Origami Feedback Mixed, says Samsung

Ben Camm-Jones writes "Citing a mixture of reactions from customers who bought its Q1 device, Samsung has said that the pre-launch teaser campaign run by Microsoft about the Origami project may have been misleading."

Comments

Re:MS Vaporware??? Never!

[ExKoopaTroopa]

Nor have they ever released vaporware.

By definition vaporware is never released ...

Hype? NO WAY!

[ELProphet]

So, Microsoft hyped a product (that seems to do take a good jab at it's niche), and someone says it *looked* like it might have done something else. When I see an add for a BigMac on TV, and go in to buy one, it's not *as* big or *as* juicy as in the commercial, but still worth it. So, marketers promoted a product? Big deal.

Battery Life

[VikingThunder]

I think it all comes down to battery technology. We don't have the battery tehnology to make something like Origami really useful yet. IMO, it needs to have at least 8 hours of battery life at the minimum.

Re:Battery Life

[EvanED]

IMO, it needs to have at least 8 hours of battery life at the minimum.

Why? Your typical work day is what, 8 hours. Are you gonna be using the thing all day? Samsung's website says that the battery life of the Q1 should be about 3.5 hours. Even if you're using the thing half the time, that should be plenty. And it seems to me like the half would be high.

There are times when a longer battery would be really nice, like for plane rides and stuff, but for day to day operation, 3.5 hrs isn't low enough to be a deal breaker. I mean, laptops have battery lives of under that often, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone say they're
not useful.

Re:Battery Life

[misterhypno]

Coinsider people who actually work in the field, as opposed to the cublcle-bound workers. With a battery life of only two hours, this thing is essentially useless for these folks. Another issue seems to be the problem of having to power up Windows simply to run the mp3 player, which, in this day and age, is pretty silly, not to mention wasteful.

So, until this critter actually has a useful battery life, people who actually work in the field, away from the office, like sales professionals, engineering types, inspectors, law enforcement professionals, utility workers, field service agents, and the like will have little use for Origami. Even people who attend trade shows would have a hard time using this thing as they would have to find outlets on a pretty regular basis, instead of being able to wander the show and actually make USE of it for taking notes, like it's supposed to be used. Origami seems to be a bit flat yet for any practical field use. Lee Darrow, Chicago, IL

Too impractical

[Wootzor von Leetenha]

When I first saw the Oragami teaser site, and read articles speculating what it was, i thought it was that blue and white cell phone looking thing that folded into a few different combinations (i can't find a picture right now...can someone help?). Then when the countdown was over, they showed this honking thing, basically a bit smaller than a tablet pc. There is no market for that. It's still too big. Anything bigger than a cell phone is too big to be convenient. Similarly, anything bigger than a cell phone should probably have been designed and marketed as a non-portable device, since if most people can't fit in in their pocket or a small clip on their belt, it just can't be called "portable". I don't carry my laptop clipped to my belt. It would have been time better spent if they modified a PDA to do everything these things do.

Re:Too impractical

[GreyPoopon]

Similarly, anything bigger than a cell phone should probably have been designed and marketed as a non-portable device, since if most people can't fit in in their pocket or a small clip on their belt, it just can't be called "portable".

Maybe it's just my age showing, but to me the word "portable" means any device that can more or less be moved easily from one building to another. All this means is that the unit must be self-contained and include some feature that makes it easier to carry (like a handle). What comes immediately to mind are the original Compaq computers that came in a case about three times the size of a lunch box. Because of this, anytime I see the word "portable" used in the description for a computing device, I immediately assume that it would require strength-training for several months just be be able to lug the thing around. It's a warning sign to me.

On the other hand, I believe the word "mobile" has the same meaning to me as your interpretation of "portable". I would expect mobile devices to either fit in my pocket, or clip to my belt in some way to make it easy to carry them without using my hands. I realize this all comes down to semantics, though.... Does anybody else feel the same?

A mishandled teaser campaign and a duff product

[99luftballon]

At the end of the day the teaser campaign was mishandled. This kind of product is a tough sell at the best of times - as shown by the relative failure of the tablet PC. Samsung have a good product, but at the price of a very good laptop it's a near impossible sell. People like keyboards for serious work and there still isn't enough processing power or good enough software to make handwriting recognition a suitable alternative.

But it was the teaser campaign that really hurt the product. Trying to run a teaser campaign that would grasp the news agenda at the same time as the world's biggest trade show like CeBIT might have sounded good but it annoyed a lot of journalists. At the same time the hints we did get on features were so inflated that when the final product came out it was a big let down.

Teaser campaigns are notoriously difficult to pull off. Look at the Segway for example. 'Ginger' ,as was, was hyped to the moon and back but at the end of the day disappointed. Maybe it's a sign of the tech market - we tend to like less fluff and more hard facts?

I call it duh

[zanderredux]

From TFA, we conclude that the degree of disappointment is inversely proportional to the exposure to hype you got.

It seems that the real problem was how badly Microsoft marketing managed the release of Origami, giving too little information at a time, which causes people to guesstimate wildly.

Despite this obvious rant, the only thing I liked in TFA is how I misread the sentence:

Microsoft collaborated with Intel to create Origami, which combines a tablet edition of Windows XP with a pen-based tablet computer similar in specification to a laptop.

For a split second, I read:

Microsoft collaborated with Intel to create Origami, which combines a tablet edition of Windows XP with a pen-based toilet computer similar in specification to a laptop.

What do you do with a toilet computer? How (and where) do you put the pen away????

Re:Too expensive!!!

[rhedin]

I'm not sure I can agree here-- I spent $299 + tax on my Nokia 770 as opposed to about $1200 for the Q1; while the Q1 is running Windows and has a more powerful processor, it's also much bigger. I can carry my linux based 770 with me wherever I go very easily (fits in a shirt pocket) and have had no problem using it anywhere. For me at least, the extra $800 isn't worth it.

rob.

Re:Waste of bandwidth

[mrchaotica]

The advantage is in being able to draw diagrams in the midst of your notes.

Incidentally, I second the O.P. -- the handwriting recognition in Windows Tablet PC Edition is really great. I tried it on a full-size Tablet PC, of course, but it should be exactly the same for an Origami device