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Apple Newton vs Samsung Q1 UMPC
An anonymous reader writes "CNET has run a comparison between the 1997 Apple Newton and a modern Windows ultra mobile PC, the Samsung Q1. Remarkably, the Newton comes off as the winner. From the article: 'An operating system designed for a desktop computer will rarely shoehorn well into a portable device, yet that is exactly what Samsung has tried to do with the Q1. Very little consideration has been given to the differing priorities of desktop and small-form computer users. Windows is a one-size-fits-all solution, whereas the Newton OS is very specifically built for the efficient use of a small screen and stylus.'"
I have always liked the Palm OS the most. I currently carry my LifeDrive with me everywhere I go and I am very happy with it. People need to learn that they cannot carry their desktop with them in the palm (had to) of their hand. Instead of scaling down desktop OS and apps, they need to start small.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
mobile OS. Having 1 set of menus and a dock for applications would work really well on a vertical screen.
"Eat up Martha"
just about anything would beat the q1 in my book on battery life alone. 2.5 hours? That's just not going to cut it. Throw in the price on top of that and I just can't see it. I can get a nice laptop for less. This isn't that much smaller than one anyway-- they recommend carrying it in a bag.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I have no idea what M$ was thinking with these "ultra-mobile PCs." They manage to combine the speed of a PDA with the lean-ness of a full Windows with the spaciousness of a small screen, and the result is pathetic. They seem to be trying to doom themselves to a flop far bigger then that of the Newton.
I love my Newton 2100. I so wish Apple would release a new version. I'd buy it in a second.
Of course the Newton won -- considering that it runs software custom-designed for mobile PIM use, while the Q1 is more-or-less running normal desktop Windows (tablet edition, whoop-de-do), was there ever any doubt?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I wrote a bit about this before. The Newton does a lot of things well as it was designed from the ground up to be a hand-held device. As a consequence it's still seeing use, still seeing third-party development, and still more usable than some devices currently getting produced.
It's not ideal, either; it could definitely use a diet to shed some weight, and these days features like wireless, bluetooth, etc. shouldn't have to be added via cards. An evolutionary development of the Newton platform could easily beat almost any other device on the market today, though.
The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is "Never use a desktop OS, when your device isn't a desktop." (maniacal laughter)
How many situations do you know of where something that was a good solution to one problem has now become the default solution to every problem? It's the old saw about when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
When you choose Windows as your OS, every device works like a desktop. It doesnt' matter that the screen is tiny, you use the "desktop" metaphor and the "Start" menu. It doesn't matter that there's limited memory and a slow processor, you use the Windows applications (lite versions, but still bloatware). This is why I've never seriously considered a WinCE device, even though I've owned a PDA since 2000 and a phone/PDA combo since 2004, and two of the computers in my house run Windows.
I want something that's designed for the use it's being put to -- fit for purpose, we used to call it. If Microsoft's vaunted usability expertise were real, they would have abandoned the "Mini Windows" metaphor on mobile devices long ago.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
This smells fishy to me. If you were to run a Ferrari against a Model T, you'd expect the Ferrari to kick butt -- in fact, you'd receive some raised eyebrows for even testing the two together. I suspect there was some hanky-panky here from the start.
not at all. In this comparison the Model T has a traditional steering wheel and gas/brake pedals. The Ferrari has a laptop trackpad for steering and a strange USB device for breaking and gas that seems to get disconnected at random times and at regular times the steering will either slam the wheels to the right hard for no reason or fail to accept input.
THAT is the difference between a Newton and XP Tablet. The newton was designed from the beginning to be a non keyboard/mouse device. XP is designed ot have a keyboard and mouse and then MSFT slapped some crud into it to work with the other hardware.
It does not work (I have 2 Xp tablets, I hate the XP tablet tools, they simply suck.) and is unreliable at best.
That seems to be a very fair comparison to me with no fishyness.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
just in segmented form. It's sprinkled throughout OS X and the iPod. One can only hope that an iPhone would bring the bulk of that functionality and organizational power back in one device. And if you're really obsessive about using a Newton on newer technology, check out the Einstein project. It's moving along at a good pace.
This smells fishy to me. If you were to run a Ferrari against a Model T, you'd expect the Ferrari to kick butt
Unless the test included driving over a dirt road with ruts eight inches deep. The ability to go 200MPH is meaningless if your tires don't reach the ground.
Mobile coputing platform providers end up competing on features, because that's the only way to lock users into an upgrade cycle. And everybody likes a shiny new feature. But the truth is mobile computing users don't really need more features. What they need is basic capabilities, any time, any place.
The Newton got a lot of things right, and a few critical things wrong. One of the things it got right was battery. That satisifies the any time requirement. One of the things it got wrong was form factor. That fails the anywhere requirement.
It seems to me that creating a more powerful computer in the same form factor but with short battery life is a mistake.
In any case, the Newton is hardly a model T. It's more like a Stanley Steamer: an extraordinary and worthy piece of engineering that failed becuase it didn't meet a key user criterion. For the Stanley, it was the ability to hop in and go without having to literally build up a head of steam. For the Newton, it was the ability to carry it with you without constantly being aware you were lugging a computer around.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I have gone through a number of palm, handspring, and Win Moble devices and my eMate despite it's size is still probably the best one out there. For a device thats been dead for ages I can go wireless, use it as a email device, type a report without distractions, pull up index cards, and just about everything else a moble platform should do without being flashy and running faster than any of the devices I have used since. Quite frankly the MIT laptop SHOULD have been a redesigned eMate. 99% of what they are trying to do with it is exactly what the eMate did except was expensive at the time.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I've always thought the "Apple Newton" was an unfortunate name choice. I prefer the Nabisco product myself, though the "apple"-types appear to have been discontinued in favor of Strawberry and Raspberry. There's a new "Caramel Apple Newtons" on the market, though.
Should they be comparing the Newton with a minaturized desktop PC, or should they be comparing it with a Palm Pilot or Windows Mobile? It seems like the comparison is really between *cough* uhh apples and oranges. The Q1 device is clearly targeted at a market that wants power and functionality in a handheld, while Windows Mobile devices are aimed at efficient usability (or at least that's the goal). Anyway, this comparison is a non sequitur of sorts...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
"Although the Q1 won more points, the Newton was declared the overall winner of the battle and was crowned by CNET.co.uk in an emotional ceremony."
In other words, the Q1 beat the Newton 5 to 3. Although I personally think the Q1 should have won the Price point also as you can not buy a new Newton like the one they tested. So it just comes down to the editor being a Mac fan or Windows hater.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
(and I don't blame them, it's crap)
Here's an analogy: Q1 = PSP, Newton = 1989 Game Boy.
Of course the whole point of the Samsung Q1 is that it runs regular Windows XP and therefore Windows XP compatible applications. Obviously an OS specifically developed for a mobile format would be superior in some areas on a mobile device.
The Newton is essentially a big PDA.
The Q1 is a small tablet (laptop).
The article seemed most interested in their roles as PDAs. OF COURSE the PDA will win.
Let's compare the Newton with some good CE-based handhelds and see what we find.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
or was it: Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line?
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
Obligatory:
When was Windows a good solution for anything?
(Sorry, couldn't resist.
The allure and success of Newton...
I'm sorry, "the success of the Newton"? Are you on crack?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
For the Newton, it was the ability to carry it with you without constantly being aware you were lugging a computer around.
That and bad press as a result of a too-early release and a rocky start.
However, that makes the article's comparison that much more poignant, because it seems like the technology to build the Newton today would allow it to be about 1/2 the original weight and maybe 75% it's original size. Give it a color screen and WiFi and you'd have a killer machine.
The USP of the Newton was the way its applications worked together. The ability to write 'lunch John' and have the system guess the time and which person you were referring to is what sets it apart from most information managers.
The fact that this feature still is this rare is mindboggling, by the way. What have the world's application developers been doing for the last decade? The future's there for the copying, but instead we get more crap shoveled down our throats.
The Cnet article gushes over the Q1 a lot actually -- for a lot of bizarre reasons. Under part 1, design:
... hint at the device's massive potential."
"The Samsung logo at the bottom of the unit, the SRS surround-sound logo
So the Q1 wins for having lots of prominent logos? Logos = massive potential? I'm sure glad this guy doesn't design iPods.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
1. Lose the PCMCIA, replace with SD.
2. Built in WiFi and Bluetooth.
3. Make it slightly smaller and lighter. May require shift to AAA instead of AA. I'd settle for any size larger than any current Palm OS PDA but smaller than the 2100.
4. Give it USB instead of serial.
5. Make it work with iSync and define an open communications protocol.
6. Maybe a higher resolution grayscale screen.
7. Faster CPU.
8. PDF support and web browser in the core OS.
I'd buy the result for pretty much any amount of money up to $1000, seriously. I don't care if people in general want it to be less than $200, I don't see anything on the market that competes so I'm prepared to pay more.
It's a damn tragedy that the Newton was killed by Jobs. It's the one thing he's done that I'm still bitter about.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I've been using a PDA since 1994 when I got my first Apple Newton (later replaced by my Newton MessagePad 120) and I must say I've never found a suitable replacement since. Its quite sad, really.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The whole point of the UMPC is that it's a real x86 PC that fits in your, admittedly rather large, pocket.
The Newton is a PDA. Can you run Photoshop on it? No. Watch video? Not really. Store all your pr0n^C^C holiday snaps? No. If you want to do any of those things (like I do) then the Newton scores -1, the UMPC is +5
At the moment they're good at different tasks. If you want a PDA, buy a PDA. If you're after a PC that fits on your pocket, buy a UMPC (or a Vaio UX, or OQO, or...)
I used my Vaio C1F for many years, I also used a variety of Psion/PocketPC/Palm devices. The C1F I upgraded and want a replacement for, the PDAs were gathering dust pretty much as soon as they arrived home - for me a simple pocket diary works better than a PDA, as it doesn't require batteries, doesn't erase all your data, is smaller, and way cheaper. At the end of the day though, everyone's different.
The point made that a desktop OS cannot be easily shoehorned into a smaller place cannot be overstated. Software designs, all software designs, have a "design center" that is the embodiment of the environment the original developers envisioned when they made their design decisions. Go too far from that vision and you find some of the tradeoffs those designers made are no longer best, and now possibly may be very bad indeed.
The Newton's programming environment, based on SELF, was augmented with lots of supporting functionality that made creating high-quality applications for the device pretty easy. But, the MessagePads themselves (and remember: this was about 13 year ago now) had insufficient processor power for the really good stuff. Then again, think back about the kinds of junk that infested Palm Pilots and other hand-helds back then! If the MessagePad had been allowed to grow as a platform as all other surviving brands had done, it would have been a powerhouse.
Finally, as a developer, I must point out that one of the problems that all devices like this face is that developers hate investing time learning a new platform. The Newton faced an extra challenge in that you had to learn a whole new programming language and programming model, too. For those of us who gave it a chance, we found the learning curve to be reasonable and the results satisfying. For many programmers, though, inertia and sheer laziness precludes anything that ventures out of their comfort zone.
This last problem, the lazy programmer problem, has cast shadows on much more than just Newton MessagePad sales.
When all you have is a hammer, all of your problems start to look like nails.
Microsoft has poured a lot... a LOT... Of money into it's OS. They want to re-use as much as possible on it, because they want to:
1. Keep costs down.
2. Keep the interface as similar as possible, to minimize learning curve
3. Introduce as few new bugs as possible, and to keep bug hunting down to a minimum when they do crop up.
So Microsoft's hammer is its OS. And it is a very big hammer. Its not even suited to hammer out the nails that it was designed for anymore. So now to justify the existance of it, they have to invent new ways to use it. They also have to force existing users to buy the hammer over and over again, which just makes it even more of a problem.
I really liked my Newton.
But, I use a Palm m505 now. Why? Mostly size. Color screen is almost not relevant (well, there is one application that I find it useful in - EasyCalc graphing calculator, where I can plot multiple functions, each with its own color.). I could lose the colour.
Speed? The m505 is a 32Mhz 68000, its slower than the Newton. Still gets the job done, and the battery life is good.
Handwriting? I initially thought that the lack of cursive, and graffiti was going to be a killer. Surprisingly, it only took a couple of days to become proficient with grafiti.
Organizer? Here, the Newton wins. Hands down. All information is magically correlated in a Newton. The palm is to... um... "application oriented". It does have cross application search, but it isn't as good. You also have to be IN the application to do something. No random scrawling of instructions, with the knowledge that the PDA will take care of it.
Connectivity? the palm wins (at least with stock Linux distributions).
In conclusion, I use the m505 for its size and linux connectivity (out-of-the-box). If a Newton device were released that brought the size down to m505, and had an "open connectivity" kit for standard linux apps (openoffice), I would switch. Oh -- one more thing. The "IR" feature would have to be standard and be able to beam contacts, notes, etc. to and from my phone (which my m505 does).
The Samsung Q1? Not even in the same league. It won't fit into my "manbag". Its battery life is WAY too short. And its a remarkably poor interface for doing quick PDA things. I don't need fancy, I need super-quick reliable interactions. Even the m505 fails here - it takes SECONDS to jump from calculator to address book. Blech. The Newton was superior. If I need to tell someone "please slow down, my PDA isn't keeping up", or have the urge to capture on scrap paper first, the PDA has failed. The only delay with the Newton was the handwriting recognition -- and the model I had didn't allow deferred recognition.
My perfect PDA:
- palm m505 form factor
- 8+ hours battery life
- newton style software
- linux connectivity
- very fast recognizer, perhaps deferred recognition
- sd slot expansion (two slots)
- wifi and/or bluetooth and IR (compatible)
- vibration
</rant>
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Ask anyone who owned a Newton -- ok, maybe not the FIRST generation but the later ones -- and this is not remarkable. Newton's worked extremely well, and functioned as my only "personal" computer when I had my First Real Job(tm)
It's a shame really, because Steve killed them as much -- I think -- out of spite for John Sculley as anything else. I'm not saying I *blame* him -- I can only BUY a Mac because Steve did what he did -- but the motivation was very clearly personal on some level.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
The last of the Newton line. And I regularly use that with WiFi, networking, faxing, as well as any appointments I need to make.
:-(
I also share the opinion that the handwriting recognition on the Newton is the best I've ever seen. A friend of mine writes fantasy novels in her spare time and with all the weird names and spellings the damn thing had about a 90% recognition rate for her out of the box. And that was without a lot of training up front. And the thing learns so it's only going to get better.
Plus there's still people developing for the Newton - not too many but they're out there.
My only complaint is that the person who wrote the ATA/CF storage drivers wants almost $100 per Newton to be able to use large CF cards.
But from that same site people are even emulating the Newton on other hardware. That say something in my mind as to how "right" Apple got it with the Newton.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
I happen to love car analogies. There is no car analogy that can't be tortured to explain or describe anything in the universe.
However, in this case, a better car analogy would be to compare a '57 Thunderbird (Newton) with a '87 Yugo (Q1). Er, a really expensive Yugo. With a really small gas tank. =)
The latest is not always the greatest. People will remember the Newton long long after the Q1 is forgotten. Love it or hate it, it's a computing classic.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I wish they'd bring it back. They actually made a color version, but it never saw the light of day. They had it on display at Innovations at Epcot in Disney.
Color screens that eat batteries for lunch
Portable video to small to watch
Ability to run desktop apps that are too complex and are unusably slow
Hmmm...oh, and wireless connectivity, because every year batteries get better and everyone want's to stay in that 4 hour "sweet spot"
*shakes head*
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?