I’ve spent the last several days with the HTC Titan, a WP7 phone with a zippy 1.5GHz CPU and a huge 4.7″ screen. I’ve been keeping a running list of areas where WP7 is lacking, or places where they could push it to really excel. If these things were fixed, I would switch from iOS (which I’ve chosen to use for my last 3 phones) to Windows Phone 7 and recommend that others follow. And just so it is clear, all information in this article pertains to Windows Phone 7.5, AKA Mango.

To start, I want to point out that I’m extremely impressed with WP7. This is one of Microsoft’s biggest consumer facing undertakings in the last few years, and I see massive potential in the OS. WP7 is beautiful and unique. I’d call it the best looking OS on the market today, hands down. It makes Android and iOS feel like they were designed in a veritable stone age of mobile OS design.

dosage for flagyl

Most unfortunately, it’s lacking in a number of vital areas. A friend asked me what I thought of WP7 the other day. Because he isn’t a tech-geek like myself, I used a metaphor. I told him to imagine the most attractive sports car he’d ever seen. With the car come a few caveats: the steering wheel sucks and it doesn’t have any tires. Although my choice of steering wheel and tires weren’t supposed to represent specific issues with the iOS (but rather say: it’s missing stuff), looking back now perhaps mentioning the tires was a good choice, after all, the OS is lacking traction.

If I didn’t think WP7 had tremendous potential, I wouldn’t be wasting my time or yours with this article. But I truthfully think that WP7 has something special going for it. Microsoft just needs to hone it and push it hard. My hope is that this list gives them a good place to start:

The List

• Core Social Applications — Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, are necessary to offer the majority of users access to their preferred social networks. Even more if you hope to include everyone. Official Facebook and Twitter applications exist,  and while they look nice, the functionality is quite weak. Facebook has hardly any native support for the things that users actually do within it. You’ll find that you are constantly getting kicked out of the app and into the browser to a mobile site, and half the time you’ll be met with a frustrating error message once you arrive there. Both Facebook and Twitter suffer greatly from the fact that notifications in WP7 are poorly implemented. Google Plus doesn’t exist as an app on the app Marketplace, and the browser doesn’t support the most modern version of the Google Plus web app, instead dropping you back to a version that would likely still be supported by my Palm OS running Sony Clie UX50.
• Multi-calendar Support through Gmail — This is simply frustrating. You have the option to configure a Google account directly in WP7, and you can select if you want to sync calendars, contacts, and email when you create it. This makes the user believe that all of these things are fully supported, but there is no indication that there is no support for sub-calendars in Google calendar. If you are a serious Google Calendar user, you likely have a number of sub-calendars under your main calendar for better organization. Unfortunately, only the main calendar will sync over, so if rely on sub-calendars, you are out of luck.
• Notification System — It is claimed that WP7 has notifications. Evidence of these notifications, however, are completely absent. I’ve spent nearly a week very close to WP7 with Facebook, Twitter, and Email accounts configured on the device, and I’ve not seen one single notification unless I explicitly look at the Me hub (more on that below). I actually had my iPhone sitting next to the HTC Titan and was using the iPhone as a notification system to decide when to check the Titan; this was almost comical!
• Expand the ‘Me’ Section — The ‘Me’ section of WP7 would be the notification center of the OS, if notifications actually existed. This brings together your notifications into one place and let’s you interact with them. Between iOS, Android, and WP7, the Me hub is the only native system that I would actually consider using, but it needs a lot of work and it will require maintenance. The promise of the Me section is to bring your life into one place. The Me hub is unique beyond Apple’s Notification Center and Android’s Notification Menu because instead of dishing you out to other apps, you can interact directly with the notifications. For twitter mentions, you can send a reply, and for Facebook posts, you can comment, like, etc.. This is really awesome, but it needs deep support if people are actually going to use it. At the moment, it really only consists of Twitter and Facebook. Why email isn’t included is beyond me. When I wake up in the morning, I grab my phone to see what I’ve missed. Usually there are a few texts, emails, and some social network notifications. These should all go into the Me section so I can see everything at a glance, and respond to them if needed, without jumping out to other apps and becoming distracted by noise within. In order for the Me section to prosper, it needs support for a greater number of social networks, needs to (optionally) wrap in email, and it needs to be on it’s toes about updates. I will always use a first-party or third-party app over OS=level implementations if the OS level implementation lacks support for the stuff that I actually want to do (like posting to a Facebook group, or including a photo in a tweet). When new social network features come about, users are not going to wait 6 months or a year for the OS to be updated to support them, instead they are going to leave for a readily available app. Keeping the Me section on its toes could be done in two ways: 1) having an internal team dedicated to making sure that every way that a user might want to interact with a notification is covered. This will require the ability to do automatic OTA delta-updates. 2) alternatively, make the Me hub completely developer driven by allowing applications to push info into it. This way, you’ll never end up with broken or missing functionality, because once the app gets updated, its interaction with the Me hub will be updated as well. The Me hub also needs to alert the user that there are new notifications from the lock screen. Currently, an unread email count is the only info you get on the lock screen with regards to notifications.
• Skype — Microsoft owns Skype and yet it is on every major mobile OS (yes even WebOS) except for WP7. Do I need to say any more?
• Quick Jump to Top and Bottom of Start Screen — Because of the design of the Start screen can cause it to get rather long, there needs to be a way to quickly jump to the bottom. Currently, you can tap the Start button while on the Start screen to jump to the top of the list, but there is no way to quickly get to the bottom. If you are at the very top of the Start screen, the Start button should send you to the bottom of the screen and vice-versa.
• Next/Last Input Field Navigation — When entering text into a text field in the web browser, it can sometimes be difficult to select the next input field because it has the tendency to get cut off by the keyboard (which has a hit-zone that expands beyond where the keyboard stops visually). This means that you see a sliver of the next text box and try to tap it, but end up pressing a key instead. Having buttons to navigate between input fields (like on iOS) would be very useful.
• Faster Access to Tabs in Web Browser — I don’t think any serious computer user has used Android and asked, “Why is it so annoying to manage browser tabs?”. WP7 is making the same mistake. Getting to the tab menu in the browser requires that you pull up the URL bar, tap the tab button, then make another input to close, select, or create a new tab. This is too many taps to get to tabs and the result is that tabs become underused and the person using the browser uses it less efficiently than they should be able to. Improving interaction with tabs in the browser quickly and easily increases the productivity of those using it; they will thank you.
• Better Standards Support in Browser — It seems that Internet Explorer will never be able to shake free from the chains of its past. Yes, I said it: standards support in IE on WP7 sucks, and that’s not surprising to anyone. Between WebOS, Android, iOS, and WP7, I bet you can guess which one scores the lowest on the HTML5 test. Having weak standards support means that when you don’t have native apps (and let’s be honest, this is a problem for WP7 right now), at least users can fall back to modern web apps which are usually a decent replacement. Unfortunately, because of the lack of standards support and a useragent that no one seems to care about, users get stuck with simplistic web offerings. Having a browser that works as expected is also tied to the confidence you have when using it. If I want to buy concert tickets through some no-name website through iOS, I’d put my money on it working with no problem. With IE on WP7, I’d bet against the process going smoothly. I want to have confidence that I can do anything on my mobile browser (within reason) that I’d be able to do on my desktop browser. IE on WP7 does not give me that confidence. Just for reference, here’s the current HTML5 test tally for modern mobile browsers:

• Open in Background Tab — In addition to making tab interaction faster, there really needs to be a way to open a link in a background tab. Unless you have the attention span of a hyperactive child, you probably choose to read information online while opening relevant links in the background to check through after you finish the current material. Opening in the foreground is just distracting and forces the user to navigate back to the original tab.
• Global Landscape Support — Windows Phone 7 has the most responsive and best looking transition from landscape to portrait of any mobile OS. Show it off! Landscape support is a scarcity throughout the OS. At very least, the multitasking menu needs landscape support so that when you pull it up from one of the few apps that do support landscape, it is oriented the right way.
• Deeper Live Tile Functionality — I think Live Tiles are a great idea, but they aren’t being used often by developers. Where they are used is often for eye-candy rather than functionality (like the People hub which flips through a bunch of photos that are too small to really see). Talk to developers and find out what tools they need to best use Live Tiles, and encourage them to make use of this unique functionality!
• Expand Pin to Start and XBL Friends List— Pin to start is another great idea. On iOS, there are specific albums that I love to listen to, but every time I want to play them, I have to launch the Music app and navigate through some menus to find them. In WP7, I can ‘pin’ these directly to the home screen and play them with a single tap, which is awesome. I want to see more of this. Specifically, you need to allow Xbox Live users to pin their friends list to the start screen, and then, using Live Tiles, you should be able to see how many friends are online. Invites, messages, and friend requests from XBL friends should probably end up in the Me hub, but I think a case could be made for leaving them in the XBL hub.
• Change Accent Color Automatically — The accent color (configurable in the Settings app) is a cool way to spice up your phone, but it’s bothersome to change manually. There should be an option to have the accent color change by the day, week, or month. This way, instead of finally deciding, “I’m bored with this color,” and then finally changing it manually, you can be surprised by a new color on a new day, week, etc.
• Use LED Light for Notifications — The HTC Titan has an LED on it which does nothing more than indicate charge status. This should be tied into the Notification System, should one ever actually exist.
• Quick-scroll to Top of Page — Some webpages are long (like Wikipedia articles), this is a fact of life. Please find a way to allow the user to jump to the top of the page quickly because that’s where most websites’ navigational elements are found.
• Folders — I understand that ‘folders’ might feel outdated; call them Magnets if you must make them sound as trendy as the rest of the OS looks, but they are necessary on the start screen regardless. I know the folks responsible for WP7 can think of a beautiful way to display folders to the user on the Start screen. Make it happen, otherwise my Start screen is going to end up being 5 miles long. Additionally, newly installed apps should be highlighted on the app list, instead of making you hunt them down through their alphabetic sorting. Offer pin-to-start at app install so that the user can skip the step of installing, finding in the list, then pinning.
• Hire the people From Lazy Worm to Make Your YouTube app — or license their existing app and include it with all windows phone 7 devices. This is the one dev I’ve seen that’s making full use of Live Tiles and Pin to Start functionality, check out this video demo of his upcoming Metrotube app which lets you pin your favorite YouTube subscriptions and see when they are updated through the Live Tile.
• Faster way to Return to Root of App — When you are 5 menus deep within an app, it’s annoying to press the back button 5 times in order to return to the top level of the app. There needs to be a way to jump to the top level in just one press or gesture. Pressing at the heading of the app might be an option, or perhaps a pull down gesture might do the trick.

And that’s what I’ve compiled over just several days of using Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, there will certainly be more to come. I submit this as an earnest list of what I hope Microsoft can fix and improve with WP7. The OS has massive potential, and I would like to be able to call myself a WP7 convert, and confidently tell others to follow me, but there is work to be done by Microsoft before that will happen.

The elusive company is back with the Ocosmos OCS9 — Ocosmos has tantalized us with awesome ultra mobile PC concepts for years, but the devices have always turned to vaporware seemingly just prior to release. Well, it seems Ocosmos is at it again, but this time, we’re certain that they’ll actually be bringing a product to market, thanks to the folks at Dynamism.

Surprisingly, Ocosmos actually showed up at last month’s IDF, only after Chippy, Avram Piltch (of LaptopMag), and I chatted about how unlikely it would be! The Ocosmos OCS9 was on display as well as the Android powered “Smart O-bar” controller. Here’s our hands-on (unfortunately we lost the first 50 seconds of audio to technical difficulties!):

The Smart O-bar has a 3.5 inch 320 x 480 touchscreen as well as two hybrid D-pads (they move like a joy stick, but have individual directional buttons as well) and shoulder buttons. The Smart O-bar is designed to be complimentary to the Ocosmos OCS9, allowing you to connect it for keyboard input and for use as a game controller.

According to the company, the Ocosmos OCS9 is the world’s thinnest Windows Slate, and at 11.9mm, that might just be true. Here are the specs:

There’s also a few accessories available for the Ocosmos OCS9, including a nice looking dock, a keyboard folio, and even a bag. These will run $70 for the first two, and $90 for the latter. The Smart O-bar is optional as well and is offered for $140.

And the price for the Ocosmos OCS9? Actually, a rather reasonable $699. Dynamism is taking pre-orders for the unit and is giving an additional $50 off for those who order before November 18th, bringing the price to $649. They expect the unit to ship on the 30th of November. We’ll have one on hand for review in the coming weeks.

In a detailed Windows 8 post last week I outlined some issues around Windows 8 and mobility. One of the biggest issues is the resolution requirements. 1366×768 is going to he expensive to implement on 10″ and smaller screens. I also found a lot of issues with portrait mode. The apps included in the developer edition weren’t optimised for portrait mode at all. Fortunately most ofbthe problems lie in the applications and not the operating system itself. In the video below, Microsoft talk directly about portrait mode. It’s very much a promo video but its good to know that Microsoft are on the case. I like to think that the article and detailed comments helped. Keep thone thoughts flowing.

Prediction: 9 out of 10 commenters around the web will accuse the Samsung Series 7 Slate as being ridiculously over-priced. Personally I think its the best Tablet PC I’ve ever had my hands on and in my opinion it’s well worth the money that is being asked. Liliputing have details.

In 2012 the Series 7 will mature with Windows 8 into one of the most multi-scenario high dynamic range computers there is. Clearly I’m not disguising the fact that I want one!

I probably don’t need to explain to you all why it’s so good but ill try and summarize anyway. First though I have to raise my hands and say that this isn’t a UMPC, by a long shot, although it’s lighter than many device we’ve covered here on Umpcportal.

5-20x the CPU processing power of an ARM based tablet. (depending on Turbo state)
Around 5x the CPU performance of a single-core netbook.
Dual touch/pen input layers
Hardware video co/dec (it’s bloody fast at file conversion too!)
Dock, Keyboard included
Under 900gm

Most people would have no problem using this as a desktop PC. With Windows 8 I suspect that many will enjoy this as a tablet. Can you imagine how devices like this will mature in 2013. I estimate 700gm for even more processing power than this. We’re getting there, and interestingly, Atom is nowhere to be seen.

I’ll be testing the Series 7 later in the month and am really looking forward to the live review session. I hope you will join me.

http://liliputing.com/2011/10/samsung-series-7-slate-now-available-for-pre-order-for-1349.html

Update. We’ve just heard that Intel gave out 5000 Samsung Series 7 Tablets at BUILD. We were right!

Many are predicting that an ARM-based Windows 8 tablet will be shown to developers at the Microsoft BUILD event next week. I’m sure it will. CNET is telling us, however, that there will be an Intel tablet running Windows 8. This could be huge opportunity for Intel but it comes with a huge risk. If either Windows 8 fails to impress or the device is built on hardware that doesn’t seriously outperform an ARM based equivalent, Intel could be left with egg on its face.

In thinking about the existing hardware platforms I’m left a little worried about performance.

Current netbook platforms are too hot and heavy as are the ultra low voltage Core platforms. Oaktrail, Medfield and Moorestown are in the same league as Cortex A9 in terms of processing power so it leaves just one option if Intel really want to make a splash – a tablet-optimized version of Cedar Trail. With low tdp, small die size and the possibility of a dual-core 1.8Ghz version it could be just right for driving an uber-tablet, semi-productive consumer experience.

There is one alternative though – go big!

We’ve seen the Samsung Slate PC over the last week and have been very impressed at its size, weight, amazing speed and processing power. Funnily enough CNET believe the tablet at BUILD will be made by Samsung.

There are two problems with this theory though. Firstly, Intel don’t believe Core processors are best positioned for tablets. Secondly, it’s an expensive device and too expensive to give away to developers as CNET suggest will happen.

If it really does have the Samsung badge on it then perhaps the Samsung TX100 slider is an option. Oaktrail-based with a 1.8Ghz version of the CPU and with all Samsungs best engineering and components along with a dose of Windows 8 optimization for Oaktrail and yes, it might just cut it. The form factor is perfect as a differentiator too. We may even see the first always-on Intel tablet!

http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=20104104&cid=null&bcid=&bid=-64

Not satisfied with letting Samsung steal the spotlight completely today, HTC had scheduled a number of media events around Europe where they revealed two brand new Windows Phone 7 devices, both of which will run the oft-previewed (and enjoyed) but yet to be released, Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). HTC has a knack for making beautiful hardware and these devices don’t look like they’ll disappoint in that respect. The real question is whether or not WP7 Mango is enough to keep people interested.

HTC Titan

Just based on the name alone, you know I’m going to rip on this phone for its screen size; before that let’s at least look at what it brings to the table:

• WP7 Mango
• Single-core Snapdragon MSM8255 @ 1.5GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 4.7 inch capacitive LCD touchscreen @ 800×480
• 8MP rear camera (BSI sensor, dual-LED flash), 1.3MP front camera
• 720p recording-capable
• Micro USB
• 16GB capacity
• HSPA+
• 1600 mAh battery
• 160 grams (5.6 ounces)
• 9.9mm thick aluminum body

So yeah, the phone looks great, it’s quite thin, and though I haven’t held it myself, I can tell from hands-on reports that it is going to have that classic HTC hardware build-quality to it.

And while WP7 doesn’t use the same interface paradigms as Android, there’s still a lot of issues with a 4.7 inch and near-16:9 screen which you can read about in detail here.

It seems like people are finally starting to catch on to what I’m saying about these huge phones. This Is My Next makes the following note:

…although the Windows Phone Metro UI keeps things relatively centered and easy for one-handed usage, it’s still not necessarily easy to reach the top of the screen with your thumb when holding the device in one hand, and accessing the power button required a bit of in-hand shuffling in order to climb a finger up to the button located along the top-right edge of the device.

That’s also a mighty big screen for the 800×480 resolution; it might not look as crisp as some of the other devices that have launched or are launching soon (ie: iPhone 4 [960×640], Atrix [960×540], Galaxy Note [1200×800]).

As seen in videos of the phone taken by Engadget and This Is My Next, the single-core CPU running at 1.5GHz runs Mango very smoothly and I that doesn’t surprise me as the 1GHz HTC Surround that I played with last March was able to run the WP7 UI with impressive fluidity.

This is My Next has a massive gallery and a hands-on video of the Titan, take a look.

HTC Radar

The Radar appears to be for people like me, who actually want to be able to use their phone effectively with one hand. Instead of the classically too-big 4.3 inch screen, they’ve actually brought this one down to 3.8 inch which I’m quite thankful for. The annoying part, however, is that this smaller phone offers lesser specs, so the idea of top end phones being required to have giant ergonomically crippling screens is still firmly in place. But hopefully we’ll see a lesser price than the Titan as well.

• WP7 Mango
• Single-core Snapdragon MSM8255 @ 1.0GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 3.8 inch capacitive LCD touchsceen
• 5MP rear camera (BSI sensor), front facing camera (currently unspecified MP)
• 8GB capacity
• 720p recording-capable
• 1520 mAh battery
• 137 grams (4.83 ounces)

The Radar actually looks a lot like a mini HTC Flyer, and it doesn’t have a user-replaceable battery, which is a point of contention for some but not all.

Viewing angles on the phone look really good and even if the contrast ratio isn’t as ridiculously impressive as the Galaxy Note or Galaxy Tab 7.7’s AMOLED displays, I’ve found that the high-contrast visual design of WP7 negates that problem by a large degree (of course you’ll probably be quite upset if you try to watch any movie with a dark scene on the phone).

Like the Titan, the Radar’s rear camera uses backside illumination technology which helps capture more light for better low light performance (an area where smartphones are often extremely weak). This is great news because the HTC Surround’s camera took some pretty muddy shots in low light. The BSI technology is one of the reasons why the iPhone 4 still takes some of the best pictures in the smartphone category, so I welcome seeing it come to more phones.

This is My Next also has lots of great shots of the Radar as well as a hands-on video. If you’re interested, take a look.

HTC says that the Titan and Radar will become available beginning in October with initial releases in Europe and Asia. Pricing hasn’t been announced and it’s uncertain when/if they’ll see a US release, but we’ll keep you posted.

Thanks to Engadget and This is My Next for providing some of the information contained in this article.

Not only is the Viewpad 10pro one of the first Oaktrail-based (Intel Atom Z670) tablets to ship, it’s also the first with Bluestacks on it. Bluestacks is an ‘Android player’ that simulates an Android environment in order to run Android programs. Like Myriad Dalvic Turbo, it’s a system with a lot of unanswered questions. Sideloading, GPS, network usage, power, speed.

But first, let’s talk about the Viewpad 10pro. It was spotted as available in the USA by Liliputing yesterday and checks on the European side of the pond indicate that it’s already shipping in a few countries. 560 Euro gets you a 32GB, Win 7 HP version with 2GB of RAM and the aforementioned Bluestacks Android player in Germany. I’m also seeing it in the UK.

Viewsonic Viewpad 10 Pro in the product database.

With a weight of 800gm we’re getting into some interesting territory and if the battery is 36Wh as I’ve calculated, we should be looking at 5hrs life on this platform. Viewsonic claim ‘up to 8hrs’ which is possible I guess, in idle situations. The downside to the Oaktrail platform is performance. You’re looking at a 1.5Ghz CPU which is slower than the first-generation Atom netbooks. Graphics won’t be up to much either with a netbook-level performance again. If fast SSD and memory has been implemented then there’s some hope for a smooth Windows 7 experience but don’t expect too much. Browsing should be fairly quick compared to consumer tablets but don’t expect to do a/v editing work on this.

As for Android, it’s an interesting addition to the platform. The core system is known at hyperDroid, technically a hosted hypervisor which emulates the Android hardware environment and runs within Windows. As you can probably guess, there’s no way to shutdown or idle Windows while the hosted Android system is running so you won’t get any battery life advantages but with switching times in the 1-second range, you at least get the ability to run Android apps when you wish without having to go through a multi-boot process.

According to Bluestacks documentation (Bluestacks hyperDroid PDF, More here.), the file system is shared, networking is shared and simultaneous use also possible. As for emulating hardware like GPS, accelerometer and other hardware, that would be implementation independent and it’s the bit we’re going to have to wait for reviews on.

Performance in Bluestacks should be quite good so there’s some potential for gaming but do note that this is Android Open Source and not a Google Android build. That means you won’t be getting Gmail, Maps and all the other interesting Google apps. Having been through that before on a number of devices and had to deal with sideloading of apps, I wonder just how much use it will get over time.

We’re in touch with Viewsonic and are trying to arrange a review sample for an interesting live session. Stay tuned.

Update: In Europe there is going to be a follow-up model which will be better optimized for Bluestacks and a 2.3 build of Android. Please note that the current batch of Viewpad 10pro devices are optimised for Windows although they do include a Bluestacks build. The new model will start shipping in 2-4 weeks. We will be getting an early model early next week for testing.

Viewsonic Viewpad 10 Pro in the product database along with a list of comparable devices.

I’m sitting in front of an ExoPC which is now referred to internally as the Exo-1 because they’re looking for new hardware for the next generation ExoPC device Product X

There’s a very open an interesting post up on the ExoPC discussion board about new hardware they’re testing. It’s clearly an Oaktrail-based device but they’re not giving the ID away at this stage because there’s some negative points being aired. It’s a thread that has already prompted me to post something on our own forum about Oaktrail and I’d like to bring it up here. Maybe it’s useful for Exo PC. Maybe it’s useful for readers.

Obviously if you’re going to bring similar looking / acting hardware to the market as a new model, it needs to be better than the existing product, right? If there’s one thing that’s worse than the previous model, it confuses customers and causes rumblings in the owner community. While the battery life on the Oaktrail-based devices might be better, the performance isn’t. An Atom N450-based Win 7 product will outperform a 1.5Ghz Oaktrail equivalent in most, if not all, departments. Even if you bump the CPU up to the new Z615 at 1.9Ghz, the GPU isn’t going to be better than the previous generation. It’s a problem for anyone that’s got a 10 inch Atom N-series in the market. Where do you go?

The problem is, the N450-based tablets aren’t exactly zippy and are not the best at battery life. Fan noise, weight and size are an issue so some progress needs to be made there. Oaktrail is not the solution here and until Cedar Trail or more Ultrabook-like designs (E.g. EP121) come along, there’s no solution.

The way to make for ExoPC to make a second device is to move to a new form factor  and / or a new operating system. Changing the OS is a problem for ExoPC because most of their business is wrapped up in their overlay software development, for Windows. Personally, I don’t use it but if it’s their bread and butter, it’s important.

So why not keep the user interface and apply it to a 7 inch model? The 7 inch Windows tablet market is small, yes, but so is the 11.6 inch Windows tablet market. In fact, there’s less competition in the 7 inch space, more importance placed on efficiency and at 7 inch, Windows needs an overlay more than it does at 11.6 inch Using Oaktrail allows you to make a different hardware product for a new market and it also brings a bridge to other operating systems that could boost hardware sales. Meego is an interesting option for an Oaktrail tablet and if your skill is in user interfaces, you could turn something round quickly and make quite a differentiator in the Meego market. Acer turned a lot of heads when they presented their 10 inch Morestown-based Iconia M500 tablet that’s due to be available in Q4.  Don’t forget the Windows 8 mobility path either. If you’re working with Oaktrail now, making the move to Clovertrail and Windows 8 should be easier later. It will make an even better 7 inch tablet platform and gives the company a product to focus on should Windows 8 kill the ExoPC software overlay business.

ExoPC should do two things. 1) Look at the 7 inch slate space where user interfaces become even more important. It’s currently a fairly empty space if you consider pro-mobile users and although niche, could allow ExoPC to become the king of it. Better to be king of a small niche than a bit-player in a large one. Asses Oaktrail devices and think about Meego, Windows 8 and even Android which we’ve already seen running on Intel. Look to break out a new product with a new customer base. 2) Take time to find a better product platform for the existing (10-12 inch) ExoPC market. Mid 2012 perhaps? Sandy Bridge-based tablet designs could be cheaper then as Ultrabook-style manufacturing matures.

Of course there’s a risk. You’ll need to investigate why the 7 inch space is empty for a start but the Galaxy Tab 7 sales (millions of them) say something about the form factor. There’s also the risk that someone else has seen this opportunity too. The Viliv X70 Slate design still exists (although the company appears to be going under) and we shouldn’t forget the ECS 7 inch slate design either. WeTab appear to be going through the same process so stay tuned here, ExoPC, for the latest news! (And good luck, of course.)

Here’s the discussion thread at the ExoPC discussion forum.