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The Future - rebuild the past
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Everyone has a favourite handtop device. I have two in fact, the OQO model E2, and my much loved ugly duckling FlipStart. Both were great in there day, (well, good at least) but both are now a bit long in the tooth.
At present, there does not seem to be a suitable replacement for either of these units, but at the same time, they are both in need of a refresh. And this is where I believe that there might be a fairly profitable business opportunity out there. Build the future by re-building units from the past with upgraded specifications.
Take my OQO for example: Forget the magic employed by OQO to create the Model 2+. Instead, look at the potential for upgrading the unit as it stands. Start of with replacing the VIA C7M CPU with the newer and much faster Nano. Bump the RAM to 2 GB and improve on the cooling system, and possibly replace the existing hard drive with a 128 GB SSD. All this could be done in the same frame, with possibly the same MB etc. A new lease of life for my aging baby.
Or take the FlipStart: With a 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and two GB of RAM, it would be cutting edge, well worth the cost of the upgrade. A high capacity SSD and I need not look for a new machine for another couple of years.
And putting modern guts in the old Psion shells should keep some of the more ardent tough typing fans happy as well.
Netbooks and the world wide financial crisis, as well as the lowered expectations that have come with the Intel Atom processor and the low cost units built around it have ensured that the handtop market is going to be a tough place to make money in for the next little while. This in turn probably means that there is going to be little from a design point of view in the next while to rival the stars from the past. So why not take some of those great designs, modernise the guts and keep us gadget junkies happy until the next great wave of designs hits?
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09/08/09
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diJenerate
GreatDane,
I second that thought (with the minor correction about keeping the motherboard - most of these upgrades and cooling improvements will require a new board design except for CM to nano, same socket there) and I believe that Intel is one big corporation that has shown a lack of corporate responsibility thereby letting this industry down - sadly for most it was unnoticed.
In this economic crisis, great UMPC innovators and design houses have shut down while Intel enjoyed increased profits - both events due to the Atom Processor. Intel has regurgitated instruction set designs and performance from 5 years ago at a smaller micron level, with a lower thermal envelope and smaller die along with massive marketing spins allowing the SOC concepts to live on and their profits to grow in a recession while destroying innovation and creativity in this sphere.Their sheer size and deep pockets have allowed them to influence global spending habits with regard to tech to the detriment of the engineering houses that actually made an effort (Raon Digtal, OQO, Flipstart et al) all for a short term profit and to what end...
We are buying PCs with 1.6GHz Processors, that are out-performed by the 900MHz Intel Celerons of 4 years ago, with the promise of longer battery life (that when seen, is only as a result of the use of other low power components in the design - RAM, display, backlight etc), are cheaper (but what 4 year old PC isn't if large quantities of it are sold) and are smaller (bring back the Pentium III or Pentium 4 on today's manufacturing processes and integrate the I/O and memory controller and it too will yield a smaller board), does this seem like progress or merely profit - The largest chip maker in the world just performed the largest con on that world!
Up next Intel will attempt to sell the world the same Core Solo processor that we saw at premium price in then 'fancy' units like the Q1U Premium from Samsung and the Vaio UX from Sony, only this time on a smaller micron process, at a lower cost and with a new name - Consumer Ultra Low Voltage processor (CULV)... did I say attempt, I meant succeed - as the mass market is clueless and Intel has perfected the art of exploiting the ignorance of these people!
As far as seeing the existing designs that work being upgraded by third parties, I would love to but it seems that in our capitalist society, creativity takes a back seat to profit... not enough of us seem to care about the future technological growth and progress over our own bank accounts today to do what it will take to make this happen (forget the challenge, it's all about profit)...The Flipstart would be great with a 128GB SSD, a C2D, 2GB RAM and Android on the LID but you'd have to get Vulcan to release specs and details on the hardware before anyone could make a move and let's face it, they won't; after all, where's the profit in it for them?
diJenerate
12/04/09
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johnnyboy
I too own a flipstart and love it. The only complaint I have about it is the too short battery life. But that complaint goes unheard in these days of the idea that handtop users only use their handtops a couple hours a day and its not a problem to have it the rest of the 16 hour day. But anyway I'd like to mention a couple new handtops on the market. The first is the Sharp Netwalker. It is about the same size as my flipstart only much lighter and thinner. Much more pocketable. It has a 10 hour battery life which will still be a little short for my 16 days but much more useable. It runs a version of Ubuntu which is stock!! Its my prefered upgrade to my Flipstart.
UMID has come out with a Windows handtop. It is called the mbook M1. It has a 5 hour battery life and runs XP. It is a typical windows machine with all the typical defects including a too short battery life. Runs slow and hot. It too is about the same size as my old Flipstart but much thinner and lighter. Even needs a dongle to listen to mp3s. It doesn't make it for me but should be great for the typical windows user.
06/03/10
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lbm0914
I too own a flipstart and love it. The only complaint I have about it is the too short battery life. But that complaint goes unheard in these days of the idea that handtop users only use their handtops a couple hours a day and its not a problem to have it the rest of the 16 hour day. But anyway I'd like to mention a couple new handtops on the market. The first is the Sharp Netwalker. It is about the same size as my flipstart only much lighter and thinner. Much more pocketable. It has a 10 hour battery life which will still be a little short for my 16 days but much more useable. It runs a version of Ubuntu which is stock!! Its my prefered upgrade to my Flipstart.
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