We got a note from jkOTR reader, Richard, about an issue with his Samsung Q1P and as I try to often do: I’m sharing the general issue and resolution here so that other folks might benefit. Richard lost the screen resolution switcher on his Q1; in fact, the on-screen display for it doesn’t even appear.

Samsung’s technical support recommended a reinstall of the operating system, but in my opinion, that won’t do much for this issue or any other issues with Samsung on-screen utilities. Rather than focus on this specific issue, let’s quickly give an overview of the Samsung apps needed to address most on-screen display issues.

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That’s what Steve over at Carrypad found out after an e-mail conversation with the UMPC product manager. Obviously, Steve carries more weight than I do as I shot a note to the PM at Medion upon my return from CES; no answer yet unfortunately! Regardless of the delay (and we’re not sure how much of a delay there is), the Medion has the best integrated keyboard solution for a UMPC in my opinion; and I’m not an integrated keyboard kinda guy. Make no mistake: you won’t be touch typing on it but for the folks that need an integrated keyboard, you’ll want to see this product when it finally debuts.

Two interesting BIOS updates have recently appeared for Origami specified UMPCs. One for the Samsung Q1 and one for the Asus R2H:

• Rory left a comment on our last post indicating that a UK Samsung site has a Q1 BIOS upgrade designated 20MA.
• Ctitanic gets a double-shoutout today for finding the Asus R2H upgrade of BIOS version 206.

I’m holding off on the Q1 BIOS ugprade simply because there’s no information on what BIOS upgrade actually does and I tend not to mess with BIOS in a case like that. Additionally, I like a dual-boot option on my Q1 (XP and Vista) and I don’t know the impact of the BIOS changes. Let’s keep our eyes and ears open for the brave souls that try it; although I expect we’ll need more drivers and apps to follow for full support.

The lack of HID drivers on the Samsung Q1 series of UMPC has plagued us for a while; early Vista builds had few issues, but the final release is a little more…shall we say….stringent on the Tablet PC functional requirements. Like many others, I miss the ability to ink my e-mails in Outlook 2007, for example.

A little elbow grease combined with solid technical knowledge provides a short term solution: Ctitanic tricks his Office 2007 installation into allowing the Ink Tool button. He has the registry key information right here for you, but be warned: the key is reset upon reboot. I’ll personally wait for the long term solution: a set of HID drivers from Samsung. Perhaps upon the release of the Samsung Q1P with Vista pre-installed?

The wait for a Samsung UMPC with Vista pre-installed continues, but perhaps we’re in the home stretch. jkOTR reader Hector shot me a note over the weekend with a clipping from CDW’s site: the online retailer offers a Samsung Q1P with Vista for $1,299. The availability shows as 10 days out as of today, so cross your fingers and keep your eyes peeled. I hit the Samsung Q1 product page daily just hoping for some product or driver updates, but they still have the specs mixed up between the Q1B and Q1P! Thanks Hector!

It’s been a few weeks since my initial Q1P battery life test (shown); that’s the one that got folks buzzing about an LED backlit screen in the Q1P. Is the screen LED backlit? I still don’t truly know even though I’ve had bunches of conversation with folks and even took my Q1P apart. I’ll spare you the gory pics because they looked identical to those when Sammy was in the buff last year.

LED backlighting or not, I’m getting more runtime from the Q1P as well as a 40% brighter screen. I’ve shot a note to Samsung’s PR folks inquiring about this, but two weeks have gone by with nary a response. Samsung’s Customer Service was up to the challenge, but PR is falling well short of my expectations. In any case, I ran a scenario past Steve Paine over at Carrypad and then executed it.

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Noticed in the Origami Project Software Forum that JKK posted a video of Joost running on his UMPC. In case you missed it prior: Joost is an online video streaming service once known as "The Venice Project"; it’s the brainchild of those P2P folks behind Skype. Currently in beta, JKK must have received an invite and I’m glad he did!

His video shows that Joost works quite well; it’s difficult to gage the resolution quality on a video like this, but it looked reasonable from my perspective. The floating menu options that Joost uses as interface cries for the touchscreen, making this look like a real winner for UMPCs. I’ve always been impressed by using a Slingbox with my UMPC, but Joost is looking pretty nice, pending the content availability of course. Nice job JKK; I especially like the BSG theme to your opening credits!

OK, the Microsoft Origami Project team has hit the giant-sized "publish" button in Redmond and…..we’re waiting for the download to propogate through the servers. Maybe everyone is downloading Vista? Oh, I don’t know but you’ve been waiting for what we showed you and it will be here soon.

Here’s the link that was published; if it’s not working for you yet, catch a 30-minute sitcom or watch our Origami video three times and try again!

Although some would call me ‘relentless’, I’d prefer ‘passionate’. Just this morning I was lamenting the lack of Vista drivers and my missing screen resolution switching on the Q1P within Vista. Well, it obviously doesn’t take much to get me going: a few comments by jkOTR readers indicating that they have the res switcher working was all it took. (Thanks rolajos and Patrick for the inspiration!)

I’ve got a string of pictures to show that it is indeed working, but BOY was it convoluted to make it so (or maybe it was just me!). In fact, it was so much trial and error that I’ll likely have to re-install Vista from scratch to get the exact steps down. Then again, if someone wants to save me a few hours and share their method, that’s fine with me!

I can say this much: I’ve typically installed the latest and greatest graphics drivers right after my Vista installs on the Q1-series. Today I did bring the drivers back about two versions by installing the software provided on the Samsung Q1 download site. Bringing them back up to the latest Intel driver appears to have done the trick, but there was quite a bit of pushing and prodding with the VGA controller software as well. So while you might not have the complete 1024 x 600 picture just yet, keep your dreams alive Vista fans. There might be light at the end of the tunnel here. Now, where are those darn HID drivers from Samsung that would complete my day?

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Although some UMPCs were never branded as "Vista capable", many of us have tried to get Vista fully up and running on our own. I had success with the beta versions, but after RC2, I lost the ability to use the screen resolution switcher on the Samsung Q1 and Q1P. ctitanic notes today that folks are still waiting and hoping.

I’ve received at least a dozen reader e-mails in the past week along the same lines. Folks asking if I know when we’ll see Vista drivers from Samsung (I don’t), people wondering how to get the screen resolution working (I don’t know), readers wondering what the steps are to get Vista running, etc…all good questions.

My hope is that sometime this week to coincide with the Vista launch, I can re-write the basic steps for a Vista install on the Samsung Q1 series of devices; bear in mind that I started to do this previously, but the lack of screen resolution gave me pause. Intel has recently updated the graphics drivers for the 910/915 chipset, but alas: I just tried those and see no difference; instructions or not, I’m still without this functionality. It’s worth noting that Vista isn’t even mentioned on the updated driver page nor in the release notes.

While it’s a shame that we may never see Vista and HID drivers for the Samsung Q1, we do have to realize that the device was never advertised as "Vista capable". Should it be and is it capable? I absolutely think so and we’ve seen various videos and posts where people are running Vista. In fact, every Samsung Q1-series unit I saw at CES was running Vista. Time will tell if that was all a show for the show or if Samsung will provide the real deal. I’m hoping we get the software support that so many folks are clamoring for: it would do nothing but good for the UMPC platform as a whole.

UPDATE: some trial and error effort got the screen resolution switcher working in Vista after this post.