Ultra-mobile PC - aka Oragami project

[Jammrock]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/default.mspx

UMPCs are basically what Tablet PCs should have been in the first damn place. Small, powerful and cheap (relatively). Devices will start coming out in April from Samsung, May from Intel and June from Asus. Others are sure to follow. Prices should range from $600 - $1000 USD.

Me wants.

[VJ]

FWIW, I'm a bit disappointed by them. They are still too big to be very portable.
Also, all the demo movies seem to indicate that they are trying to create a need (woman shopping, asking for advice via her Origama: can be done with a smartphone; man travelling, watching a movie and sending an email: can be done with most PDAs; ...). They don't present any situation where you say: ah, I couldn't do this before!

First predictions seem to indicate they won't make this price point any time soon either.

From a functionality point of view, I don't see that many differences with my Fujitsu-Siemens P1510 (Pentium M, 1.2 GHz; 512 MB; 60 GB HDD; 8.9" passive touchscreen; < 1 kg; 3 hours autonomy with standard battery - 6 hours with extended one; 802.11a/b/g; bluetooth; CF & SD card slots).


Jörg

[lecter]

If they could have gotten these at a 500$ price-point for a capable device, we would've had something...as such, with 600 the bare-minimum (which will surely get you a measly 256MB RAM and such), I'd still rather buy a proper laptop. Also, it has one feature missing which given its 7'' screen would be very important: some kind of monitor or TV output!

Their move was pretty clever: they've seen how popular the big-button interface was in MCE, so they transfered the same concept to the TabletPC OS...it will surely make it A LOT more usable. I am somewhat worried, though, about fingerprints...the manufacturers better have some system in place, because if we're supposed to be touching the screen with fingers constantly, the machine will look like crap within a week.