Samsung’s Windows XP Mobile Phone.
So there you have it. We have reached crossover. Is there a way I could say ‘I told you so’ without sounding big headed? No there isn’t is there. I’ll just leave a little link here instead. >!<
By the Carrypad definition of a UMPC, the Samsung has to be included. Take a look.
It was announced at the WiMax summit in South Korea today as the ‘latest in mobile convergence.’ and apart from running XP on a Transmeta CPU and having a 30GB HDD, its wireless communication method is purely cell based. Wi-Max and CDMA EV-DO are included. No Wifi. No Bluetooth.
Design wise it’s pretty nice although I’m not sure what Fujitsu will have to say about it. They showed a similar tri-fold design back in April 04 and my article, funnily enough, got heavily linked in a Transmeta stock forum.
Table-top device?
There’s no touch screen which is OK in many situations. Using a touchscreen on a UMPC in ‘two-handed’ mode is damn difficult unless its resting on something. The turning force when you have to hold it in one hand is very uncomfortable. The Samsung weighs just over 500g so it shouldn’t be too much of a strain in one hand. But…
…I assume that the round button on the right-hand-side of the keyboard is the mouse so is it possible to operate the device in a tablet mode at all? I don’t think so. If you look at the other images at Aving.net and Engadget you won’t see the device in a tablet mode which is a bit limiting for a mobile device. This looks like a tabletop device to me. No touch. No tablet mode.
Why XP?
Why have they put XP on it? Cheap and easy perhaps? Its not optimal but I guess MS are giving away XP licenses for next to nothing these days. There’s the user learning curve to consider too.
Focal point for consumer devices?
The 4-5″ UMPC space is going to be a focal point for consumer devices in 2007. We’ll see more device like this appearing and mobile phone carriers will start offering them with data contracts. The question you have to ask yourself is, are you a power UMPC user or are you a UMPC-Lite user? Could you survive with a thin client WVGA screen solution or do you need the full tablet experience with Vista and all the MS app’s? If the UMPC-Lite covers all your needs I guess you’ll be picking one up for $50 per month including data before long. You can already buy a Sony UX280P with cellular data capability. The new OQO device is rumored to have cellular data capability. The new Fujitsu P1610 has cellular data capability. The Q1b (not in U.S.) was launched showing cellular data capability and the Flybook has had cellular data capability for a long time. I wonder which one is going to be offered in Europe / America / Australia as a subsidised package with a data contract first?
Steve / Chippy.
