Origami
Skepticism
by Larry Magid
May 30, 2006
I was at the trade show in Hanover, Germany
in March where Microsoft, Intel, Samsung and other companies
took the wraps off "Origami," the code name for a new type of
Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC). I had mixed feelings about it when I had
a chance to play with a prototype but now that I have my hands
on the real thing, I'm even more skeptical. Samsung loaned me a
Q1 to try it out for a couple of weeks.
In terms of its look and feel in my hands, my first impression
was certainly positive. But since usability also counts, my
lasting impression is not so positive – at least not for most
mainstream PC users.
The UMPC is basically a scaled-down Tablet PC. In fact it uses
the same version of Windows as the Tablet PCs that Microsoft has
been promoting for years. The main difference is that most
tablet PCs are about the size of a laptop with screens that
typically measure about 10 by 7 inches. The Q1’s 7 inch
(diagonal) screen measures 6 1/8 by 3 3/4 inches which is a kind
of small if you're trying to use it for work. More importantly,
many of the Tablet PCs are "convertible" which means they have a
built-in keyboard that swings away. I spent several weeks
working with a borrowed Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkPad X41 and,
when it's not being used as a Tablet PC, it works like an
excellent regular laptop with no compromises that I noticed.
The Q1 comes packed in a gorgeous gift box and the product
itself is quite attractive. It has a beautiful polished black
case with a design that you might expect from Apple rather than
a company that makes Windows PCs. When you grasp it with your
hand, you get the sense that you’re holding something of quality
– much like an iPod. At a weight of 1.7 pounds and dimensions of
9.0"(w) x 5.5"(H) x 1.0"(D), it’s certainly smaller and lighter
than your average laptop though there are notebook PCs on the
market such as the 2.1 pound Toshiba Libretto U105 that are only
slightly heavier and larger yet come with a built-in keyboard.
Part of my disappointment is the price. When the UMPC was first
talked about, Microsoft and Intel hinted that it would cost
about $500, but the Q1 sells for $1,100 and that's without the
optional keyboard and optical drive. By the time you add those,
you'll spend about $1,400 which is more than many notebook PCs
and the price of a full featured convertible Tablet PC such as
the Acer TravelMate C300 or the Toshiba Tecra M4.
The device has two USB ports, a headphone jack, a VGA (external
monitor) port and a slot for a Compact Flash card. It also has
WiFi wireless networking, a wired Ethernet port and BlueTooth
for wireless connection to other devices. There's a built-in
microphone (which could allow it to be used to make calls via
the Internet) but no microphone jack and there is no firewire
port which means you can't use it to transfer video from most
camcorders. There is also no PC card slot which is a common way
to add devices to notebook PCs. The 900 MHz Centrino processor
is adequate but a bit sluggish. My test unit came with a 40
gigabyte hard drive and 512 megabytes of memory which is a bit
too little memory for decent performance.
Like other devices that use the Tablet PC version of Windows,
the Q1 is designed to be usable with or without a keyboard. I
started writing this review on the Q1 using an optional ($100)
USB keyboard supplied by Samsung. The basic unit also lacks a
built-in optical drive but Samsung loaned me an external drive
that I used to install Microsoft Office on the tiny device.
In theory, the device fills the gap between a PDA – which is
small enough to fit in a pocket – and a laptop which can slip
into a briefcase. This device could fit into an overcoat pocket
but it's clearly too big to be used as a PDA so it's no
substitute for a Blackberry, Palm or Windows Mobile device.
Another problem is that it doesn't turn on instantly. If you
want to use it to look up a phone number (which you certainly
could do), you'd have to wait for Windows to load or wake up
from its hibernation mode which can take from about 30 seconds
to three minutes.
The 7 inch screen looks good at first glance, but when you start
to use it to run software you're likely to run into a problem.
It has an unusual 800 by 480 screen resolution that's so odd
that it doesn't quite work with a lot of Windows program
including some dialog boxes from the operating system itself.
You can change the resolution to a more standard 800 by 600 or
1024 by 600 but that's just a software emulation trick causes
the screen to look distorted.
To its credit, the touch screen doesn't require an expensive
electronic stylus as do most Tablet PCs. The stylus that comes
with it is just a plastic stick. You can also use your fingers
or fingernails. But that also means you have to be careful when
you touch the screen because it's easy to make unpredictable
things happen by mistake. Still, the ability to manipulate the
computer by touching the screen with a stylus has its
advantages. Among other things, you can handwrite notes, though
as someone who types four times faster than I can write, I can't
imagine dong that too often.
There is no built-in trackpad but you can use the stylus in lieu
of a mouse. There is also a "joystick" for games that doubles as
a cursor control key similar to the arrows on a keyboard.
One of the main touted benefits of this form factor PC is its
use as a media player. It does indeed have pretty decent stereo
speakers and a headphone jack and the screen is about the size
of some portable DVD players that people use to watch movies on
the go. But to watch a regular DVD you would have to carry
around that external drive. You could download movies from
services like CinemaNow or MovieLink but Internet movie
downloads are not quite ready for prime-time.
