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Who would want an Origami?
March 31st, 2006
The general reaction to the Origami Ultra Mobile PC has been pretty negative. The biggest point being made is that it’s a format that has no purpose in anyone’s lifestyle, especially the target market who already has laptops, cell phones, PDAs and Tablet PCs. Well, I think there are good uses for it, at least for me anyway.
First of all, I never really liked PDA devices. They never felt right to me and the screen always seemed too small to do much with. It may be good for organizing things, but so are cell phones now. Which is basically what I use mine for. I have an Audiovox SMT5600 SmartPhone. It has my contacts and calendar items which are synced with my Outlook. I don’t receive Email or browse the web because I don’t like reading a lot of text on the small screen or the idea of texting with a phone. For further organization, I have a USB thumb drive which I use to store files that I work with a lot. And I even use the SmartPhone as an MP3 player.
I also have a laptop, but don’t take it around with me much because it’s a pretty hefty piece of machinery to carry around since I convinced myself to get one that has a 15.4 inch screen and an AMD 64 proccessor with nVidia.
Additionally, even if I don’t bring carry my laptop around, I still tend to have the carrying case with me since I like having a pad and pencil and a book that I’m reading at the time.
So, in my situation, here’s what I would like to have the UMPC for:
- A replacement for carrying around a pad and pencil with my bag.
- Web browsing and going through Email at the local coffee shop. This is pretty much what everyone uses their laptops for, this just seems like a more casual format.
- Good for playing simpler games including the possibility of an NES emulator.
- GPS capability would be a big plus.
- Good portable storage device for photos and music.
- Would most likely replace using my cell phone as an MP3 player.
- A better way to watch videos instead of on screens that are too small.
The biggest issue the UMPC has in its current state is the battery life. 3 hours may in fact be enough on most days, but I don’t want to have to worry about it all the time. Also, the touchscreen seems rather questionable. I’ve tried one of the first versions of the Tablet PCs and didn’t like the way it worked at the time. Hopefully the technology has been improved enough to make it more usable. The onscreen keyboard would be a key part of usability.
Update: I guess there are others who believe in the Origami.
Tags: microsoft, origami, umpc
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