Nothing has really replaced the psion. small but usable keyboard, and as
much screen as can be fitted into a pocket with useful battery life from
2 AAs. PDAs are all lookup devices with very limited data entry.
Maybe this will stimulate progress in that direction.
Ken
Jeff Waugh wrote:
<quote who="Rev Simon Rumble">
As for the screen being too small, Jeff I think that's kinda the point.
It's meant to be ultra-portable, like the old Toshiba Librettos.
I'm all for ultra-portable -- my laptop preferences are restricted to 12" or
13" because I travel so much. I plug in to a 24" screen at home. :-)
I think 7" is too much of a tradeoff. They can easily fit a 10" screen on
the sucker, which would be significantly better for all use cases. They'll
ship one soon enough.
I think this ends up being a misbalanced product, like those OQO machines.
The Eee is *almost* a laptop, but the screen sucks, and it's not powerful
enough to be comfortable... but the form factor is really not interestingly
different enough to warrant those tradeoffs. It doesn't suit any use other
than average laptop use cases, and my laptop has the right balance of size,
cost and power (and you can get similarly powerful at a lower price). The
Eee is certainly more powerful than a PDA, but way too big. It doesn't even
attempt UMPC or tablet functionality.
So what does it have going for it? It's, uh, cheap. And the usefulness of
the product reflects that. That's about it. :-)
- Jeff
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