Log in

View Full Version : DualCor's cPC Blends Windows Mobile 5 and Windows XP in One Device


Jason Dunn
12-16-2005, 08:36 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Start-up+merges+cell+phone+and+PC+into+a+handheld/2100-1041_3-5997426.html?tag=st.num' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Start-up+merges...html?tag=st.num</a><br /><br /></div><i>"DualCor Technologies next month will unveil the cPC, a full-fledged handheld Windows XP computer that also comes with a built-in smart phone that runs Windows Mobile 5.0. The cPC is 6.5 inches long, 3.3 inches wide, 1.2 inches thick and has a 5-inch diagonal screen. It will be aimed at sales representatives and executives who travel extensively, said CEO Steven Hanley, who joined the company seven months ago. There are signs of demand for such a device. A small but growing number of white-collar workers have begun to trade in their notebooks for BlackBerrys and other handhelds."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dualcor_cpc.jpg" /><br /><br />When Pocket PC Thoughts reader <i>ecard</i> <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=43859&highlight=dualcor">mentioned DualCor back in October</a>, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. I thought people were getting it confused with <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=41935">Ultra Mobile 2007</a>, but it looks like I was completely incorrect. This device looks...interesting. There are definitely times I've wished my Pocket PC could do more, but I'm not at all convinced that I want a full-blown copy of Windows XP with me at all times, having to look after an OS that needs monthly patches. The cPC seems to address this issue by offering the user the best of both worlds. I definitely need to see how this will work, because having a device that does both well (with 40 GB of storage on it to boot!) is no small feat.<br /><br />Raphael Salgado, who alerted us of the story, offers us up some commentary about the proposed features<!>:<br /><br /><i>"It's a true hybrid Pocket PC and Tablet PC device, running both Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, respectively. It's target price is $1500 and they will offer volume discounts. Think of the price of the Universal plus $500 or so, but with much more functionality. It's scheduled for release in March 2006 around CES, comparatively very soon to market! If this files, this could blow away the entire OQO line and the Vulcan FlipStart PC, both of which are just handtop PCs with an average/estimated price of $2000, respectively. The OQO is already out (sporting mediocre battery life) and the FlipStart PC still remains vaporware. The 1.5GHz VIA processor would prove sufficient while maintaining good battery life, and the Windows Mobile side has an Intel PXA (XScale processor). While most Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC devices have 64 to 128MB of Flash ROM, this device will have 1GB of FlashROM for the OS, not to mention the 40GB hard drive, the 128MB of RAM, and the (separate?) 1GB of memory for its PC side. Now that's a lot of space! Its dimensions are 6.5 x 3.3 x 1.2 inches. In comparison, the Universal's dimensions are very roughly 5 x 3 x 0.8 (using a ruler to measure mine). It will be bigger than the largest Pocket PC Phone Edition, but the tradeoff of PC functionality and the likelihood of Bluetooth implementation for headset use may be worth the difference."</i><br /><br />So what do you think - a device that will rock the mobile world, and re-define the gap between Windows Mobile and Windows XP? Or another doomed-to-fail effort at creating the "perfect" mobile device?

huangzhinong
12-16-2005, 09:06 PM
How to input? No touch screen, no keyboard, not hardware buttons. $1500 for a brick-size phone and document viewer? I didn't see the point here. :cry:

Jason Dunn
12-16-2005, 09:12 PM
Hmm...that is rather bizarre that it uses the Tablet PC OS and yet has no touch screen. 8O What exactly does "the company figured it out" mean?

Perry Reed
12-16-2005, 09:21 PM
Hmm...that is rather bizarre that it uses the Tablet PC OS and yet has no touch screen. 8O What exactly does "the company figured it out" mean?

My understanding was that it has a touchscreen, just not an active digitizer like most Tablet PCs.

freitasm
12-16-2005, 09:25 PM
Which makes it very strange. Windows Mobile requires touchscreen. Tablet PC OS works with active digitizers, but there's a new crop of Tablet PC devices coming out soon with touchscreen instead.

I would say you still have to "feed" the Windows XP side of the things with monthly updates, so the "having to look after an OS that needs monthly patches" from the OP is still there.

Personally if I wanted a communication tool with Windows XP I would simply add a GSM/GPRS/UMTS module to it and been done. Two OS is an overkill, a nightmare for IT management actually.

As we all know, Windows Mobile is not the best thing in the world for upgrades - meaning that when upgrading your Windows Mobile, the whole Windows XP will go away.

Nah... Too much hassle.

:roll:

Jason Dunn
12-16-2005, 09:26 PM
My understanding was that it has a touchscreen, just not an active digitizer like most Tablet PCs.

"The company figured how to include TabletPC functionality without incorporating a digitizer, which is an additional chip."

To me that means no touchscreen at all, though that makes hardly any sense. :?

Perry Reed
12-16-2005, 09:28 PM
My understanding was that it has a touchscreen, just not an active digitizer like most Tablet PCs.

"The company figured how to include TabletPC functionality without incorporating a digitizer, which is an additional chip."

To me that means no touchscreen at all, though that makes hardly any sense. :?

I guess we just interpreted that differently. I know that Microsoft has relaxed the spec requirements on Tablets, allowing manufacturers to use touchscreens in addition to, or instead of, the active digitizers that all of the current Tablets use.

I'm assuming then that that statement means that they're using a touch screen -- and not a digitizer -- because, as you say, no touchscreen would make no sense.

alese
12-16-2005, 09:39 PM
This won't fly.
I may be wrong, but even the specs are a bit over the top. Compared to OQO it has everything more, disk, RAM and CPU speed + a whole PPC Phone edition... To integrate this in such small form would be a nightmare, to integrate it well would be near impossible IMHO.

My guess is, that if it's ever released it won't be good at anything, especially at beeing a phone - I have the Universal and it's too big and heavy as an everyday phone, not to mention the fragility of a HardDrive.

Also a couple of usability questions. How is this going to work:
- You are in XP and the call comes - will the WM5 run in background and take over the machine for the call or you won't have a phone during XP session? So will both sessions run in paralel and will XP use the WM5 part as wireless modem will they share the wireless radios, what about addon cards and stuff? Will you get a special backpack with the battery, because powering all the RAM, HD and two CPUs + bunch of radios will suck the battery dry in no time.

Perry Reed
12-16-2005, 09:45 PM
Also a couple of usability questions. How is this going to work:
- You are in XP and the call comes - will the WM5 run in background and take over the machine for the call or you won't have a phone during XP session? So will both sessions run in paralel and will XP use the WM5 part as wireless modem will they share the wireless radios, what about addon cards and stuff? Will you get a special backpack with the battery, because powering all the RAM, HD and two CPUs + bunch of radios will suck the battery dry in no time.

My guess/hope is that you can have both components running at the same time (otherwise, how would you sync them?) and simply switch between which one has control of the screen and I/O. Should a call come in, you'd switch from Tablet mode to Pocket PC mode (or, more precisely, switch the display and controls to Pocket PC mode) and take the call.

Or, perhaps, again assuming both components can be active at once, perhaps the Pocket PC component would maintain "control" of the Bluetooth radio even when the Tablet is functioning, so with a Bluetooth headset you could take the call even while the Tablet continues to use the display, etc.

I dunno, I guess we'll have to wait and see as more information becomes available.

I can tell you, though, as an avid fan of both Pocket PC and Tablet PC, I'm extremely interested and intrigued by this device and can't wait to see more of it. I certainly have high hopes for it.

Paragon
12-16-2005, 10:12 PM
So what do you think - a device that will rock the mobile world, and re-define the gap between Windows Mobile and Windows XP? Or another doomed-to-fail effort at creating the "perfect" mobile device?

Won't fly.

The longer I'm involved with mobile devices, the more I'm convinced the real key to sucessful mobility is having mobile applications that interact with their non mobile counterpart back home or in the office.

When I first started playing with mobility I wanted a portable device that would run a desktop version of Windows. My primary reason was to be able to have Quickbooks, my accounting software at my fingertips. Now I can do pretty much everything I need to do with Quickbooks in a mobile version, along with almost every other computing function I need. I do all this in a convenient little Pocket PC package that is also my phone and internet connection to the world, which opens even more opportunities for mobile computing.

For the foreseeable future I don't see tiny XP devices being effective or cost efficient. As I said I think the key is in software and it's ability to interface with desktop versions. Portable devices such as Windows Mobile now have a pretty decent compliment of features that can be used in conjunction with that software.

gibson042
12-17-2005, 12:31 AM
I think this will appeal to everyone who was interested in the OQO. With the given specs, it certainly crosses the performance threshold which IMO held the former back. I wouldn't get one (I demand pocketability from my mobile devices), but as published I think they would have a nice niche.

Of course, there's zero chance of this coming out as published. I have my doubts about their battery life claims, and I seriously suspect that switching between OSes would be both painful and error-prone (as in both screens of death/reboots and corrupted/missing data 8O). But there is NO WAY they will be able to offer it for $1500. I'd be quite surprised if they get it out for less than $2500. And at that price, the aforementioned niche quickly shrinks down to virtual nonexistence.

Still, best of luck to DualCor. If they succeed, it will make a lot of people very happy.

rob_ocelot
12-17-2005, 12:50 AM
Probaably the best way for the two OSes to live on such a device would be emulation. You run an embedded version of XP and the WM5 runs in an emulated window (which just happens to take up the whole screen :lol: )

Syncing between the two OSes would probably be a nightmare!

huangzhinong
12-17-2005, 01:07 AM
Probaably the best way for the two OSes to live on such a device would be emulation. You run an embedded version of XP and the WM5 runs in an emulated window (which just happens to take up the whole screen :lol: )

Syncing between the two OSes would probably be a nightmare!

Syncing between the two OSes won't be problem at all if the syncing is only limited at outlook, since both OS can share the same file in the 40gb hard drive. (It may change the regular definition that you need activesync to sync between one active PC and one active PPC).

Actually because both PPC and PC use almost same file system, syncing between those two OS doesn't need them be active at the same time. As long as switching between two OSes saves the unsaved data, syncing is more like reading and writing to the same files.

LarDude
12-17-2005, 01:37 AM
Cute idea (not sure I want/need one), but ugly as hell.

They should paint it white, add a scroll/click wheel, and rename it the DualPod.
(Dpod? 2Pod?).

jlp
12-17-2005, 02:28 AM
I dunno, I want to believe this like I believed the OQO was real while others denied it, calling it vaporware even early last year when it was introduced at the January CES.

But indeed there are many many things they will have to overcome to make it usable: They say the battery life is 8-12 hours in WM mode. That means it shuts off the WinXP part, coz if they run concurrently then battery life would be 1-2 hours. If it shuts off the XP part it means they have to save the memory content to disk which takes a lot of time with 1 gb of RAM and a lot of energy. Then you have to wait a few other dozens of seconds to load again from disk when you want to access your XP apps.

Some people mentionned other hurdles as well. And there are most certainly others.

Price is sure to be high. I also guess in the $2500 at least: remember this is a PC plus PPC phone.

Then most PPC apps are known to be limited in their ability to retrieve docs outside the My documents folder.

Then if the PPC side wants to access those files it will take a long time if the device needs to spin up the drive; surely it would not run at all time especially in PPC mode to save battery life.

So all in all there are so many technical difficulties to overcome.

Then it took OQO 4-5 years to release their Model 01 (I think the company was established in 1999) and it took them another 2.5 years to move from their nth prototype, the first one that was made public in April 02 to the profoundly reworked Model 01 of October 04.

It took Flipstart a few years to still be in a vaporware state, even though they are financed by one of the richest man in the whole world!!!

If this cPC is release commercially before 2007-8 then we are lucky.

Then the official website presents a device that seems older than the more modern looking device shown here.... quite strange.

Plus their official image shows a female USB-B slave plug, something you would NOT expect on a host type computer.

Let's wait for March 06... or 07... or 08... 0X

.

Gen-M
12-17-2005, 02:30 AM
Where did they hide the duct tape?

Seriously - does anyone remember the Heath Z100/H100 dual processor PC? It had both 8 and 16 bit processors so it could run CPM and MS-DOS.

Its a cludge. :devilboy:

jlp
12-17-2005, 02:33 AM
I vaguely recall a triple core computer that could run Apple programs as well :D

zohaer21
12-17-2005, 10:08 AM
ultimate device...maybe if the 2 q;s can be answered
1)is there a stylus with this thing?
2) could i play normal pc games on it? like counterstrike and redalert2

drsleman1
12-17-2005, 02:18 PM
Now I can do pretty much everything I need to do with Quickbooks in a mobile version, along with almost every other computing function I need. I do all this in a convenient little Pocket PC package that is also my phone and internet connection to the world, which opens even more opportunities for mobile computing.

Paragon can you please tellme how you are using ppc to open quickbooks files? I have a very old version of qb (for windows) that I still use since I bought the software in1994. Is ther a way to open the files in PPC? (I have Axim X50v running windows mobile 2003 SE)? Thank you.

***excessive quoting deleted by moderator JD***

egandt
12-17-2005, 02:36 PM
Sounds like vaperware to me, it has to much to be true. If it was true I'd be very intrested, however the resolution of the screen (one of the most important items is nver mentioned), nor is the video chipset.

ERIC

Muntasser
12-18-2005, 03:52 AM
and if its not your flavour, buy a few to hold up the walls :!: :!: :!:

DualOSMan
12-18-2005, 08:08 PM
I have been reading the comments and would like to point out:

1) The "real photo" of the device is posted at www.dualcor.com - somehow a "different set of photos" were published that are "fiction"

2) The display is a touch screen

3) The price is guaranteed to be $1500.00

4) There is a lot more information to be unveiled, starting at CES and continuing throughout the first quarter. This is the "end of the beginning" of a four year endeavor - much, much more to follow.

5) The device "instantly synchronizes" the Outlook program between XP and WM5.0 - and the other "shared controllers" include the display, memory, storage, I/O, connectivity, etc.

Hope that helps....

Titus
12-19-2005, 05:32 PM
I'm always amazed at the number of people who are *convinced* that something is not going to work, is crap, or will never work because they just happen to say so.

The facts are that convergent devices have a place, albeit for many, it's a vertical niche market. I happen to work with a tablet pc, a smartphone/pda, and several other handheld technologies. The cPC is about the coolest convergent device and I see a lot of future for it within the environment I work in. I work in the Med Tech field, and am the epitome of mobile employee.

So the naysayers say it can't work because:
1. The screen's too small to work in XP.
Answer: Most people will use it at their desk, like my Tablet, and plug into real keyboard/monitor/mouse. The mobility factor greatly outweighs the form factor for our uses, but not everyone's. It's a niche for a reason.

2. You can't get XP to switch between PPC.
Answer: Have you tried it? How can you sign off on something as being worthless without having tried it first? Most products have growing pains. I'm a computer engineer by education. If you are going to wait for the next product to come out to fix the current products flaws, then you will always be waiting. Every 3 months, something new will be coming, so you might as well wait until you are too old to see the tiny screens... ;)

3. Touch Screens vs Keyboards.
Answer: Use it. I am a Tablet PC user for the last few years. I use the keyboard for certain things, the stylus for others. It's very easy to use and both are necessary. However, you can get away with going slate only for a large part of the day for reading email, sending small messages, drawing (I use that a lot to detail things like on paper). I take notes using OneNote2003. I have hundreds of pages of handwritten notes that says touchscreens are useful and viable.

4. Battery life is too small; they must be lying about the specs.
Answer: What product do you know that has really good battery life? A Tablet or a laptop that gets 3-4 hours of charge is about prime currently. Oh, sure, we can hold our breath until better tech comes along, but you'll miss the boat again. So, how hard is it to dock the device in your home or at your desk and recharge? I'm so used to it with other PPCs and my phone and my tablet and other laptops that it's not going to affect me one bit. I'm actually impressed they have a facility to change from the smartphone to the pc processing and use different amounts of charge. That's innovative, not a cludge, which brings me to my final point:

5. It's a cludge.
Answer: What do you want? What else can offer these different options? Microsoft would prefer only one OS, but they offer several to meet different needs. IT offices want a single OS to maintain, but most places are not homogenous. Deal with it. So it requires updates. What system does not? That's just like saying my car needs gas, so I'm not going to buy one because I don't feel like filling it up regularly. If this is a cludge, then it's the best damn cludge I've seen in a long time.

/rant

Titus

Gen-M
12-19-2005, 06:33 PM
Titus - I said it was a cludge, not useless. It may be a very useful cludge. That just says that it will have a very short lifespan. If it is useful then someone will come out quickly with a more integrated solution. If it is not then it will die. As my post indicated, I've dealt with multi-cpu, multi-OS devices before - they are overly complicated but serve to transition users from one environment to the next. As soon as the next generation incorporates the good ideas the dual cpu/OS dies rapidly.

The best thing I've seen so far about the cPC is that it uses the VIA processor and gets its better battery performance from that. That's the best news I've heard on the x86 processor front in a while.

There is other technology to get outlook support from the bios and not have to fully boot windows XP. Falcom has a line of USB GSM/GPRS modems that can turn any Windows XP box into a cell phone.

So I stand by my characterization of cPC as a cludge. I hope it is a successful cludge because it will drive the market in a direction that I am interested in.

JonathanWardRogers
12-19-2005, 07:01 PM
I think that calling this a kluge is making more assumptions about it's details than you can have information to support. A kluge is a sloppy or poorly put together solution to solve a problem. You can't know that this is a poor implementation (at least from the specs I've seen). As a matter of fact, many of the complaints I've seen here directly contradict the specs on the web site. Granted, websites are not always correct, but at the moment they are more in a position to know than anyone here (unless, of course, someone has seen/used one of these things) so I will have to assume, for now, that they are more correct.

Personally, this device seems too good to be true, and if they pull it off for $1500, I'll be getting one.

Titus
12-19-2005, 08:38 PM
So I stand by my characterization of cPC as a cludge. I hope it is a successful cludge because it will drive the market in a direction that I am interested in.

I see your point. I wasn't specifically slamming you for the use of the word cludge. It's one of those words that seems to have different meanings depending on who's using it and the context, and as we all know, text is a hard medium to always convey the appropriate meaning.

I still say that as convergent devices go, it's the best option to date that I've seen, and I hope that it comes out as it's posted with the price range and the specs.

I also like the expandability of the CFII port, but am bummed at the lack of wifi or BT. At least, it's not in the product description at all.

Ideally, it will have cellular carrier choice, but that might be difficult for the GSM vs CDMA components. Seems like all the smartphones, like Treo, have different release timelines based upon carrier. I'm one of the few that like Sprint, not for their stellar (haha) customer service, but more because the IT staff always gets offices in basements. Sprint's lower frequency is the only one I can get in my offices.

Either way, I'm going to try to get my management to purchase one as my current laptop is way past it's warranty and might just have an unfortunate accident come March....

titus

**long quote trimmed by moderator JD***

Jason Dunn
12-19-2005, 11:11 PM
Some further details here:

http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2005/12/jkontherun_excl.html

pocketpcadmirer
12-20-2005, 03:24 PM
I am indeed not interested..yes there are times when I think I wish I'd a PC with me wen I have to do some "C" programming(coz I'm in a computer course)..then only one answer comes to my mind..laptop..and I dont have one.

Sunny

jkendrick
12-21-2005, 06:16 AM
Both the WinXP Outlook and the WM 5.0 Outlook share the same data repository so I believe syncing is not required. Switching from XP to WM is done via an icon on the screen and is near instantaneous. The touch screen, hard drive, and buttons are all shared by both OSes meaning no need for redundancy. What most people are overlooking is this is a WM device with a GB of memory &amp; a 40 GB hard drive!

Perry Reed
12-21-2005, 06:47 PM
Both the WinXP Outlook and the WM 5.0 Outlook share the same data repository so I believe syncing is not required.

I can't wait to see just how they do this, assuming the info is accurate. Since WM Outlook doesn't use .PST files and XP Outlook doesn't use the Pocket PC database.

Jason Dunn
12-21-2005, 07:27 PM
I can't wait to see just how they do this, assuming the info is accurate. Since WM Outlook doesn't use .PST files and XP Outlook doesn't use the Pocket PC database.

The only possible way I can think of this working would be to have ActiveSync on the device and ActiveSync on the XP side of things constantly connected through a virtual connection, both referencing the same Outlook data. I think this would work fine, although it would have to break the connection if/when you did a sync against an Exchange account. And if the PST file is locked you wouldn't be able to update it on the XP side with a file sync tool. Not to mention that with ActiveSync sometimes you need to disconnect the device to get it working again. So many unanswered questions!

Gen-M
12-21-2005, 07:39 PM
So many unanswered questions!
Including any hint of what phone/radio tranceivers are included.
Bluetooth? 802.11x? GSM/GPRS? EVDO? any at all?

Perry Reed
12-21-2005, 09:34 PM
I can't wait to see just how they do this, assuming the info is accurate. Since WM Outlook doesn't use .PST files and XP Outlook doesn't use the Pocket PC database.

The only possible way I can think of this working would be to have ActiveSync on the device and ActiveSync on the XP side of things constantly connected through a virtual connection, both referencing the same Outlook data. I think this would work fine, although it would have to break the connection if/when you did a sync against an Exchange account. And if the PST file is locked you wouldn't be able to update it on the XP side with a file sync tool. Not to mention that with ActiveSync sometimes you need to disconnect the device to get it working again. So many unanswered questions!

Yep, that was my assumption initially, that there would be some sort of internal (possibly USB) connection between the two components of the device. But the way they've been talking, the interconnection between the two may be deeper than that. I'd be very surprised (shocked, really) if both the XP and WM versions of Outlook actually shared the exact same data store.

I guess we'll just have to wait until CES for some of the answers. I sure wish I was going!