What ever happened to HPC's?

[cuteseal]

I know this is slightly off topic, but Darius' front page post on the Pepper Pad tweaked my curiosity. What ever happened to HPCs? You know, those flip open landscape "pocket" devices with keyboards...

I think they would make good companions... sometimes I wish I had a keyboard with me but don't want to lug around a stowaway keyboard. Yet another thing to keep track of.

I had a Psion Revo for a bit before the battery died, and I can honestly say that it was the most productive time of my life with a handheld (and I've owned Pilots, Palms, Jornadas and now a Ipaq H6365). The keyboard was an absolute gem, and data input was a breeze - and all in a relatively small form factor! Pity about the battery problem and too bad they don't sell them anymore - I'd buy one again in a breeze!

Whoops, got slightly off topic here... but yeah, why don't they bring out more devices with usable keyboards? The built in thumbboards are a good compromise, but what about real built-in keyboards which you can actually touch type on and get 60WPM on?

[surur]

Keyboards are making a comeback. Look forward to the MDA IV for instance.

Surur

[Kowalski]

the reason is probably the "hpc killer" ultraportable notebooks.
3-5 years ago you couldnt buy a notebook which you can easly carry around, have a good battery life and keyboard. so handheld devices were good choice for basic office use.

right now you can buy a very small notebook with decent battery life and great usability. i am using an asus s5 and the laptop weights only 1.3 kg and can do everything my desktop does except running visual studio .net.
why should i buy a non windows xp compatible device paying the same price?

i realy wanted to buy a psion netbook pro but the price of the unit is higher than my notebook! and the only advantage is the battery life and the size which is not much difference

[Jason Dunn]

HPCs are dead, and will never make a comeback - at least, not as they were. There are some limited enterprise/vertical markets where having 10 hours of battery life, instant on, and rugged construction are important, but when you consider that modern think and light notebooks are getting 5+ hours, HPCs don't make much sense. I think they could have been much more successful then they were, because it was the price point that largely killed them - they were selling for around $1000 USD when they first came out, which was quite expensive.

I really liked the whole HPC concept, but it just wasn't executed properly and in some ways, the technology just wasn't there yet (screens were crappy quality, CPUs were slow, RAM was expensive, etc.).