OQO Arrives at Intel Atom Party, Better Late than Never
I brought my Inbox to zero over the weekend, but the barrage of CES pitches has me buried again. Rob Bushway is doing better than I am at managing the endless e-mails because he’s actually reading some. He notes that the Digital Experience lineup shows OQO will be in attendance at the mini-show on January 7th. We’ll be there at the Mirage to check it all out, but like Rob, we’ll be swinging by the OQO booth to see their Model 2+.
I’ve been wondering how long it would take for OQO to rework their handheld computer with the Intel Atom chipset. Now we know because the Digital Experience e-mail tells us that there’s a 1.86GHz Intel Atom under the hood of the revamped device. There’s also up to 2GB of RAM and a touchscreen, which I’m assuming will complement the active digitizer but we’ll have to wait and see. Even more interesting to me is the OLED display, which I suspect will add more battery life savings. Aside from hardware specifications, I wonder how the Model 2+ will come in on pricing. Only a week to wait and find out!
Nice to see they’ve bumped the memory to 2gigs, the proc speed will be welcome, as will touch, if it’s implemented well. OLED seems more of ploy to maintain price point than anything really usefull. I’m guessing they’ll try and ask $1600 to $1800… With the poor economy, OQO’s tradition of spotty service, no camera, and pressure from netbooks it’s hard to see this getting too much traction. I’ll try Windows 7 on our existing machines before even considering an ‘upgrade’.
I just wonder if smart phones are going to eat into the oqo market.
OLED display can be thinner (although we don’t know if this one will be). Certainly, they consume less power so there’s potential for improvement in battery life. If that pans out, that’s certainly worth some money. Calling it a ploy is a little misleading if it actually provides added value.
BTW, since when is buying a brand new machine considered upgrading your old one? I mean, at the end of the process, you have both machines. It’s not like the old one goes away. The lovely thing about computers is that when a new one comes out, the old one continues to work. There’s no reason for anyone who has a Model 02 to rush out to buy a Model 2+. If the Model 02 works well for you, why mess with a good thing?
As for netbooks, I don’t understand why they would pressure OQO at all. If you need a real keyboard, an OQO is an utter misfit. If you need something that fits in your pocket, a netbook is an utter misfit. They don’t serve the same market. OQO’s target market, IMHO, is much smaller.
I can totally see people getting the OQO confused with a MID though. It shouldn’t be too long before people compare the OQO to devices with an 800MHz Atom and 4GB SSD and pronounce the OQO way too expensive.
This isn’t to say that the OQO won’t be pricey. This is just to say that it doesn’t make sense to compare things which aren’t equally capable. If someone isn’t doing anything which requires any more than an 800MHz Atom, why is he even looking at an OQO in the first place. At some point, it all turns into “Ugh. This meatloaf is a terrible banana cream pie.” Well, duh…
[Of course, the truth is that very few people place heavy computational demands on their pocket sized device. For most people, a MID or a smartphone is plenty powerful. Those people already aren't looking at the OQO. I find it hard to imagine anyone ever looked at the Model 02 and thought "Gee, it cost over $1500 and does a bunch of things I don't care about in a handheld device. Hey, I'll buy it." They won't say that about the Model 2+ either. The smartphone market won't eat into the OQO market because the smartphone folks have already been factored out. They weren't considering the OQO to being with.]
@JC
i’d agree with you on the markets the OQO and netbooks are trying to reach. they are definitely different markets as the OQO is for the user with tons of money and a NEED for a pocketable pc.
and yes, those even considering an OQO are def out of the smartphone sect/genre.
honestly, i find it pretty hard to justify an OQO device.
now that i think more about it; who really would buy one of these nowadays?
i mean my msi wind / netbooks has all of the features that OQO has except the form factor but then again thats why i got a wind too. best of all worlds: touchscreen, 1.6ghz atom, 2gbs ddr, 500gb hdd. plus i can get my data via bt and tethering.
so yea, who actually buys and uses these babies?
@seamonkey420 — people who want to be able to put it in their pocket. I know physicians who use it. But yes, it’s an expensive toy if you don’t have a good business case for it.
If the LCD is still stuck on 800×480, no sale.