OQO Price And Release Date Set

captainJam writes "After more than 2 years of development, the OQO is finally set to be released in October for a price tag of $1899. Initially the unit will only be sold through OQO's website. Those grumbling about the price should take into consideration that the OQO is by far the smallest and lightest XP capable handtop with a touchscreen, slide-out keyboard and Transflective display."

Who cares about the price

[DNS-and-BIND]

People who use this will have it bought for them by their companies, anyway.

[Sarcasm]Only 1899[/Sarcasm]

[SerpentMage]

[Sarcasm]Gee whiz for only 1899USD you get a unreadable screen, with an underpowered CPU, too small harddisk, and battery life that does not exceed many lightweight notebooks![/Sarcasm]

On a serious note, what I do not understand about these companies, like the Tablet PC companies is that these devices are ideal complementary devices. Price the device at less than 1K and people will buy these devices. Price them near 2K and they will be niche devices that people will look at, comment as interesting, and move on.

Hmm

[Erwos]

Some intitial thoughts:
1. 256mb isn't terribly good. 512mb would be better. That said, it's _probably_ acceptable for the kind of usage they're talking about.
2. Who are they aiming this at? Photos seem to indicate business execs, which seems reasonable - they're the sort that actually use PDAs, and probably don't require huge amounts of multimedia power.
3. Docking _cable_? For nineteen hundred bucks, I expect to see an integrated docking bay, one with a slot that I can slide the OQO into. Specs mention some kind of desktop stand, but that sounds kinda cheesy, to be honest.
4. They need to make it a little more obvious that you're supposed to being using a Bluetooth cell phone with this thing for Internet access on the go.
5. Battery life seems like it's on the low side - 3 hours just isn't all that long anymore.
6. Security? If the corporate executive is using this thing, chances are he has some confidential info on it. An OQO seems easy to steal - is there any built-in encryption support?

So, cool idea, but a little too expensive. I could see this becoming something of a status symbol in the corporate world, though. "Think that's a PDA? Well, take a look at THIS!" Surprisingly, I think they've addressed their target market pretty well - replaces the Blackberry, PDA, and laptop.

-Erwos

MS tax ?

[InodoroPereyra]

This is a recurrent but valid question. From the preview [handtops.com]:

The OQO comes with XP Home, but on account of the companies large interest in marketing towards mobile professionals, XP Professional will most likely be an option as well. OQO CEO Jory Bell confirms that the x86 architecture is capable of being used with any x86 based OS, such as Linux.

Further talks have revealed that some OQO employees have already tested out Linux on the device with success.

It's all good. So, can I buy it with no OS, with the cost of windows XP deducted from the total price ? Or do I have to pay the MS tax, even if I don't plan on using Win XP on it?

Re:[Sarcasm]Only 1899[/Sarcasm]

[Erwos]

I thought it was obvious that they were aiming for corporate executives, not /. geeks.

If you're making a a few hundred thousand bucks a year, an OQO is cheap. Hell, people spend six hundred bucks on a graphics card - is it really THAT crazy to see them spend a couple grand on a new super-small computer?

Dynamism hasn't gone out of business, you know?

-Erwos

Re:[Sarcasm]Only 1899[/Sarcasm]

[Coryoth]

On a serious note, what I do not understand about these companies, like the Tablet PC companies is that these devices are ideal complementary devices. Price the device at less than 1K and people will buy these devices. Price them near 2K and they will be niche devices that people will look at, comment as interesting, and move on.

I agree - few people are going to interested in such a device as their primary computing device - it just doesn't have the power, screen real estate, or usability (keyboards reamin about the best means for inputting textual data) of a lightweight laptop.

The advantages it offers are notable - its small, lightweight, and is fast and easy to use for small/quick tasks. It's those features that made palm pilots and the like popular. But those sorts of features make it ideal, as the previous poster said, as a secondary or complementary device - something you can have readily on hand for those moments when you don't need to do serious computing work (which tends to require screen size, processor power, and keyboard for input). As long as these devices are priced equivalently to lightweight laptops, they'll remain niche items.

The things that would bring these devices into the mainstream despite the cost are

(1) An effective input system - be that stunningly good handwriting recognition, quality subvocal speech recognition, or something we haven't thought of yet.

(2) A means to have the display size not bound by the immediate size of the device - be that through a projected display, a collapsible/foldable display or something else cunning.

Until those features are provided, it's an expensive toy.

Jedidiah.

Quite cool.

[bbum]

I played with an OQO at Foo camp. It is the real deal.

The display is impressively clear in both low light and direct sunlight. As a whole, the produce is very well engineered and the UI felt relatively snappy.

It does run Linux and uses the same hard drive internally as an iPod. Battery life is fairly decent, given computing power, and the battery is designed such that you can upgrade to a higher capacity battery that is simply thicker than the original (making the entire unit thicker).

The screen is also touch sensitive and there is a stylus slot in the top of the unit. As such, one could definitely read email, browse the web, navigate meetings/schedules/calendars, and read documents without having to pop it open to use the keyboard.

The keyboard certainly does not have the feel of a full sized board, but is surprisingly usable for the size.

One of the neatest features is the "docking cable". Basically, OQO will provide a cable that has all of the various different ports -- usb, firewire, video, etc... -- hanging off of it.

The unit has a cradle that you can leave on your desk. It has VGA out. So, in combination with a bluetooth keyboard/mouse and an external monitor, you can drop the OQO into the cradle and it "just works".

Certainly not a primary machine for gamers or developers, but a damned nice little device for folks that want a portable computing device that offers a more real computing experience than a palm device, blackberry, or the like.

Re:[Sarcasm]Only 1899[/Sarcasm]

[Coryoth]

What exactly is a mainstream use for these devices ?, why would everyone want one (even non geeks).

I think these are obviously speciality items, if need a small computer at your hand at any time then this is for you. But most people don't have any use for such a device.

I think that's extremely shortsighted. Being able to have a powerful versatile computer that had the features I mentioned (large screen size, and powerful input system) on hand at all times would become indespensible as software technology grew to meet it. Imagine being able to sit and watch a film on a decent sized screen wherever you are. Be able to video conference with friends anywhere any time. But it goes further if you get creative - imagine a restaurant offering a fully interactive menu with pictures, and ability to order throught he system, that you can pull up over the restaurants wifi network. Imagine having an extremely powerful notebook and calculator on hand at all times whenever you want to jot something down. Imagine having a wikipedia accessible anytime you want whenever you want to look something up. These are just whatever random ideas occurred to me quickly, many, many more are possible. The key is having a powerful enough system that it is worth having, and having the systems sufficnelt ubiquitous that you can readily assume that a lot of people will have one on hand.

Jedidiah.

Re:Who cares about the price

[Saint Stephen]

Spoken as a guy deeply in his companies back pocket.
Don't rely so much on your company. The world is going outsource, open-source, individual.

Re:I think so...

[dasmegabyte]

Of course the price is high, this is the first one. The first device of its kind, in its size, with its robust feature set. It's new, it's revolutionary and nobody has one. Some people will buy that kind of thing regardless of price -- developers will buy it to design software for it, rich technophiles will buy it just to have one and people who have been waiting for JUST such a device, saving their pennies, are waiting in the wings to buy one. I won't doubt if they're sold out for a year, even if the thing doesn't work! The first SLR digital cameras were like that -- they cost THOUSANDS of dollars and people would snatch them up left and right. Because a few thousand dollars was PEANUTS compared to the time saved by these things.

However, if the thing is even moderately popular, expect to see scads of poorly made clones some time next year, followed by the introduction of a new "entry level" model.

Re:[Sarcasm]Only 1899[/Sarcasm]

[NanoGator]

"On a serious note, what I do not understand about these companies, like the Tablet PC companies is that these devices are ideal complementary devices. Price the device at less than 1K and people will buy these devices. Price them near 2K and they will be niche devices that people will look at, comment as interesting, and move on."

Hopefully I can clear this up a bit:

Re OQO: Why would anybody want it? Listen man, it wasn't all that long ago people were getting modded up here for saying "People really don't need computers more than 500mhz". In the corporate case, this is definitely true. At my previous company, I watched a number of execs buy laptops, and the big factor that they cared about was size. Why? They travelled around, A LOT. A laptop, even a small one, is not so easy to use on a plane. If they could just stuff it in their pocket, they'd be mucho happy.

Nearly all the execs at this place had Palm Pilots, but they couldn't leave the laptop at work because they still needed it. (Sadly, this was usually for PowerPoint. Heh. I shoulda been a PowerPoint artist instead of a Lightwave artist. :P) I can honestly see them wanting this thing. Would they buy it? Eh... not sure really. Not sure if they'd understand what it is. Get over that hurdle, and it really could be a hot niche item.

Re TabletPCs: TabletPCs are full fledged laptops with a Wacom digitizer aboard. The price of those things is mostly justified there. I know. I have one. Now, you're right that people might look at them and move on. It's cool to have the stylus and all, but you are paying extra buckage for a feature that not all may use effectively. However, for those that need them, they're pretty slick. I have one because of that digitizer. A 12" Wacom tablet is like $400. (Boy, that price dropped recently, I remember when those were a lot closer to $1,000!) Not only do I have that 12" tablet, but I also have a screen right UNDER it!
Man that's great for painting. But yes, you are right, this isn't for everybody.

Yes, the OQO and the TabletPC are a little spendy. But that is to be expected. New technology stuff ALWAYS comes out at a high price. It's for early adopters willing to spend it. It'll come down. Heck, TabletPCs have come down significantly. Remember when laptops were just nice to have items? They couldn't compare to desktops. Now LOTS of people have them. My point here isn't to shoot you down. You bring up good points. I just wanted to help alleviate some of the frustration here.

Re:but...

[TWX]

"It's clear that the machine is a hostile environment for Linux - there are only 2 mouse buttons. Made for MSFT crap. Nothing to see here, move on."

Uh, chord-middle anyone?