PDA and Subnotebook Killer? 250
Purdah writes "I found this site with a description of a new type of palm sixed PC. It runs windows and would be great for mobile uses like music and movies (says it can store 3 movies).
Extracts below are from the official website: complete Windows XP wireless handheld computer, cradle to dock with a keyboard and monitor, transforming the OQO to a full feature desktop machine, media player mode with enough memory for 1000 songs or three feature length movies, optimization for cool running and miserly power consumption" Looks a little vaporous to me, as well as thick.
But there's an awful lot of potential if they get it right.
How many more times can we post this? (Score:5, Insightful)
A little more Flash, perhaps? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's got to be the most annoying website design in the history of history.
3 movies? (Score:2, Insightful)
* 10GB hard drive with storage for thousands of songs or three full length movies
* 256MB memory
* four inch, high-resolution super bright VGA color LCD
* Synaptics touchscreen
* Advanced lithium polymer battery
* 1394 FireWire, USB, audio out, OQO-link docking connector, microphone
* Built in 802.11 and Bluetooth wireless networking
* 4.1" x 2.9" x 0.9" / 105mm x 74mm x 22mm; less than 9 oz. / 250 grams
i have a hell of a lot more than three movies on my 10 GB drive. of course they aren't dvd quality, but who needs that? not on a 5" screen!
besides the fujitsu B series looks better than this...
Re:Vapor, again. (Score:4, Insightful)
I almost got excited. I went to the page and thought "oh, yeah, this has been here before. But hey - maybe they're shipping now. Um, then again...maybe not."
I was just pointing out that nothing has changed but the snazzy graphics.
Mod this one down too, I'm just posting again to be annoying.
Sick of hearing it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Please STOP BLAMING THE TOOL!
This is like saying "I know this really annoying website... and it's made from HTML, so HTML must suck." You even said in your original post that you have found a great Flash site ("PBSkids.org [pbskids.org] where my kids can play games with cookie monster..."), so what is the problem?
Yeah, the linked site is ugly: puke-green coloring and big blinking annoyances. But this isn't Macromedia's fault. Please stop blaming Flash for bad site designers. Bad site designers will be bad site designers, regardless of the tools you give them.
The best thing you can do is to contact the company's marketing department (obviously without using the webmaster@ email address, as this will likely go directly to the site designer) and tell them that you don't like their site. Instead of saying "it's ugly", give concrete reasons why you didn't want to buy the product: "the blinking text obscured what I was trying to read", for instance. In other words, instead of complaining on Slashdot, complain to someone who can actually do something about it.
*sigh* I have to wonder why this is such a hard concept...
Re:The value of small video (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time I listen to a subway performer, the excess reverberations and din of the cars make me feel like I'm listening through a seashell. It seems to me that in order for a new product to be successful, it has to offer something better by a noticable factor than previous products.
Bah, if someone wants to get sweaty listening to music, they'll go to the disco where the DJ will have a proper sound system and the necessary funkadelic light show -- none of this "jogging with a pair of headphones".
Re:Enormous potential (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Specs (Score:1, Insightful)
This thing is @!#&^* small!
Now, I'm frickin amazed at the size of this thing, but I have to admit--is this something I really need?
I can't believe I find myself saying that, but really: while the specs on that thing are really nice, I'm not sure I would treat it the same way as a desktop or notebook. Even though I might be able to, it's not like I'm going to get it out and start coding 50000 lines of C++.
This reminds me of when PDAs first came out. There were these desktop-like PDAs that never got off the ground because the developers didn't realize that something that small isn't going to get used like a notebook, and shouldn't be designed like one. One of the reasons why Palm got ahead, in my opinion, is that Palm realized that something that small was going to be used differently regardless of hardware specs, and therefore needed a different OS.
I have a similar reaction to this: great hardware, but at that size I'm not going to want a little PC, I'm going to want an ultra-powerful PDA. Those are different things, and I'm not sure the designers realize that.
To be honest, I can't stand notebooks because I think they're too big to be truly portable, but not as customizable as a desktop (although I understand the use of them, and use them myself sometimes). I think there's definitely a underutilized niche for subnotebooks and things of that sort. But I'm not sure that when things get this small, you're talking about the same thing anymore. They'd be better off touting their product as an ultra-powerful PDA than a micronotebook. I don't think this really fills the subnotebook gap at all--although it might help to stimulate such development.
Yawn (Score:2, Insightful)
Not bad in other respects (size, speed, storage, Bluetooth, USB). If it runs something other than Windows, that's good too. I'm not sure that portable HDs are the way to go, though; flash technology is getting bigger all the time, and gives greater speed for much less power.