Origami, the top-secret Microsoft project that became the Ultra-Mobile PC, was finally unveiled last March, and devices utilizing the new form factor appeared shortly thereafter. The UMPC is a full Windows PC with a small touch-screen display and a virtual keyboard, and despite issues with short battery life, the early units were impressive. Now, Microsoft has announced a major upgrade for the young UMPC, which it calls the ‘Origami Experience’.
it looks amazing. i wonder if it will actually run well though. looks aren’t everything.
…The Origami xpYrience (OY)?
To be shortly followed by the Vista ExperYence. (VEY).
The software looks great, but the original UMPCs didn’t sell well because they were way too expensive. I don’t know if the hardware prices have come down yet, but if not, they’ll only sell to the rich looking for a tech toy.
(And those rich folks looking for a tech toy are already putting money aside for an iPhone, which will go a long way in satiating their tech toy hunger, leaving little room left for a UMPC. :p )
Agreed. This is an improvement, but I really don’t see what UMPC gives you, over a subnote book.
Would that be VistaCE?
Nah, that’s Windows Vista.
What you’re looking at is a application launcher/media player/etc made to make the unit more convenient on the go.
It runs on top of the normal OS. Close/minimize it and you’re back to the normal Explorer shell.
a subnote book minus the keyboard!
Didn’t you ever want to open up … putty and then not have key board to type anything in? Or to send an email?
It does look nice, the background picture bittmap. You could put your nephew playing w/ a puppy.
As opposed to … blackbery, it does not have the nice gui.
We had a few of then in the office, 1st day everyone wanted one.
.V
Didn’t you ever want to open up … putty and then not have key board to type anything in? Or to send an email?
Oh, I’m pretty sure that the target users of this gadget won’t miss putty. This doesn’t look like a “geek” toy, it looks more like something a boss would buy just to look “on and techie” 😉
Now, talking seriously, I’m pretty sure that this will take full advantage of Microsoft’s speech recognizing technology, so the lack of kb won’t be so sad. As I said, I don’t see this as a geek gadget.
Edited 2007-01-17 12:30
I think the Sony UMPC which I used at the Sony style store…has a qwety keyboard…that slides out from underneath the screen. Its pretty cool actually and I for one can think of quite a few practical uses for it at work IF we were allowed to plug in just about any thing into the wireless without company authorization…for example going into the server room and then having the ability to log in to ssh…because someone else is using the one and only console in the server room…
There was no upgrade of UMPC. The spec for UMPCs remains the same. MS just developed a new program launcher that will make use of UMPCs nicer on Vista.
For the UMPC trash talkers, if you don’t see the value of a UMPC, fine, don’t get one. I have one. I am a geek and I use it a lot. I don’t do my coding on it, but I have it around most of the time and do a lot of stuff that doesn’t require tons of keyboard input on it just fine. Getting use to using one is just a matter of being willing to not be closed-minded and consider alternatives for doing things you always did with a keyboard. There are several touch screen keyboards that you can use. Or you can invest in a mini USB or bluetooth keyboard for those times you need to type a lot. But for a lot of things, using just a stylus or a finger is awesome once you get used to it. Sure it’s just a small tablet, but it’s light (less than 2 pounds) and easy to carry around. But it’s bigger than a PDA or smartphone so you have a reasonable amount of screen realestate and it runs XP Tablet Edition, so you aren’t limited to stripped down PDA-versions of apps that don’t do what you want. In fact, it’s the perfect size to use as an in vehicle computer. And yes, I do occasionally run stuff from the command line. Hat ethe concept if you will, but lots of us are loving these devices.