Two more items to tick off the list on the 800Mhz Atom MID’s:
– YouTube appears to play flawlessly.
– The CoolImage application does indeed look cool.
Both videos (linked above) are from UMPCFever in HongKong. Keep an eye out for more!
I want to see WMV and H264 at HD though. In theory, it works! Also on my list:
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Browsing Speed and plugin support for the Firefox 3 based browser.
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Standby Power drain
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Application startup times
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Resume times
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3G reception quality
And much more!
thanks steve for you promote update.
I find there are some technical problems on restoring WinXP to Linux. May need some times to finish the testing in Linux environment. I will try my best to make it!! :)
I’m really interested in this kind of devices. But we have to be realistic about their capabilities. The thing runs regular Linux right? So it shouldn’t be a problem to run Firefox 3 with any extensions or plugins on it.
But it won’t be possible to us it for HD video playback. Certainly not for MPEG-4 AVC (AKA H.264). I heard VC-1 (AKA WMV9) is less demanding on CPU power, but according to my tests both available VC-1 decoders (libavcodec and Microsoft DMO) need even more CPU power then libavcodec H.264 decoder.
I have an Athlon 64 3500+ CPU. It can decode 720p H.264 or VC-1. It will also play some low complexity and low bitrate 1080p H.264 movies. From a 1080i H.264 I get about 5 fps. 1080p VC-1 is always very choppy and libavcodec can’t even decode interlaced VC-1.
So how could you expect from 800 MHz CPU do decode HD video? The most you can hope for is SD (720×576) playback of MPEG-2 (DVD-Video) and MPEG-4 ASP (so called DivX or XviD). I really wouldn’t expect anything more unless there is a HW decoder.
I remember my Duron 600 MHz was barely able to decode 720×576@25 MPEG-4 ASP.
So don’t expect too much.
If they get a full windows version to run it will give the OQO some stiff competition. The drawback is that any UMPC or MID having the shape and size of an OQO means that they are thumb based due to the short length. The mainstream has already demonstrated that a thumb input full windows is not what they want; just look at the small sales OQO has generated after 8 years on the market. What they should do is just increase the length an inch or so to make it 7 to 7.4″ that will provide enough room for a touch type keyboard. You can debate about all the techno internal features on any device that is thumb but the problem is that they will not be that popular for full windows.
If you want a 7″ or bigger device, then get a UMPC. I don’t want anything bigger then 5″ because then it won’t fit in my pocket.
Low sales of OQO are IMHO caused by other reasons. The device is very expensive and it has no marketing. Except of a few geeks nobody knows that something like the OQO exists. And even if they knew, most people can’t afford it or don’t want to pay that much for a “better PDA”.
But if the price will be set reasonably low, I do believe there is a big demand for pocket sized full OS computers.