.
It would be light, disposable, rugged, protect against data loss, fast (if 'close' to your computer), have excellent batter life (10+ hours), etc.
If you don't mind keeping your drawings on paper and if all you want otherwise is to take notes, it's hard to beat a mid-1980s Tandy 102. (Lots of good info and links on that page, btw.) I'm dead serious. Up until a few years ago, I regularly wrote for publication. The gig required extensive travel and *all* I needed was something with a good keyboard to record text. For that simple purpose, these things are still amazing. Instant-on, rugged, super-lightweight, 20 hours of battery life from 4 AA batteries, exactly the right size to actually throw on your lap and get *real* work done - these attributes are nothing to sneeze at.
Compare the typing experience on a 102 to that of a modern PDA with an accessory foldable keyboard. Compare it to one of those idiotic thumb-driven toys. There is no comparison. If you learned to type the old-fashioned way, via a manual typewriter or, at best, one of those brand-fangled new IBM Selectric things, then what passes for a "modern portable keyboard" is a joke. In my heyday, I could pour text into my 102 so fast that the sound of individual keystrokes begn to get lost in a sort of clackety hum.
Right now, I temporarily don't use it. In two years, when I retire from my day job and start writing on the road again, you better believe my 102 is coming out of storage and I'm putting it back to work.