I spent the final day of my tour talking about Intel-based MIDs/UMPCs and mobile computing to anyone I came across who 1) looked approachable, 2) didn’t reject the request they didn’t let me explain as soon I said “excuse me,” and 3) wanted to know more about the three devices (OQO Model 2+, BenQ S6, Willcom/Sharp D4) my husband and I were already holding so we didn’t scare anyone by reaching into our bags while walking toward them.
After 7 hours, 6 locations, and a lot of strange looks and stares, I managed to have interesting discussions with a total of 11 people: a middle-aged man with an Amazon Kindle at Applebee’s, 4 college students hanging out at the Irvine Spectrum Center, an elderly married couple sitting outside of Bloomingdale’s, a thirty-something woman emailing on her Blackberry, the guy at the front desk of the hotel I’m staying at, and a young couple using matching laptops at a Starbucks in Anaheim.
None of these people were what I would describe as tech savvy, but they knew about mainstream consumer electronics like iPods, smartphones, and small notebook computers. None of them had heard of MIDs, UMPCs, or the Intel Atom.
My “interviews” didn’t have a fixed structure, but I did give a brief demo of each device, ask and answer questions, and let people hold and use the units. The responses/reactions were varied, but there were still some shared concerns and commonalities among them.
Here are some highlights, straight from the mouths of the people.
OQO Model 2+
- “This one is my favorite! I like the keyboard and this fuzzy ball thing.”
- “Can you put iTunes on it?”
- “Oh my god, it’s way too expensive. It costs more than my computer.”
- “I think it’s too big. Why would you carry this when your phone can go online too?”
- “I could really use something like this. Put it in my jacket pocket, pull it out when I need it.”
- “How come you can’t see the whole page? I don’t want to keep sliding that thing to the side to read a line.”
- “It’s really light and small. It’s the best looking one too because it slides up like that and the keyboard lights up too.”
- “How do you watch a DVD on it?”
- “This keyboard is better than my Blackberry’s, but my Blackberry fits in my purse.”
BenQ S6
- “What’s Linux?”
- “Where’s the keyboard?”
- “Is it a computer? How do you type on it?”
- “I don’t get it.”
- “That’s cool, the way you can slide your finger across the screen like that and everything is all animated.”
- “I would probably buy this one because it’s the cheapest.”
- “It looks kinda like a toy but the video looked nice on it. So maybe I’d get one to watch movies or YouTube. Can it play YouTube? Yeah, then I would get it to watch videos and maybe check MySpace or something.”
- “Can you put iTunes on it? Oh, then I wouldn’t get it.”
Sharp/Willcom D4
- “It’s too big and fat.”
- “That glowing part on the side is neat. I like the way the screen sits up like that too. Do you type with your thumbs or your fingers? It feels really heavy.”
- “The screen is too small.”
- “It looks high tech and futuristic, but who’s it made for? People in Japan must have very small hands. I can’t type on something this small.”
- “This is the coolest one.”
- “I would get it but I think it would get stolen in the dorms.”
Intel MIDs/UMPCs (general)
- “I don’t really understand these things. I mean, I get the whole ‘small computer, put it in your pocket’ thing, but so what? I’m sorry if that sounds rude. It’s smaller than my laptop and all, but that’s it? It’s just the size that makes it so expensive? My laptop is small enough to carry in my bag.”
- “I think they’re very cool and very out of my price range.”
- “I thought people were downsizing with phones that are MP3 players and have internet and can do email and take pictures. I like the one with the glowing keyboard but I wouldn’t buy it because I already have a good phone and a MacBook.”
- “How come I’ve never seen these before? The guys at Best Buy, Fry’s . . . they all know me by name. I always go in and play with the computers, iPods, cameras, everything. I never saw these before.”
- “The battery life needs to be longer. I use my stuff whenever I want all day long and plug it in before I go to sleep. Everything is ready when I wake up.”
- “It’s good to have something smaller than a laptop because you don’t always want to carry a laptop when you just want to check email or surf the web. I like the touchscreens better than the pens so I can use my fingers; it’s easier like that. I like that it has Windows Vista, which I have at home and at work, but it should be cheaper. Aren’t there small laptops now that are only $300 or something?”
well done jenn. i’d like to say – most users of small devices like smartphones, even computers DO NOT use them for (what i call ) “real work” any more but as simple consumer interfaces for entertainment: chatting – sucking videos or audio – consuming already prepared information – taking/collecting bad, but quick pictures – gaming. This is a completely different view and understanding (?) the masses have nowadays of computing devices.
Good job, but did you cover with each the battery lifetime issues with each device?
Battery, Battery Battery…
Folks just don’t want to carry extra battery(s) with them to mall, to class, etc and/or a charger (one for cell phone and one for MID device, in an electronics bag) in order to get a full day of use out of any electronic communication/web device.
Should have asked them if they would like a device with this screen… and this battery life (see):
http://www.pixelqi.com/
http://www.pixelqi.com/press
My fav: “Whats Linux?” rofl!
Good job Jenn. Im going to try and do the same thing here at MBC09 in Hamburg.
Lets see what a bunch of smartphone-centric geeks have to say.
Steve
it worries me how much itunes seems to have become the killer app…
at times it makes me wonder if people use it as a media player even if they dont own a ipod…
Some folks that run a local small store (exist because their deli is better and cheaper), well they just bought an HP 64 Bit laptop that is LOADED (it’s got just about everything except Blue Ray on it). They don’t have much money so I told them about some FOSS apps tha they could run on their Windows. So, instead of MS Office they use OpenOffice 3.0 and love it. They also got Scribus (to do layered advertising copy on), Gimp for photo work (they don’t need CMYK to print anything, so it is ok for them), and FireFox (also Thunderbird). The only reason why they don’t run LINUX right now, is because all day they listen to their ITunes stuff AND THAT WAS KEY as the other apps they don’t use anywhere near as much as they depend on their ITunes.
So – you are right. The investment in ITunes is a huge part of what folks buy otherwise as far as devices, including a choice of Laptops
Of note: There are some very good media players for LINUX that indeed will do a nice job (even a better job) at playing your iTunes music, and even some are using WINE to run the Windows version of the iTunes software on a Linux box (some comments say that this works, I have not tried it myself).
More (as a TYI) – but not a pure ability to run native iTunes as a native app on Linux – Folks like Songbird (Mozilla engine based) to play iTunes… Songbird is capable of running on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Solaris and Linux. From Songbird feature page “Media Importing – Add media to Songbird by importing from your file system or iTunes”.
sample how to (others are out there google is your friend):
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/05/how-to-use-songbird-to-manage-your-ipod/
But – some sites say you still need iTunes for some stuff.
And so, for the brave… here is a link for seting up iTunes in Wine on Ubuntu 8.04
http://sudosys.be/?q=itunes_7.3_on_ubuntu_8.04
Good luck – not a pure answer, but at least someone is trying something out there!
So, all of these comments are about price, size & weight, design, battery life, MS Windows. It’s all about the traditional computer experience. The usual MID/UMPC line about convenience isn’t working, especially when prices near $1000.
Thinking about it… Take a Fujitsu U820. Move the touchscreen from where it is now to where the keyboard is. Cut off the rest of the protruding bits on that same surface. Replace the docking port with a USB port. Get rid of the webcam, shift the trackstick above the screen. Make a keyboard attachment that plugs into the bottom USB port a la HP TC1100.Put Windows 7 on it.
And sell it for less than $700. Good luck.
I think none of those computers really represents what mainstream users would want to buy. I would like to see a simple pocket netbook. Something wth large keys for normal typing not thumb input. Most people think of computers as tools for work not as toys so without them being able to do replace notebook then I see no value to non tech people.