Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:23:32 +1100
From: Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OQO 01+ impressions (was Re: [LIB] OQO 1+ vs. Libretto U100
review)
At 05:03 PM 15/03/2006 -0800, you wrote:
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:32:00 +0100
From: John Liu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] OQO 1+ vs. Libretto U100 review
Are there any OQO owners on the list? Would you care to share your
experiences? My main points of interest are:
Well the first thing I'll say is we didn't get the OQOs to use as PDAs -
we're mounting them under clear polycarbonate in the backs of our robots
... but I did have a bit of a play with one before we wiped it and put
Linux on it ... I've got some answers below, if you've got any more you'd
better ask quick before we wipe the rest of them! ;-)
- How briskly does the OQO wake up from hibernation/standby?
Quickly enough so that you can pull it from your pocket and look up a
phone number without grinding your teeth?
On a fresh install, takes about 3 seconds to come up out of standby. I
imagine if you've got things like password protection or something that
does something on resume or if you've got a pile of stuff open it'll take
longer (my laptop takes about 10-20 seconds to come out of standby but most
of that is spent paging like crazy because I tend to have a pile of stuff
open and drivers that try to find wireless networks and the like). It takes
about 4 seconds to go back into standby but again that's with almost
nothing open.
- Supposing you leave the OQO in hibernation/standby most of the
time, just waking it up to look up phone numbers, jot down some
notes, check your email, do a Mapquest search, etc, can you get
through a whole day on a single battery charge? How about with the
double-capacity battery?
Haven't checked that yet ... like most (all?) modern laptops, the OQO uses
almost no power in standby and if it's got battery life anything like my
Zaurus you should be fine ... I'd think you'd get about 3 hours of use out
of it however you break that usage up. If I get a chance to check and get
results I'll get back to you ...
- Is the keyboard at least as usable as, let's say, a Blackberry or
a Treo keyboard?
I've not used a Blackberry or a Treo but I've used a few others ... I'd put
this keyboard at somewhere between the Sony Clie NX70 series and the UX50
... it's not as good as the Zaurus C-series (the clamshell ones) and the
extra size means that although the buttons aren't as good as some of the
Palm clipon keyboards (the ones with individual rubber keys - can't
remember the name) it does seem easier to type on. Basically it feels like
a cheap membrane keyboard that they've put raised 'buttons' on top of to
make it a little less likely that you'll accidentally press 2 buttons at
once ... I guess it's one you can get used to but there aren't any raised
indents on the F and J keys for instance so you've really got to look at
the keyboard to type on it. Still, I recon it's useable ... just
disappointing and somewhat annoying (I can almost touchtype on my Zaurus).
Individual keys and raised indents on the F and J keys would be nice. The
keys are also laid out in a square grid so I do find myself with my thumbs
between keys on the upper and lower rows (the Zaurus has them laid out
properly so I get used to that) but that's probably something to get used
to. You certainly won't be doing any more than thumb typing on this keyboard.
One interesting thing is the screen - it's not a "touch screen" as such -
you poke it with your finger and nothing happens apart from fingerprints
(which this screen shows quite badly). It's actually a proper tablet (under
Linux it appears as a Wacom apparently - we haven't tried getting it
working because we don't use it) so if you hover the stylus almost 2cm over
it without touching it, the pointer still moves and you click by tapping
the pen on the screen. The stylus (which as far as I can tell is passive -
no batteries in it) also has a button which gives you right click. Pretty
neat in that you don't need to worry about not resting your hand on the
screen ... it also means you can put a solid screen protector (we're using
pieces cut from CD cases) over it and still use the pen. I think at some
point you might even be able to get pressure levels out of it. You can
configure how "hard" or "soft" clicks need to be before they register for
instance - and you can "click" in midair (eg. by holding a piece of clear
plastic about 1cm over the screen and hitting that with the stylus) so it's
doing something funky with how far and fast the stylus is moving up and
down to determine that but I'm not sure if the driver actually makes that
available to applications.
If the answer to these is "yes", I'll probably buy a OQO. I've been
researching them for a while and they seem pretty good, though pricey.
Yes indeed they are pricey ... they are nice little packages though.
Personally, if I had the money I'd still wait a little while and see what
the next iteration has to offer. In the meantime it may be worth looking at
some of the alternatives - if the stuff you need to do has Linux opensource
equivalents for instance, one of the Zaurus C-series may suit you and as a
bonus they're significantly cheaper, quieter and cooler.
- Raymond
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