Windows 7 hope for UMPCs. Worry for Linux. Not for MIDs.

Posted on 10 November 2008, Last updated on 11 November 2019 by

w7desktopSmaller memory footprint, faster boot, better UI and longer battery life. Windows 7 is not only going to be interesting for the laptop and desktop, it’s shaping up well for Netbooks and UMPCs too. Vista always offered better touch and natural input mechanisms but it was a struggle to run it on Ghz-class devices. The reports coming back from Windows 7 pre-beta testers point towards a much more usable system on these devices.

I’ve put a few links to some early reports below but the one I wanted to concentrate on and the one that raised my eyebrows even higher than last weekends ‘TWiT podcast was a post from Ian Dixon at TheDigitalLifeStyle.com. Ian’s website focuses on media centre and related topics but he’s had a Q1P for a while and when he got hold of Windows 7, he went ahead and installed Windows 7 on the Q1P with some really positive results…

[Audio recording below…]

I gave him a Skype call and we chatted  about Windows 7 in general and how it might be a great option for PCs running on ultra mobile PC and netbook architectures. The recording is below. It really looks like Microsoft will put a lot of effort into making it work well on Netbooks where Linux is obviously taking sales but if it carries a standard licensing price and XP for ULCPCs goes away, there’s still a chance for Linux on the really cheap devices. Unless of course Microsoft surprise us with an X86-build of Windows Mobile 7 which would close off one of the last great hopes for consumer Linux.

Lets assume that there won’t be an X86-build of Windows Mobile though.  I wanted to highlight some thoughts about why Windows 7 might be good for low-end PCs it might not be a solution for MIDs. Linux has a great opportunity here, as does a re-worked XP.

  • 10gb of install requires either an expensive flash drive.
  • Boot times on W7 are still not as fast as XP or a slim Linux.
  • Battery life might be improved over Vista but is it improved over XP? I doubt it.
  • Why run using 512MB when it can run in under 200MB (XP Home requires much less memory)
  • Your, likely, most-used applications look the same on any operating system.
  • XP or Linux is likely to cost less. (testing, license, deployment and support.)
  • User interface changes could be added to XP using overlays (Origami was a good start, work seems to have stopped now.)
  • Why carry support (drivers) for hardware you will never have on your device.
  • Why carry programs (Gallery, Media Player, Email client) that you may never use.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just take a stripped-out XP with a nicer UI and touch integration so that we could run our programs efficiently on MIDs? If MS want to cut-off Linux in the netbook arena with low-cost XP then why don’t they do that? Maybe Intel got it right by putting serious investment into Linux area. If XP goes away, its currently the only hope for 2009/2010 MIDs.

Ian Dixon talks about Window 7 on the Q1P ultra mobile PC and answers questions about usability, features and the media center. (MP3, 8MB)

Links to some interesting Windows 7 articles

I’m doing some tests with Windows 7 on the 1.3Ghz Silverthorne/Poulsbl SC3 ultra mobile PC at the moment and I’ll make a short post about that very soon. One thing to note is that H.264 hardware decoding was enabled out of the box with Windows Media Player. It’s very impressive to see 16mbps H.264 playing smoothly!

18 Comments For This Post

  1. animatt says:

    I am generally a linux supported, as I really like the open source style. But if windows 7 comes out much improved I doubt many will be bothered it. While I like linux and like to pass the word around, I am just happy to use what works best for me. Obviously there is alot less pressure for linux sales/ exceptance figures. Even if acceptence does not grow it is not going anywhere.

    Anyway having a hard time refining my thoughts. Basically I think comes down to options, and it is always better to have more. Competition keeps everyone moving forward.

    Ps. I will be using which ever OS has good hardware acceleration for the heavy videos. Although installing Virus software again might feel weird.

    One quick questions. h.264 support. Does it support different container formats. .mkv .avi .ogm I am not sure which container formats new windows media player supports.

    Also I am not sure if you can do any power consumption test when hardware decoding is going on. Very basic to check for any power spikes.

  2. ProDigit says:

    I doubt that, seeing MKV and OGG are opensource projects on their own.
    AVI will always work. Media player supports wmv.
    It would be a surprise to me if they integrated .divx as container which they probably won’t do (since then they’ll need to pay licence fees, while if they leave it up to the user noone needs to pay noting.

  3. Tal Beno says:

    I think that Oliver from the Ubuntu Mobile team got it right when claiming that the Mobile edition is about UI adaptation, and not about reinventing the wheel with a new brand of applications. If Ubuntu for instance goes with MIDs as you hints to be the Linux promise, I think that many of the applications will need some core modification and not just a UI adjustment (due to low horse-power and efficiency constraints). So just from looking at the poor software offerings we have today for MIDs I doubt that Canonical will get there from the content perspective.

    Linux distributions can still win this Netbook battle over even with windows 7 on the horizon. I heard too many times about a good MS product before ending with a crappy release. The problem is focus and spreading resources too thin.

    And I totally agree with your stripped XP with touch modification comment. I suggested that here few months ago too.

  4. Chippy says:

    Tal. I think many of us have been talking about improving XP since 2006 ;-)

    I see a slim chance for Ubuntu-UMPC as a low-cost netbook solution but it will have to compete with all the other distros out there which reduces its chances.

    MIDs are a two-way win for Canonical. 1 – They become the de-facto solution (no competitors) and get a good head-start by basing their work on Moblin2. 2 – They continue their direct-to-OEM approach and then get the contracts for ‘finishing’ the software to OEM spec.

    Steve

  5. Tal Beno says:

    Ohh sorry if I sounded arrogantly … I didn’t mean to say I thought about it first or anything. Just supported your comment full heartedly.

    Just a small example for what I have written above … consider the Fennec over Firefox for Moblin 2. They say that: “For devices that have a small or touch screen, we recommend Fennec as the browser of choice. For devices like Nettops and Netbooks that have a large screen, manufacturers will have the options to install either Fennec or Firefox 3.1.”

    So the bottom line is that to make it happen for MIDs they need much more work on the content and modification of the apps to fit into these devices. You may be right about them having no chance competing over the Netbook space. Maybe I am just too optimistic. But if I were in their shoes that is where I would be stirring. Putting emphasis on desktops as today has far less sense anyway :)

  6. Chippy says:

    Hi Tal.
    Did you see the live IRC session with Mark Shuttleworth the other day. He was very pro-Moblin.
    Lets hope hope hope that they get it all together very quickly.

    See 11:14 on this log:
    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/openweekintrepid/AskMark

    Steve

  7. tal says:

    He is also well aware of the fragmented Linux market and with all honesty I felt much less confidence in his statements. If I had to bet on a MID OS I would go with a software company and not a hardware one. My bet is on Android.

  8. Dimitrios Matsoulis says:

    It is difficult to imagine that Microsoft ignores the presence of netbooks, the extension of XP use being the evidence. However, Microsoft cannot rely on XP for and for this it is highly possible that Microsoft will have a “light” version of Win 7 to plug the low end gap. This way all devices from smartphones to high end desktops will be covered by WinMo 7 and Win 7.

  9. Zapgun says:

    There are a host of XP addons to give you some of Vista’s functionality.

    I played around with some of these but eventually just settled on replacing my XP UI with a very nice looking vista-based theme using some theme replacement software.

    A nice improvement in the look of XP without any increase in memory footprint or any performance hit.

  10. Zapgun says:

    You may find this article interesting.. in which Vista and Win7 speeds are compared. The end result seems to be that there is no real performance improvements where it counts (in your apps), just ‘on the front end’.

    http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2008/11/10/windows-7-faster-or-just-smarter/

  11. Chippy says:

    Yes, my initial findings on the SC3 are just that although for most netbook users, there’s a fair amount of OS work going on in between the three or four programs that are generally used. And, for netbooks users, having something pretty would be a good differentiator (or way to sell a ‘refreshed’ netbook in a second wave!)

    Steve.

  12. ProDigit says:

    Remember Windows7 is only in beta testing!
    by the time we get to SP1 or 2 a lot of issues will be resolved!

  13. tal says:

    BTW, Linux distributions might eventually be far behind on the MID market when MIDs and Smartphones converge. Hopefully soon …
    There operating systems such as Android and the like will probably win.
    Just my 2cp.

  14. Synced says:

    Just FYI there are already X86 builds of Windows Mobile. Same with WinCE. There has been ever since the beginning of CE/WM.

    This is generally not available to consumers since nobody builds these devices, however companies like ours have access to these.

    They are offered, but not relevant yet.

    Btw early testing of W7 indicates XP like UI interaction performance. Even in its alpha form, it is VERY snappy in comparison to Vista. Memory usage is way down as well.

    DWM takes up half the ram it does on Vista.

    Usually alphas/betas aren’t very performance/memory concious so this is a good sign, especially if it improves even further.

    Vista’s core apis etc are very very strong, however its pig of a resource hog & UAC and poor hardware vendor driver support is what plagued the OS.

    W7 so far is a much different story since it supports Vista drivers (which have been out for 2 years now) and offers XP’s general performance.

    I am hoping they continue on the performance work.

  15. Synced says:

    Btw XP vs Vista performance isn’t relative to raw calculations either. It is factored mostly in 2 spots which is RAM usage and UI interaction.

    Vista is not as lightning snappy at your finger tips, and it consumes a lot of memory.

    This is where most people say Vista is “slow”.

    Just like the article says, and has been said so many times before in product meetings around boardrooms, “perception is reality”.

    UI snappiness doesn’t really make you any more productive (unless its terribly laggy) but it does make your experience feel much more enhanced.

    The iPhone is a perfect example of what is under the hood is crap but what is presented to the user is absolutely beautiful. The end result? Tons of hype and everyone thinking every other phone is so far behind.

    But like I said above. Vista has a really great core of API’s that were introduced. If they can continue to give this to us with the XP like footprint and snappiness then we have the OS Vista should of been if they spent time to refine it like they are now.

    It’s unbelievable the difference between the two even in such an alpha form.

  16. ProDigit says:

    You know what would be a great OS for netbooks and UMPC’s?
    Windows 98 Se!
    By the end of it’s lifetime it worked rocksolid! It’s mainly single threaded, meaning if a program crashes, windows freezes or slows down, but as a single threaded OS it was one of the greatest!
    Ultra fast response time etc…
    And on a mobile device you will want to avoid running multiple programs at the same time anyways (to preserve battery power)!

    I’ve also read that the shutdown time for Windows 7 is enormous slow; slower than Windows Vista.
    Also boottime seems slower than xp.
    Memory footprint is larger than XP.
    probably the energy powersaving modes of windows 7 will not weigh up to the OS using more power than XP.

    However if Windows 7 could function like XP and Vista, that you can remove a theme and have the plain old grey-blue windows of the Win95 area, there could be a chance that Windows 7 could near the batterylife of XP!

    Fact is when one disables a lot of functions in Vista, vista comes pretty close to battery life as XP.
    One for sure is aero. But disable at all the themes, disable remote access, indexing, prefetching, UAE (or something..), disable the majority of services running and taskmanager, and you’ll end up with vista running 15-20% less long than XP.
    I believe Windows 7 will do better here.
    AllI’m saying is,by the time SP1 or 2 gets released, we might actually have an OS that runs and can be modded almost like XP.
    In any case probably the coming 6months Windows 7 is not really worth buying.

    Besides,when XP gets installed it takes up a lot of space!
    One can prune it, and remove lots of applications, and get it installed with office, and some other personal programs on a 6GB disk.
    Windows 7 will probably be the same… Prune it!

  17. Synced says:

    98SE would be the worst mobile OS you could choose. It does not support newer drivers for power management and also the UI is a traditional desktop.

    W7 if it continues to give the UI speed of XP, it already has improved boot up time / shutdown time (hopefully they can further improve) will be a great UMPC OS however, if MS wants to make Windows a giant in mobility it needs to supply UI replacements for mobile devices.

    A traditional desktop does not work for mobility.

    A common mobility test in the industry is “can you do X while walking down a flight of stairs”. Usually the case is no because it requires a stylus and pin point accuracy.

    UI’s that stand up well are ones where thumbs, fingers etc are easy to use and you can hold it in 1 hand or in some cases 2.

    Try changing the volume in Windows with a UMPC in your hands without a stylus. It’s possible but you have to be accurate.

    UI replacements are not that difficult. Mobility is a way of thinking. You have to think that way and dedicate R&D resources into tackling it.

    The browser wars shows this very well how their tackling usability and scrolling and zooming etc.

  18. bob vansteel says:

    Haha…windows 7 isnt even beta yet bud, all we’ve seen is the alpha pre-beta builds

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