I fid the PSP slow and clunky. It's mot easy to work with. It's not good for surfing. But that's just my opinion.

http://www.nokiausa.com/770

 

Not that this is the best, but what about it as a UMPC?  Any thoughts?

How can you even include the Sony UX and OQO since they are not UMPC'S ? Try sticking a Q1 in your pcket ,then try a OQO or UX  !

I actually had the pleasure of using the Q1 for a day thanks to a friend of mine. (He has a lot of money and wanted my advise for a portable computing device and he fell in love with the Q1 when I showed it to him at a local best buy. )

The Q1 is much more powerful than I had expected(although I'd go with 1gb of ram rather than 512). I do a great deal of work on Macromedia Flash 8, and it handles the program easily. The tiny screen would have been a problem had Macromedia not enabled so much control to the end user. when you hide the timeline, properties, and color mixer/library panel, you are left with a big blank canvas to craft your masterpiece. There was some moderate slow down on it when drawing at a very fast rate, but it still caught up and didn't take away from the experience. So graphic designs work quite well with the Q1, but I'd encourage an upgrade in ram if you cant afford to go with the more expensive Q1b or Q1P. I'm aiming to save up for the Q1 P myself.

I have an old digital camera but have no cords for it. But that didnt' matter because the Q1's built in Flash memory card reader was able to read the card with no problems.

The Q1 also syncs up to the PSP very nicely to swap out music/movies/game saves on the run as well. While the Q1 cant slide into a pocket the way a PSP can, if you carry a light laptop bag with a shoulder strap, the Q1 is hardly noticeable with it's light weight. I used the external pocket on the bag to hold the Q1 so I could take it out and use it the moment I wanted to.

The Q1's program launcher is very useful for in-car use. I have an old Corolla('96) and the q1 fits the middle storage compartment between seats very nicely. With one of those tape-external audio player converters(looks like a cassette tape with a headphone cable hanging out) the Q1's audio can be routed to my car's speakers for music on the go. When walking through a store crossing off my grocery list on the Q1, I get lots of interested people. A cute girl is starring. Conversation time.

She's standing by the bread. "I'm sorry could you please hand me a loaf of that bread there?" I ask with a smile. She kindly gives me the bread, and finally curiosity get's the better of her when I pull out the stylus and pretend to cross off bread (which wasn't on my list). She asks, "What is that?" I explain what the Q1 is and flirt a bit. Long story short the Q1 initialized a conversation that ended with a phone number(written by her on the Q1). I guess it doesn't hurt that I dress nicely everywhere I go and in this case, I dressed to match the Q1. I dont think another of the more plain looking devices would have turned as many heads as the stylish and sleek Q1.

Wow I just realized how long this is. Long story short, the Q1 is definitly my choice because of it's power, it's functionality, and it's sleek design.

-Bobby

Asus r2h

after i solved all the problems with GPS-System and WLan (thanks to this forrum), it's a realy complete and good working - perfect , all in - solution for me.

To improve: battery power. Handbook or better support by ASUS, so that there's no need to search for information just to make the umpc working!

Michael from Germany.

 

Michael:

 

For me, the best Origami 1st generation is always at this time the AMtek T700. This ergonomy is fantastic with trackpoint and buttons.

The Q1 was completely disqualified by an ergonomics very bad, without trackpoint.

I also had a PSP shortly after they came out,
because I wanted to use the announced web surfing feature,
rather than playing games.

After a few months, I gave up and sold that crap.

The browser was far away from being usable,
you had to input urls on the onscreen kbd, using the cursor controls,
because the PSP does not have a touc screen...
That was extremely annoying.

One of the other weak points:
Once you had the url keyed in, and hopefully set a bookmark,
there was a (at least) seventy percent guarantee that the PSP
built-in browser could not even load the page correctly.

Many times that shitty thing was out of memory (unbelieveable)
other times it simply couldn't load the pages due to
the lack of browser compatibility and features.

Ok, I didn't upgrade my PSP to 2.8 .

For playing games on the go, the PSP might be a nice machine,
actually it's well made and looks good,
but they should not even mention any web browsing functionality,
since that's a rather underdeveloped 'feature' of the PSP.
That may also be the reason why manymany people
sold their PSP's a few days after XMas a year ago...


Finally, the Nokia 770 came out, which seemed to be more suitable.

At least the 770 built-in Browser could show most of my favourite web sites;-)
However, even the N770 is ways too slow and unstable for web browsing IMHO,
so most of the time my 770 sits on the desk unused,
only picked up for playing Mahjong from time to time.

Too bad that the real UMPC's, like the Q1 and R2H were (and still are) too expensive,
at least at their dealer's retail price.
Otherwise I would have skipped the N770 and bought a Q1 in the first place.
Maybe I can catch a used Q1 in a few days for a less hurting price...

The R2H looks somewhat better IMHO, but the missing second speaker,
the problems with the Wifi connection,
and questionable button areas right and left of the R2H display
makes me wanting a Q1 more.

I love my R2H, but I can't vote for it, not until I get it to stop spiking processes. The wireless hasn't been a problem since I read about and carried out the chipset update on Dan Dar3's blog. In addition to that, well, I haven't touched any others. I do believe I can't vote for the Q1, because of the lack of a trackpoint, but I don't know of any reason to eliminate the eO. the OQO is too small for me to consider, and I haven't enough data on the UXes and DualCor. I guess the Medion will complicate things further.

Why not the Fujitsu P1610?  I'd vote for that.

I can only vote for ASUS R2H because I have no other gadget of that type. :)

After getting rid of the pre-installed junk apps and unnecessary processes, upgrading the memory with a 1GB module, and switching to the Microsoft wifi settings, it runs just fine. I'm quite happy with it and I use it for typical office work while I'm on business trips.

I guess if somebody is not too familiar with getting rid of all that nasty stuff from ASUS he/she might be quite unhappy with the performance of this device. It's hard for me to understand why a manufacturer ships a product filled with nonsense that degrades the performance considerably.

Back in March of 2006, I was talking with my cube partner about portable PC's. He was considering Mac which he got with no regrets. I was hoping PC makers would come out with a small form factor the size of a day planner (but a lot thinner) like the convertable tablets out. Ironically that day was the announcement of the UMPC from the Origami project, so ever since that date I have been reading & waiting patiently for a product that fit my needs.

Despite the rhetoric between several camps trying to dictate the needs of the general masses, I appreciated the dedication and $acrifice of those on the bleeding edge of existing technology in a smaller package sugar coated with a different UI package. I was able to follow detailed reviews of the products; impressions from those that actually had one in their hands and those that only wished; and least important what others thought the UMPC should be and how it should be used (including input type). Another valuable piece of information was the experience with wireless vendors and data plans. All of this saved me a lot of money not making the wrong choice for that I thank those that posted their opinions & experiences.

The UMPC will be defined by itself once it has become mainstreamed (my definition is not in numbers but what is on the shelves at my local Circuit City, Best Buy, Office Depot, etc...). And each individual will find their own way of using it, by keyboard, pen, or finger...

What is my choice? The OQO model 02, just ordered it last week.

Why? After some thought, it came between the Sony & OQO because I wanted something that fits in my pocket, otherwise a 7" UMPC would have to be lugged in a shoulder-strapped case like a "man-purse". I"m not into techno-fashion statements, I even refuse to wear cargo pants for that special place for my cell phone & iPod.

I'm still disgruntled with Sony on my desk PC at home, after registering it was not told about the free XP upgrade from ME, adding memory messed up the USB to my printer, need a BIOS upgrade that will cost me, etc... I held out on the OQO until the 02 now that it is Vista capable, 1 Gb RAM, 60 Gb HD, latest WiFi/BT, and 1.5 GHz CPU although I wish it was Intel "Duo" core. Besides that the Sony UX was a tad too big to be pocketable so why bother, might as well go to a 7" UMPC then.

Use? Latest Visual Studio development suites, Office, Internet, music studio s/w, GPS, the works.

Anyway, to each their own.

Just like when I found my wife I put out to the universe what I want and the universe is kind enough to oblige.

I have an Asus UMPC.

I will let you know when I have it.

ROAR!
Dameon

The only true judgment for UMPC lies in the name itself, it is a personal comp. miniaturized, so we only have 3 factors to consider.

 

Size:  well how small do you want it? In my case is simple does it fit in any of my pockets… so this can eliminate anything bigger then R2H about 9.5’

 

Comp stats: there is only one way you can compare PCs and that is performance. Guys stats will always be stats, so if I can have a power and speed of 1.5GHz, 2GB DDR2 600+Hz, and up to 120GB HD in my pocket, then devices like PSP and PDA look like an expensive antique toy. Also UMPCs MUST HAVE ALL FEATURES you bulky home PC have except for the size, in order to have a larger in-store release wider demographics of users per average unit must be covered.

 

Price: even though Fujitsu and Sony sound very tempting I personally think they are way overpriced running up to and over 3K fully loaded, so for affordable top of the line one must look to OQO, with it 1.5Gz chip it’s strong enough to step up to the PC competition.

 

Conclusion: all of those are still way overpriced and in one or two years will lose up to 30% of the sticker price and get much better and faster. If you have to buy one right now I’m leaning towards optimized R2H, Gigabyte would have been nice but needs on board camera, also curious to see Cathena CX. Q1 is probably the chipset, checked eBay you could get one for 500 all hooked up but used, but in the same time you ask yourself how come so many people want sell theirs… in my opinion UMPCs price should not exceed 850 brand new

    

Each definitely has their caveat, but in the end even paying a premium price for what is still a niche product is still worth the investment if it enhances your lifestyle to the degreee that you as a consumer feels is worth it.

Despite all the different variations of UMPC's and attempted interpretations, not one product has hit it out of the park or got it spot on, but as in the old 80% rule there are plenty that come awful close and for some consumers do just fine.

After 4 months I'm very satisfiied with my OQO 02 but find a few things I wish were better including higher native screen resolution, updated graphics gpu & dedicated video memory to support Vista Premium features, quieter fan, 64gb SSD harddrive, Evdo Rev A instead of 0, 2 gb Ram, lower cost, and maybe shaving it down just a tad slimmer & lighter.

If I was to start all over again, I would still pick the 02 primarily for it's size, considering all the other attributes are more than sufficient or acceptable. For most of us, we still have to make some compromises with that perfect UMPC still not out there.

For me the almost perfect UMPC is already out and I have it in my hand: the Q1U. I have been using it everywhere, on the train, in the shop, in the bathroom. It can do everything I wanted to do and a lot more that I have yet to want to do.

If I have a magic wand and change the Q1U to perfection, I'd make it thinner, lighter, with the size shrunk to the size of the 7" screen, with a padded leather cover for the unit (like a hard cover book), and built in mobile phone and internet capability. Then I can take it anywhere with me like a very thin book. That would be perfection, and that would be poetry.

Since Q1U isn't far from my ideal, I will happily live with it for the next 5 years until the UMPC makers done fumbling along and bring me that perfect machine.

Yes Opus I have to agree, we only live once and having those little perks on the side does helps to get through it. I found a nice deal on Sony UX 280P, 1.2 GHz, 1Gb, 40Gb HDD for $980 but I worried 4.5 inch will be to much of a strain playing with Windows. Size to power ratio is the best on the market, integrated cams, keyboard and finger rec. are useful in any UMPC. Anyone had any problems with those?

 

Thx

 

Ps: Its recommended to flash clean any new PC and load it the way you want it, I really don’t want to have bunch of crap slowing down my sh!t.