I recently purchased a Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile PC. First of all, this thing was NOT “Ultra Mobile”. The joystick to control the mouse requires you to push the menu button down the entire time you’re moving the mouse. This, plus the fact the mouse moves about 10 pixels a time on the screen makes it nearly impossible to use without the stylus.
Windows XP, is not designed for the 800×480 screen. Menus appear off of the screen, and you then have to switch to interlaced mode select the menu, then switch back because interlaced mode looks terrible.
Keyboards, in XP you really do need a keyboard. It’s just too hard/slow to do anything without it. Sure, there’s handwriting recognition, But again the Windows XP Tablet PC OS that ships on UMPC’s is designed for 1024*768+ screens. It just doesn’t work very well.
Price. The Samsung Q1 costs $999 minimum. And you get a low-res screen, poor battery life (this is next), cheap graphics, low HDD space, low RAM, and horrible CPU’s. The $999 model Q1 comes with a 900mhz Celeron, 512mb RAM, 40GB HD, and GMA900 graphics. That will set you back $999, if it was 2003 I could justify this price, maybe.
Battery life, This thing is terrible. I got 2 hours with the screen on pretty low. I know some of the newer UMPC’s improve this, but it’s not gonna cut it. Our PDA’s/ Smartphones can last all day.
In the end, I just swapped it for a Toshiba laptop with 120GB HD, Vista Home Premium, 1GB RAM, Core Duo @ 1.73GHZ, and I save $160 in the process.
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