New UMPCs rock

I would edefinatly take one for $500!

for $500 i wouldn’t be eagerly awayting my macbook right now…

oh spelling…

btw, google video demo!

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2006/09/something-looks-different.html

Me too!
At ~1000+, I can get a desktop or laptop. But if you say that…
I can get pretty close
And be able to haul it all over the place
And be able to do (almost) everything I’d do on a laptop
For half the price!
…I’ll pay for it very happily

Hm, but I’d like to hear what you think of OQO which has been around for a while, very small and I think they were migrating to Tablet OS.

how about replying to your email? your blog has really gotten off topic.

They didn’t look all that great from that one flip one they showed. I like that they’re going with low-power Core-based chips, but price and form aren’t there yet.

Part 2…Alpha morphs sorta Beta. What no viral marketing dust-up this time?

But the problems go well well beyond just pricing, but pricing will never decrease anyways, Microsoft studies notwithstanding. The only way to get them down, is to commodity mass-market them, but that (as everyone well knows) will never happen. So it’s screwed by default. The OEMs know their market levels, slicing off limbs for Microsoft’s lucid dreams, ain’t gonna happen.

Will hold the same court as Mobile Div. slash Smartphone, Tablet and all…low verticalish market, with minor inroads into the outlay sidelines, fish-stocked with the usual Mircosoft goons, preaching to the already converteds.

I think what UMPC is missing is standardized external connectors. Once it is done, then battery problem could eventually be avoided by numerous scenarios of a 7 inch screen.

A car could have a standardized docking station. I dock my UMPC there. It serves as a media player, GPS, video screen for the rear camera, car-system monitor, cell-phone dial-pad, calendar and appointment reminder, etc.

In return car could charge the UMPC battery and the car CD player could act as a CD-drive for the UMPC. Since on my way to work, I need the media-player, cell-phone controler and my calendar, I will have my UMPC with me which I will dock into the car. I reach office and my UPMC is fully charged.

Similarly on the return journey to home my UMPC is fully charged. It will also be fully charged when I go to a mall or other places, where some of the UMPC scenarios are visualized.

In my office, I do not need to run the device for more than 2-3 hours on a typical day. If I need to on an atypical day, then I would need recharging it my office too. But for a single atypical day, I do not want to carry a heavier battery in my UMPC all the time. Instead if this is needed frequently, I will need to have a separate replacement battery. Or if it becomes an eventual big success and increased everybody’s productivity then a pool of replacement batteries in my office could be a great for dozens of people to use it.

@10, I messed up my comment in the last paragraph. What I wanted to say explicitly is that if I am going to use it for more than 2-3 hours in office besides using it in car and home, I would not mind putting another $200 for a charger and a replacement battery.

If it serves the scenarios in a car, then I won’t mind paying a four digit cost either.

I’d buy a tablet at $500 or less… and I’m poor!

So I think that there are a lot of people that would *like* to have them. But they aren’t a necessity and most of us can’t justify the cost.

I wouldn’t even mind a minimal OS, as long as I can write on it, pull up the web, etc. I don’t need to play World of Warcraft on a tablet PC.

I’ve seen Tablets for under $700 before. That’s pretty close.

The thing about the Sony is it has 33 gig of Flash memory (32GB+1GB video memory). If you bought that much flash memory in the form of Sony Memory sticks (1GB), it would cost you over $1400. So $1800 doesn’t seem so unreasonable.

Give it time… give it time.

$699.95

Gateway M275 Convertible Tablet PC Intel Centrino 1.5Ghz Processor, 40gb HDD, 512MB Ram, DVD-CDRW Combo, 802.11B-G Wifi, 10-100, 14.1TFT

I tried one of the new Sony machines last week and although there were some nice features, the whole thing was significantly more complicated than it should have been. Both handles were covered in buttons and toggles and switches – and inside, there were several distinct-seeming “modes” that seemed to have little relation to one another.

hey scoble, thansk for helping me out with my blog.

>The only thing wrong is still the price.

Even if it were the only thing wrong, isn’t it a critical thing to get wrong? Who decided there’s a market for the UMPC? Someone that was around a lot of geek bloggers I suppose since those living outside the nerd bubble don’t seem to give a damn.

@17. Yea, what Brent said.

Who the hell is asking for these devices?

(Wait for it.. here comes Scoble’s: “who was asking for a PC back in 1975?. And if is wasn’t for me telling the whole world about PC’s and CD players…bla bla bla, they never would have been adopted” repsonse.)

The air of self-importance with which you guys think about things is amazing. Fundamentally, you’re so ridiculously out of touch with the real world that you have no idea why UMPC will fail… just like how everyone was oblivious to why Web 1.0 failed.

If the Sony one is the one that I’ve read about, then it’s not a UMPC because it doesn’t have a touch-sensitive screen (and also doesn’t have the 7″ screen that I think is required). I’m not sure if UMPC is just a broad term or not, but most people associate it with Origami, and Origami has strict guidelines, which this device doesn’t adhere to. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong here.

You know Robert…I have watched the last couple posts here and there is only one way to describe your blog lately….chucking grenades. One thing that I always liked about your blog is the way in which you engage in dialog among the comments, sometimes infinitely better content than the original post. But lately…crickets! Hellooooo…..are you there?

“The air of self-importance with which you guys think about things is amazing. Fundamentally, you’re so ridiculously out of touch with the real world that you have no idea why UMPC will fail… just like how everyone was oblivious to why Web 1.0 failed.”

well thats why Scoble and everyone blogs about “here today, gone tomorrow” companies, he blogged about the lickityship company that will also fail, why? because look at the business model. and again, the tablet is just a niche product for companies who are already huge.

I would like to see growth and profits or a decent business model before I blog about companies

Microsoft should make their own low-cost UMPCs; screw the OEMs.

Too bad: I’ve been at the Podcasting Expo all week and haven’t had time to get on the computer. Sorry that you don’t understand that sometimes offline work takes priority over online work.

@24…but you can update your blog from the fast lane of the highway while the wife drives?