This week at Mobile Tech Manor #14- are handheld PCs (MIDs) irrelevant?
Another busy week at Mobile Tech Manor that saw a hot new netbook get announced. I was impressed by the HP Mini 1000 but is it the cat’s meow? Not a lot of new gear appeared at my door which gave me time to work with the existing toolkit and spend some quality time with it. There was also a fair bit of time to reflect on mobile technology and come to some surprising conclusions. I think handheld PCs are now a thing of the past, which surprises me. Come on in and let’s visit a spell.
Another week, another netbook
HP shook things up this week with the introduction of the HP Mini 1000 which I got to spend some quality time with at the HP office. The build quality and aesthetic design is first rate and it is easily the most attractive netbook I have seen. How attractive a netbook is is not something that usually factors high on my criteria list but it seems to be important to many. The 1000 will not disappoint those folks for sure.
HP made a lot of design choices that have disappointed some I have heard from and that’s understandable. The decision to drop down from a high res display to the standard netbook res of 1024×600 has angered quite a few people. I too wish they had retained the higher res but I understand why they didn’t. Their decision to go with a 1.8-inch hard drive has limited them to the maximum 60 GB capacity and that’s quite a bit smaller than competing netbooks. Both of those decisions were not easy for HP to make given my conversation with them but to keep the 1000 as small and thin as it is and to reach the low price point they must reach they felt them necessary so that’s what they did. I am not a notebook maker so I can’t argue against the decisions they made, they are what they are. I do think it’s a pretty nice netbook in any event and let’s see how long it takes the creative netbook enthusiasts to start hacking it to deal with some of these decisions.
Are handheld computers (MIDs) irrelevant?
I spent a fair amount of time thinking about handheld PCs this week and reached some surprising conclusions. Before I share those I should set the stage for this thought process so it makes more sense, at least I hope it will. Kevin and I were having one of our many chats and we started talking about the Aigo MID that has recently appeared. The discussion was a very eye-opening one for me as it made me think back to my first handheld, the Sony U50. That handheld PC was the very first one in my opinion that kicked off the whole handheld PC thing as it was truly a no-compromise PC running Windows XP yet would still fit in the hand. I have written reams about the Sony U during the time I used it as one of my main computers for well over a year and you can review that if you question how much utility it provided me.
I still miss the Sony U occasionally and wish I still had it. There is something not only cool but very useful to have a full PC in your hand. Sure there are compromises due to the small size but the design of the U minimized them sufficiently. I accomplished so much with the U during that time and I thought about that a lot. I realized that while I had been very excited about the MIDs when they were first hitting the tech discussion that I have been losing that enthusiasm recently. The Aigo review at Pocketables confirmed that loss of enthusiasm and I finally realized why that is.
I’ve always been a handheld computing nut so I asked myself if the Sony U was just being introduced today would I be as excited about it as I was back then. I was pretty shocked when I realized that while the geek in me would be happy to see it I wouldn’t think that it could play a major role in my mobile life as it did back then. That set me back a fair bit, I assure you. So I set out to ponder why that is and I came to the conclusion that times have changed and technology has evolved to the point where the handheld PC is not as relevant as it was back then. Why is that? Well, the emergence of the smartphone is why.
I’m not talking about any single smartphone either, I’m considering the entire field. You have to remember that back four or five years ago when the Sony U appeared there were not really any smartphones out there. There were no phones that had decent web browsers to make surfing the web enjoyable. No phones had WiFi to provide fast connectivity and 3G was only a twinkle in some engineers’ eyes. At that point in time the Sony U, a handheld PC, was the only option for someone like me who needed a handheld portal to the online world. It provided me unrestricted access to email, it gave me the ability to search online for information and the computing power to do something with that information. There was really no other way to have the mobile connectivity I needed and that’s why it made such a big deal to me back then.
That has now changed with the growth of WiFi and 3G networks which are easily tapped while on the go. There are many smartphone devices to choose from that provide a great deal of the online needs for most people, myself included. Smartphone browsers are now very good at providing a decent online experience and most smartphones have very good email capabilities out of the box. We can stay connected no matter what by using the phone in our pocket. Sure there are compromises involved in interacting with that information but those are largely the same compromises we’ve always faced using handheld devices.
That’s why I think that MIDs are doomed to failure, they no longer bring capability to the mobile worker that we can’t get on a good smartphone. If MIDs had appeared two or three years ago they would have taken the world by storm but technology wasn’t in place to allow that to happen. They are just starting to appear now and I don’t see them bringing any capability that we don’t already have with the smartphone in our pocket. The time for MIDs has passed, and we can blame the phone for that.
Will the smartphone be the mobile computer of the future?
This brings me to question: will the smartphone become the primary mobile computing platform of the future? Some very smart people, much smarter than I believe so. I saw an interview of our good friend Steve Rubel who believes that smartphones will replace laptops for the mobile worker in the next few years. I think that’s a bit simplistic and while I respect Steve’s views I don’t agree with them for the simple reason that smartphones suffer from the same compromises that handheld PCs have always had that prevents that from happening. We will still need notebooks that supply a bigger screen to interact with more information at once and we will need the keyboard for content creation. Handheld PCs, even my old faithful Sony U suffered from the same restrictions as smartphones do today and that won’t change. There is simply no substitute for having a high resolution screen to consume information and a decent keyboard to allow better interaction with that information. That hasn’t changed and it won’t be changing any time soon. Sorry Steve, but I think I’m right about this.
Enter the netbook
That need for ultimate mobility coupled with the desire to consume more information than a smartphone makes possible is in my opinion the reason for the explosion of the netbook. Netbooks have the same utility as a bigger notebook but are far more portable due to the reduced size. The 9 or 10-inch screen on the netbook presents the near perfect compromise between portability and utility and that is readily apparent to folks who see them. That’s why they are exploding in sales numbers and why regular consumers are snapping them up in large numbers. Sure the low prices (compared to notebooks) helps in that regard but the portability is the key factor here. Some netbooks cost the same or even less than some smartphones out there today so given the choice between the phone and the netbook to get mobile work done folks will choose (and are choosing) the netbook.
Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying consuming online information with smartphones. I am in a unique position to try many different models and they can and do offer quite decent experiences for working online. The iPhone is a great online tool and I am finding the T-Mobile G1 Android phone to be quite capable in that regard as well. But they all suffer from the ability to interact with that online information and they greatly fall short when it comes time to create content and that’s where netbooks are so strong.
eBook of the week
This week I have picked up another Dean Koontz ebook that is pretty good and I am enjoying thoroughly. Hideaway is a riveting tale of a man killed in a car accident who is reanimated due to advances in medical technology. He doesn’t come through unscathed however, and this is where the story gets so good. I won’t spoil it for you but if you like Koontz you’ll love Hideaway.
Wrap-up
I am out of time again and I hope you enjoyed my ramblings about mobile tech. Remember that these are simply my opinions and yours may very well be different, that’s what makes them opinions. We are all entitled to our own opinions and there are no right nor wrong ones. I would love to hear your take on the mobile handheld computing future though. It’s an exciting time in this area for sure.
Boy, first Jenn, and now you….
While I agree that the manufacturers seem to have missed the boat with the MID market, I and others on several forums in USA, Asia, and France, are having fun with our Aigo’s….
With recent hack file (just unzip and add files to flash drive with OS recovery files, do restore and voila!). The Aigo starts to really shine as a lil’ (fits in shirt or pants pocket w/o case) mobile computer with real OS…linux and soon XP….
Are MIDs irrelevant?
Are smart phones the future? Are MIDs the future? If you’re saying that MIDs are irrelevant because smart phones can do what MIDs can, then the reverse is also true. MIDs will be able to do what smart phones can.
This whole smart phone/MID divide is so absolutely absurd in my opinion. Basically, you’ve got 2 devices that do that SAME THING–only one is has the ability to make phone calls (disreguarding skype, etc) and the other can run a real OS.
OK… let’s think about this. What if someone added an earpiece and a mic to a MID and let it make phone calls. Well, holy crap, you’d have everything you ever wanted from a mobile device.
There’s no point in having both smart phones AND MIDs competing against each other. Whoever designs these things just needs to hurry the heck up and make a device that serves both purposes. Anything else is just stupid.
When I fist handled a Sony U and a OQO I had the same comment: If this was a phone, I would buy it. Portability is great, but people will only keep it with them as their constant companion if it is also their phone. Bottom line for me: if it is going in my pocket, it has to be a phone. (I only have so many pockets!)
I think for most folks the sweet spot is about a 4-5″ screen. The current crop of 2-3″ screens on smartphones are difficult to see for we old folks no matter how good the resolution.
Everyone needs a phone. If that phone can also allow them to leave their laptop at home, then it will make sense to many. Most folks don’t NEED a computer when they are out and about, but if it is attached to their phone, they might get used to it. As an early adopter, I can’t wait for the next great thing, but I always have to remind myself that the rest of the herd moves more slowly.
My best guess for the next big thing? Apple makes an iPhone Pro that is bigger and fits in the gap between their current phones and laptops. Apple does a terrific job of convincing people they can’t live without things and once the demand is there, then the other manufacturers can follow along.
In the meantime, my HTC Advantage is the best compromise.
It’s not so much that I’m angry at the choices HP made with the mini 1000, but up until the last minute many were expecting a 2133 refresh with improvements, not a watered-down consumer version.
And don’t get me wrong there, it’s great that HP did what they did introducing a netbook line aimed squarely at the average Joe. It is not a bad product. I just think that in getting an Intel Atom HP cut corners with the mini 1000 where it otherwise wouldn’t have been necessary. I’m happy that on the business end the 2133 is not scrapped and look forward to that refresh.
I see a big market for a cross-over MID: something that is a mix between the Amazon Kindle and the iPhone. (e.g. the Techcrunch Internet Tablet):
Large (9+ inch) touchscreen, instant on, less than 2 lbs. and good readability in DIRECT sunlight.
A year ago all the bloggers said “BLAH” to the thought of a netbook type device…now they are at the limelight of the CE blogoshere. The MFg’s are making them bigger which seems odd since the overall concept is to reduce functionality to provide a more mobile experience.
I think the MID is next year’s Netbook. As people realize that the Netbook has limited functionality it becomes an accessory to your computing ecosystem. Just for travel and just for shorter web info snacking but more robust that today’s smartphone. As the form factors get smaller and smaller and functionality continues to increase you have to decide between a pocketable MID or a Netbook? I think the MID will win and become the new accessory to your personal computing eco system.
“I think that MIDs are doomed to failure”
You are dooming the device that you have never used!!??
My Aigo, now with 3G and XP, is the 3rd generation UMPC.
..and i love it!
I’ve been using UMPCs as my primary computer for many years: I got a Sony U70 after reading jk’s reviews, later upgraded to various UXs, and just got an oqo 02 last week.
Ultimately, yes, all of these devices will become “irrelevant,” just as non-phone Pocket PCs and Palms became “irrelevant.” But that in itself is irrelevant. The relevant question is, would a device like this be useful for you for the next year or two or three, since that’s the typical lifespan of any of these sorts of things. As long as they fill a useful niche for a large enough group of people, they’re relevant.
Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
UMPCs have failed and so will MIDs.