Submitted by Samsung will enter the US computer market in April as the launch partner for Microsoft’s new UltraMobile PC or ‘Origami’ platform. Launched this morning at the CeBit technology show in Hannover Germany, this smaller tablet PC fits between hand-held Portable Media Centers and more traditional tablet/notebook computers. Samsung’s unit, scheduled to go on sale in April, is expected to cost under $1000 [EUR 840]. There’s a batch of photos of the devices too. In addition, the 3rd video on the Origami website is also up.
After all the hype, Origami turns out to be a cut-down tablet PC… *yawn*.
Even still, the concept could be successful if it was priced right… $1000!? You can buy a Real tablet for a little bit more.
I think Microsoft is right that there needs to be a form factor between PDA and Laptop, but they just can’t seem to get it right.
Seems like a job for Apple
I was mildly interested in these, but when I saw the video resolution, I though why bother.
If it won’t handle an XGA resolution, then it won’t even keep up with today’s users. Might be ok for business use in place of a full tablet or pda, but that is about it.
Like others have said, maybe apple can use the platform’s momentum (assuming it has any), to make a portable mac-mini type device.
Tablet PCs are a failure.
PDAs are a dying segment of the PC industry.
Didn’t Nokia have something similar a while back with GNOME software?
How are PDA’s a dying market?
Phones are more and more turning into PDAs. This is hardly dying.
Or are PDAs more and more turning into phones? Just kidding, I’m in a silly mood today
I think the PDA/Phones are considered “Smart Phones”. PDA sales are falling at the expense to the smart phones.
I could see some uses for the Origami. If you had to travel quite a bit and wanted some basic mobile entertainment, it would be nice. I know from experience having to pull out a laptop on the plane isnt a pleasent experience. Add a cross pad to the left side and a few gaming buttons on the right, and you have something that would work great for playing emulated games on.
I think the price right now is the biggest problem. As everyone reading this should know, prices will obviously drop as with any new technology toy. If they could in a few years be at a $300 price point, I would definately consider it.
They are failing because they can’t even do what they’re supposed to do best – being an assistant (PDAssistant). User interface of windows mobile is nearly an insult to usability engineering. This OS logic barely fit to desktop use, why forcing it on these devices? The origami isn’t going to save that. Just look at the screenshot with the preference panel, it’s not completely display because the low resolution?? Don’t they think about that?
All PDA on the market have poor writing recognition, yes palm too. Why can’t I write just as normal? No, I have to learn a slower new way of writing.
I can’t get it, in 1996 Newton had a real assistant that not only recognise your own writing, but learn it and made suggestion about what you had written. Ten years later we are still behind, except better color… Maybe color matters more than usability.
It is still in its infancy, but looks promising: http://www.dromasoftware.com/etoile/mediawiki/index.php?title=PDA
I think it will not replace PDA, nor tabletpc. This is more a business move to excite chairman who doesn’t see the difference between vision and innovation to benefits and charts. This is all about this, new product, new investment, new market (?), than stock go higher. Don’t ask about customer …
They’re failing because it’s still a toy. PDAs have zero use in a consumer’s daily like. Only for geeks and vertical apps.
Are people gonna bring those oversized PDAs (or the nokias or the Portable Media Centers) with themselves to the restaurants? Other than keeping the kids attention in the car, where does this item fit in our daily lives? Oh and the kids would most probably like a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP better.
iPods can do most of what PDAs can do. Because they never found a place in consumerland. PDAs never had a chance.
the 770, does the same thing pretty much at a better price. except for the thumb thing.. but hey, it could have that too for all I know.
Too bad these things will still be considered as toys. Nokia or the ones from Samsung.
The advantage with the Nokia 770 is that it is less than half the price, which makes it a far more reasonably priced toy. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m quite fond of neat toys, and consider the 770 to be a worthwhile and useful toy for the money.
I have to agree. Though in vertical markets it could work with the XP model or the linux model, im thinking hospitals and whatnot. They both need to find a niche’…..
I wanted to build one!!!!
Now someone else did it first than I.
Microsoft!!!!!</end rant>
Seriously though, if it can have a 12hr battery and $600 price, itll be super cool.
Then I could get one and write my interface for it.
If they can get fuel cells up to par and in mass production you might get your wish on the 12 hour battery. Like you I too want the 12 hour batter and $600 price.
This thing is going nowhere. It’s too small to do serious work on it, especially Photoshop and Word (things mentinoed on Channel 9). However it’s too big to be a PDA, not to mention that the whole PDA market is rapidly contracting as mobile phones and Blackberries surge forward.
Not to mention that at $500 to $999 it’s already more expensive than the $380 Nokia 770, as jakesdad mentioned.
There are definite purposes for tablet PCs: easy photo-editing, showing your photos around the family, taking some quick notes etc. However the best way to do that is simply to create a laptop with a touchscreen display that can be folded over so it’s flush with the base. Like it or not, most people can type as fast or faster than they can write, they need a keyboard for certain functions, and those functions need to be available for something in excess of $600.
Really, I do not see the point in these devices…
This is too big to be really “mobile” (are we supposed to carry it in the pocket?) so at the end you will have a small tablet PC sitting around at home.
Great.
What I would like to see is something like MediaCenter/FrontRow combined with the failed SmartDisplay thing (http://news.com.com/2100-1046_3-5135679.html)
For all the hardware manufacturers out there: I _do not_ want 3, 4 or 5 PC-like devices at home to put in sync/maintain/clean/upgrade, I just want one PC/MAC/Whatever that can works as a media-center appliance (music, tv and photos) and some easy way to work with it over my wireless home from a dumb display. That way I will be able to work over my documents while my girlfriend surfs the web and our favourite TV show is recorded.
Windows Media Center and Apple FrontRow are fine, but not yet there.
I find it startling that such a device ships for $1000, where a subnotebook at 10″ easily costs $2000 or more. How come?
Overall, I’m not sure if these devices can do much more than subnotebooks wouldn’t do already. Since they’re too large to fit into your pants pockets, you need to carry a bag with you, just like for a regular notebook. The magical border for portable devices is the “deck of cards” size, anything bigger than that is just big.
IMHO
What we want is an iPod sized device, like the mockups makin’ the rounds on the web… small enough to put in your pocket but having a screen that is useful enough to input info and watch movies… a camera embedded in the device would be nice (under the screen). It will have massive storage so that when we dock it with larger displays (foldup even).
I believe Apple’s walking us into this room. We ain’t there yet… but in a while it’ll all be in place.
all IMHO
Jb
……. they can’t even handle their own hype machine….
Am I the only one not impressed that a device barely smaller than a 12-inch PowerBook is able to run a 5 year old operating system (WinXP) whose original requirements included merely a 233 MHz processor? Sorry but I’ll take the modern OS with keyboard (Apple, please don’t discontinue the 12-inch laptop).
I wouldn’t mind one in the portrait orientation with the slide out keypad.. would be nice for me.
I like how they were playing ‘2001’ on one unit
and raxrat – wtf are you talking about? how is xp not ‘a modern OS’? you could argue no OS on the market is ‘modern’ .. they all have underpinnings of older designs. Newer does not always equal better…
At $1000, I agree with some of the previous posts that it couldn’t succeed. However, if you read through the whole article, you would have noticed that the intended price range is about $600 to $1000. Even with a base configuration, so long as wireless networking was still included, the unit could be very useful, seeing as it can run any program that runs on XP, of which there are quite a few. I for one would LOVE to play minesweeper on the go. Oh…wait…
On a more serious note, however, I think the product starts to fill that niche between a PDA and a Tablet that people keep rambling on about. I, for one, would certainly consider buying a $600 version of this to replace my Tapwave Zodiac when it finally dies.
Finally, onto the Nokia 770, this seems much better then that. (I tried a demo 770 at a store; I found it decidedly underwhelming, especially considering its price.)
The Newton II. It MAY have nearly the commercial success of the first Newton.
This thing weighs 2lb, thats too much for such a small package. WinXP & apps forces this to be x86 but whats really needed is an OS & apps that run on XScale or other power misers. The specs allow for Pentium M so that must be 20W righ5t there.
I’d wait till MIT and others get those paper thin flexible OLED displays they keep showing at SID out into production too. If they get the dispay down to the promised substrate thicknesses, then hauling around x86 will look pretty pointless too. Also I’d want to see the use of methanol packs as the power source.
Oh, I already waited 20years, never mind.
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=1489&a=172991&po=…
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/12/0,1425,sz=1&i…
This is what Apple fans were supposed to get all nervous about?
The biggest problem with this is that,
it runs Windows.
No, that wasn’t a troll! Think about it. Think about the sheer amount of tweaking, effort, virus protection, spyware protection, slow degredation of speed, fragmentating and nasty 3rd party drivers. This device would be like running a full Linux distro on an iPod, with all those requirements and knowledge needed, just to run an MP3 player to play music.
Startup will be slow, playing music will be slower than doing the same on an iPod, video playback will again, be more complicated and more steps, with more waiting than a dedicated device.
Oragami looks to be capable of everything, good at nothing.
thats true. If they made it so you could pop it into hibernation with hibernation being on a flash chip, then it wouldn’t be so bad. I wonder how long the batts last with it in suspend.
It’s takes les than 20 minutes to do a full system tweak on XP. You really don’t have to defrag it very often, and you can set it up to do that once a week when its on charge or something. And my windows installations don’t get slower, but I know most ‘normal’ peoples do, so yeah, thats a problem too.
Nothing new here. I’ve had an OQO (www.oqo.com) for like a year and a half.
I really like what I see with this new Origami thing. I’m a desktop guy myself, and this is the sort of machine that I’ve been hoping would come around. I’ve wanted something that I can sync with my desktop and take my files on the road, and PDAs are entirely insufficient. They may not be quite “ultra-mobile”, but they are certainly small and light enough to toss into a backpack. The Windows tweaks look very cool, although I hope that the hardware makers can get the boxes to run it well. Personally, this new concept seems perfect, but only time will tell of the masses feel the same way. I had to question Microsoft’s release date with Vista on the horizon, but I suppose they wanted to get some feedback on the things while developing a Vista version. All in all, I see a lot of potential here since, especially for people like me, a cell phone/PDA is too small for the functionality you want, and a full blown laptop or tablet isn’t necessary. For browing the web, basic file editing, and multimedia, this thing looks pretty sweet.
I’m surprised to be the first one saying it but I’d really like one of these and if the price is more around $600 than $1000, I’m probably going to buy one too.
The perfect surf-while-snoozing-in-bed computer.
The perfect surf-on-the-train computer.
The perfect companion to your digital camera on vacation.
The perfect dvd player on a flight.
The list just goes on for me…
It covers a market which doesn’t exist. Who wants an underpowered piece of crap which is smaller than a laptop (only just, such as the 12″ ibook) , but far bigger than any PDA?
It just won’t sell. I can’t honestly (no troll) see any point for this. Go hack an iRiver PMP.
This is MS trying to make a market for a product which nobody will want.
The perfect surf-while-snoozing-in-bed computer.
The perfect surf-on-the-train computer.
The perfect companion to your digital camera on vacation.
The perfect dvd player on a flight.
Go by a cheap laptop, and then be able to *DO* something with it on the train/in bed/etc..
This is MS trying to make a market for a product which nobody will want.
I just said I want one. I think it will be a success.
The perfect surf-while-snoozing-in-bed computer.
The perfect surf-on-the-train computer.
The perfect companion to your digital camera on vacation.
The perfect dvd player on a flight.
Go by a cheap laptop, and then be able to *DO* something with it on the train/in bed/etc..
I already have a cheap laptop, and it’s just too big for having it in your bed, on the train etc. That’s why I find this form factor to be perfect!
I don’t know what all the naysayers are going on about.
Yeah, cut the price down and make battery life workable. MS knows it, hardware makers know it.
I find laptops a pain to carry around on a daily basis and they aren’t the greatest on a periodic basis. Something this size is perfect for carrying around.
Much better than laptops. You can’t walk around with a laptop. I have an iPod and it isn’t useful at all for showing photos, unless you hook it up to your AV. It’s too small. Let’s not even talk video. iPod+ video=stupid. PDAs aren’t that useful for applications beyond contacts, schedules and notes. As document or web viewers they are just too small. PDA phones are too big to be used as a phone. This size would be a good compromise between having a laptop and a phone.
No it’s not a Photoshop/ Illustrator tool. I prefer the largest monitor I can.
Stick a GPS RX in there and a good mapping app. You can EASILY walk around with this on a street.
I saw a Smart Display a few years ago at CES that was a home remote control. Beautiful. This could fill in that purpose too.
While foldout paper schematics will always be the best, this could serve the purpose easier than a PDA and be more portable than a laptop. Maintainers on a flightline or in the field will probably find this more useful. Charts in a hospital or in an industrial environment.
Video viewer, photo viewer (not editor), document viewer, ebook reader, etc or web browser. As an editor, I haven’t seen a small factor input that I like. You can take it anywhere.
Integrated camera for video chatting while you sit on the couch or bed. IM work is useful.
It looks practical. Flesh it out some – apps, UI, etc and it could work.
It isn’t useful for doing the big Photoshoppy/ document layout kind of things. That’s why I have a honkin desktop PC with 2 big monitors.
But a laptop isn’t useful for photoshoppy things either. If you tell me that ANY LCD screen is good for photoshop or Illustrator then you’re full of it. Put a $100 CRT next to an ACD and the CRT still has MUCH better color and grayscale. ACD’s look great, they look fine… for document work – the same as any other LCD. Unless you care about how your fonts look…
The iRiver only has a 3.5″ screen. Are you serious? It’s why the PSP as a video platform likely won’t take off. Realistically, they’re too small.
But portable should be portable. Not take it out and set it on a desk and be stationary. A laptop isn’t truly portable. Think about it, go sit outside you have to sit it on your lap or other surface. You can’t just hold it. You can walk around reading something, but it isn’t that practical to do. Tablets are better, but still too big to view in one hand while talking on the phone with the other hand.
Ever walk around and read a magazine? A paperback? A small hardback? A chart or schematic? Ever done that with a laptop? It isn’t too practical and definitely not as convenient. You can’t just stand up and walk around, you have to adjust the screen, and in general take care of the hinge mechanism.
It’s not just a convenient e-reader either – it’s a movie viewer, web viewer. With the WiFi features – IM, video IM, gaming, etc it can fulfill many standard uses.
The reason why I’ve held off is because a laptop really isn’t all that portable of a device. In the military they would classify a laptop as a tactical device. You can carry it from one location to another easily, but you are usually stationary to use it. Portable is something you use on the go like a brick or cellphone (handheld) or a backpack radio. Mobile is what fits in the back of a truck, van or humvee.
I don’t see why the usefulness of this formfactor isn’t readily obvious to everyone. The implementation could obviously use some work, but it’s a start.
I don’t see why the usefulness of this formfactor isn’t readily obvious to everyone.
It’s because no one needs this device. It’s quite obvious: It doesnt fulfill a need.