I seem to be in the minority, but I will buy one when I am sure the battery life and screen quality is good enough. My x51v did not have the greatest battery life, but a $14 extended battery solved that problem nicely! Now I can drive for 8-10 hours and use it with my BT GPS without power cables on either device!
Even if battery life stays around three hours, I would treat a microPC just like I do any other battery operated device. When I am mobile, I will carry a recharger and when I am not using it, it will be charging. I have gone through several PDAs and have never found myself lacking on power. When I had my HP4700, I slid a second battery in the case so it was available when I needed it. Even before I got the extend battery for the x51v, this strategy worked just fine for it too!
I run Office, Outlook, Visual Foxpro and IE on my laptop and because these miro devices also run XP or Vista, I see no reason why I would continue to lug a laptop. I am not giving up my PDA yet because there are times I need ultra portability, but I could see using a small computer like this in lots of places.
The fact that this concept has a real touch screen opens the doors for a lot of things a regular laptop or tablet can not do. For example, small children that can not yet interact with a real computer can easily touch and get a response from a device like this. Used with a BT GPS, it would make a great auto display. And, it is big enough for two people to watch a movie or view photos at the same time!
Yes, I know this is concept will not fit everyone, but the same thing could have been said when the first B&W Palm PDA came out. After all, who in their right mind would pay serious money to replace a paper organizer? If the price is right, people will find ways to make it useful.
Windows CE has never picked up as I think Microsoft or Bill Gates had hoped it would
I would have to disagree somewhat on this. I think you would be surprised to find the amount and kinds of devices out now that are powered behind the scenes with CE. In the retail and manufacture business I deal with, I can't get through a day without touching a dozen or more CE powered devices.
I know CE is used a bit in the in retail and other business and has grown quite abit over the last several years. I think Windows CE in general is starting to earn the respect from many that it lacked than as being a deversified applience OS, still it's not as populare as the desktop OS and demands less revenue than the desktop OS - so hence CE hasn't picked up like other products of Microsoft that has pretty much become the standard in it's industry- IE, Office, Exchange/Outlook, and so forth.
I hate to think that something that I can no longer imagine living without (PPC) is going the way of the dinosaur. I'd be happy to gain functionality (phone, GPS, camera, etc), but I don't want to lose anything. I wouldn't want to carry anything much heavier than my 4700, and I don't want to squint at anything smaller than a 3.5" screen. I don't mind carrying two devices (PPC and phone), and I'd also be happy if they were combined. Having the phone carriers in the equation doesn't help. Sprint and Verizon are apparently concentrating on teenagers downloading video or business users willing to pay very high prices for data; anyone in between is being ignored.
I hope there will continue to be multiple choices, and that all OEMs won't focus on just one device that they think will sell the most. Even though most PPCs are shrinking into small phone-centric devices, the last time I was at Microcenter they had several stand-alone PPCs, every one of which featured GPS as its main selling point. Sony and others are coming out with larger devices just for reading ebooks, and ipods are shrinking and growing at the same time. Obviously one size doesn't fit all.
The UMPC concept is targeted at the mass entertainment-consumer market, paying for access to volumes of incoming information and not generating anything but control inputs in return.
The UMPC is dysfunctional for those of us who need two-way information exchange. It doesn't have a competent input capability. It's a TV set.
I'll stick with my full-fledged-PC Sharp mini-laptop (with a 100% touchtypeable keyboard, running XP Pro, slightly larger than a UMPC but neither one fits into a suit jacket inside pocket so what difference does it make?) and my XV6700, thank you very much.
Regarding the premise of the thread, that if Mr. Gates kills Windows Mobile and favors the UMPC, Pocket PCs would be obsoleted...hogwash. Linux for Pocket PCs is on the way. Gates would be crazy to create a category of corporate-useful devices that no longer ran Windows and instead were dominated by Linux. That'll never happen.
The UMPC is a consumer product. Pocket PCs are not solely used in business, but that's a significant market. They don't overlap from a product management point of view.
The UMPC is dysfunctional for those of us who need two-way information exchange. It doesn't have a competent input capability. It's a TV set.
You are of course entitled to buy, or not to buy, whatever you prefer. For my part, every post I've made in every forum since June of 2000 (probably well over 1million words) has been made on a Pocket PC. Same goes for all my email, all my business documents, all my writing in typed form. I use either a folding keyboard or Letter Recognizer. Competent input capability? No problem. I see no reason that the Origami should fail to use any number of compact or full-sized keyboards, and that radiused thumb input looks okay for shorter written work.
The UMPC is dysfunctional for those of us who need two-way information exchange.
Actually, I'm expecting Origami will finally bring an end to "syncing" once and for all. I'll set mine up with a normal password-protected shared folder like any XP machine. When I get to my office I will fire up my Uber Powerful XP Desktop, but will simply be opening/editing files stored on \\origami\shared_folder normally.
So if I run QuickBooks ro PhotoShop, it will do any intensive activity with the full power of my liquid-nitrogen-cooled Windows XP 5Ghz quad-processor system with 9.2GB of RAM (OK, that's not what my real desktop is... BUt you get my point.) Then when I'm on the road, I still COULD open QuickBooks or Photoshop on the Origami to do something occasionally (or more likely just to refer to something like a QuickBooks invoice, etc.)
This really is the best of both worlds. All the power of a full desktop, no syncronization at all, and (thank goodness FINALLY LIKE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER FOR IT) full application compatibility.
Sure Microsoft is making some noise about data sync and "it's a partner device" blah, blah, blah, but they know what time it is and that's just to reduce expectations. The market is sick and tired of needing to buy an app for our desktop XP system, then a different app for the same purpose for our "mobile device" or (even worse) not being able to buy an app since no one wants to write that app for Windows Mobile which is like 1% of the market size of XP.
Two different sets of API's doomed WindowsCE from the beginning. Sure it will still live in some niche, as will "traditional" PPC's, but Origami's the way of the future and I'm glad to see it FINALLY happen.
And as far as the "it's too big" responses, the thing will certainly shrink in the future. There is GREAT potential for Origami hardware to get smaller and cheaper, there is little potential for WindowsMobile to ever run QuickBooks, PhotoShop, etc.
This'd be a really nice gadget to have...but for real use...no, it wouldn't work for me. I have a notebook for desktop/sometimes portable purposes, and a Pocket PC Phone for the true portability and to have emails, ebooks, music, PIM, phone and such with me anywhere.
Same with me. I too use a BA and highly satisfied with it. I dont want to lug a brick around. They dont look to me as "pocket portables" though :lol:
I'm a doc, and I would love to use this for my practice. We have an electronic medical record system and this would be perfect---if handwriting recognition can be used, ala tablet pc, and if battery life can be improved. 3 hrs won't cut it during a busy day of seeing patients. The tablets are nice, but are too bulky to fit in a lab coat pocket. Handhelds are too small to be functional.
As the responses have shown, each device will have it's own niche. Give me this with a docking station (keyboard, monitor, and external hard drive) and I'll be set.
Why is it that people keep beating dead horses like this?
Microsoft and some other have been reting to launch a laptop/PDA hybrid for fifteen years or longer and nothing ever seems to go anywhere. Why? Maybe it's because the whole idea is stupid! There's a market for a device that I can carry with me all the time so I can access my key information...that's the PDA/cell phone market. There's also a big market for portable computers with all the power to do anything I want anywhere I want. Why does anyone think there's a market for a not terribly portable and not terribly usable middle-scale device? I'm sure that you can find a few little niches here and there (for meter maids for example) but there's just no mass market for this and whoever thinks so (even if his name is Gates) isn't going to change that.
This reminds me of the endless attempts over the years to "invent" interactive TV and video phones. The sad fact is that nobody wants these things even though they can be created.
Come on Microsoft, stop beating the dead horse and focus on creating a platform that doesn't suck, isn't ridddled with security holes, and doesn't fall apart every time you look at it funny. That's a lot more important than this.
I definately want this. I would use it mainly for Rosetta Stone. I've tried and failed in my attempts to learn a programming language to write a pocketpc interpreter for it, and the Rosetta Stone company has flatly refused to develop one, so this is the best option, and its touch screen! That is absolutly perfect for my needs.
As for the battery issue, it really isnt. I'm either at home or at the office, and if I need to use it away from those locations, either I can steal power from where I am, or if needed I could get an external battery thingee to keep in the backpack.
True it is large for carrying around compared to the pocketability of the pocket pc, but the added bonus of being able to run full fledged win32 programs makes it all worth it.
1000$ heck no, I'll suffer my current setup. If they hit the 500$ mark I've heard predicted I will buy on same day.
There They Go Again
Linear Mode
