A week or two ago, Microsoft attempted to start up a viral marketing effort on a new product they'd code-named 'Origami'. What this turned out to be was a new form-factor for PC hardware that they later officially named the "Ultra-Mobile PC".
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This device is smaller than a ultra-portable laptop, but larger than a pocketable PDA. The big difference btween this and the PDAs availble today is that this is running a standard PC operating system - Windows XP Tablet PC 2005. |
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The fact that these will run a standard Windows is the single biggest advantage for these devices over PDAs that I can think of.
Any application you can run on your PC, you can run on this device. It also means that software developers for this system can use the full feature set of functionality available to them when developing for desktop PCs.
When these devices will become commercially available there will be a ready market of software available to these machines. Users of these mobile PCs will be able to run whatever Windows applications they're using today on their desktop PC.
The most common objection I've seen to this new type of PC is that it's too big to be a PDA. I'd agree. It is too big to be a PDA.
But it's not supposed to be a PDA.
Don't get me wrong, it can certainly do everything a PDA can... in fact it'd do it better - no more "pocket" versions of Outlook, Word, IE, Excel, and so on! If you want a PDA, go buy a PDA. If you want a device that's a little bigger than a PDA, but can do so much more... get one of these UMPCs!
The second most common objection I hear about these devices is their expected battery life. It sounds like you shouldn't expect to get more than 2.5 to 3 hours of continuous usage out of the batteries on these first generation UMPC devices. That does sound short... I can only hope that there will be some power savings advancements made in the next generation. I'd need about 4 to 6 hours of battery life to make this thing viable for a PC that I keep with me all day.
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My initial objection would be a minor one... How easy will it be to use applications not meant for the UMPC form factor? Remember, there's no keyboard.
If the on screen keyboard, which you apparently access using your thumbs - like a Blackberry device - is easy enough to use then I think we have a winner! |
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So I'm excited about it. This is probably because of where I think this technology will lead... my dream mobile PC.
A portable hand-held PC with a 1024x768 display resolution, 1-2 GB of RAM, 60+ GB hard drive, a battery that lasts at least 6 hours under continuous use, WiFi +Wired networking, USB expandability, a built-in keyboard (slide or fold out).
For all of this, I expect I'll have to wait for the next generation of these devices. I can't wait...
For the marketing types... here's a little advice. The usage of "lifestyle" is now out of style. "A lifestyle PC" this is not.
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Posted
Mar 18 2006, 02:01 PM
by
Keith Reid