Here is another release date…now you can actually ‘pre-order’.

Available for a price of $1899 with XP Home or $1999 with XP Pro, you can also elect to have Microsoft Office Small Business Edition pre-installed for an extra $300. Unfortunately for Linux users, there is no option to not have any OS installed. The OQO ships with a battery, docking cable, desktop stand, PSU, carrying sleeve and digital pen.

Protection plans are available on a 2 year ($179) or 3 year plan ($249). If you need additional accessories, the prices are as follows. The standard 4000mAh lithium battery is available for $99, no extended battery yet. The power supply is priced at $99, which is the same cost as the docking cable which you can use to connect an external monitor, extra USB / FireWire and more. The carrying sleeve, active-digitzer based pen, and desktop stand, which doesn’t have any port replication features, it only functions as a stand, can all be had for $19 each.

None of the specs have been upgraded as was hoped by some, except the weight is now listed as 14oz instead of the 15.5oz we saw previously. The USB is still 1.1.

At $2,000+ after tax, I see this thing collecting dust…

Erik

Yeah, at $2K, it’s wildly overpriced…especially when you consider that the battery lasts such a short time.

I can think of a few uses for this device but I wouldn’t pay more than $1k for this.

The reviews are popping up all over the place and it’s getting rightfully slammed. They should have seen this coming…I like the idea but it seems the execution is getting in the way.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118150,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20041013.html
http://www.pcstats.com/NewsView.cfm?NewsID=39510
http://reviews.cnet.com/OQO_Model_01/4505-3121_7-31124684.html?tag=lst

I’m going to wait for model 02 or 03…

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]I’m going to wait for model 02 or 03…

Those models should be out by the next presidential election and the time Man establishes his first permanent base on Mars respectively.

[quote author=“Drachen”][quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]I’m going to wait for model 02 or 03…

Those models should be out by the next presidential election and the time Man establishes his first permanent base on Mars respectively.

Also, the world premiere of Duke Nukem: Forever, The Motion Picture will have been released…

Three things I complained about is still there….

1. No handwriting recognition.
2. #$%# keyboard
3. Crusoe - when will people learn not to use this…

I don’t normally like to see products fail…this one I was waiting for…they deserve it, they had more then enough time to fix it’s faults, they did nothing.

Erik

Sad…I agree Erik…It seems to be with these products they are a great idea but seem to be over priced and hard to use…

Too close to a pda and not good enough to be a sub…

I think they need to ask the consumers what they want….And be more innovative then trying the same thing over and over again with no success…

I agree although my thoughts are…

1. Crusoe isn’t that bad. However, the version of the chip they’re using is. The latest versions while still inferior to the Pentium M are vastly improved in terms of speed (at least twice as fast now as the TM5600) and lower power consumption. Still, you wonder why they didn’t just go with a Pentium M 900 ULV.

2. 256MB of RAM for Windows XP and no option for at least 512MB? We all know that 256MB is the bare minimum for Windows XP. When they’re touting this as a portable desktop once you get to the office then people are going to be pissed that they’ll have an extremely slow desktop.

3. If these companies are going to put out systems with any sort of stylus or touchscreen, you need to have Windows XP Tablet Edition as standard. It’s still not perfect but it gets better with every release and is at least geared towards alternative input and supports Portrait/Landscape modes.

4. The cradle. WTF? They shouldn’t even call it a cradle. It’s simply a stand. The stand doesn’t have any connectors…they’re all on cable in various different locations. The “designer” who came up with that idea needs a huge slap in the head.

5. Heat and Battery Life. Did they not check to see if it would be uncomfortable to hold it for 2 hours? It’s amazing since every review is saying the same thing about it…it’s like they didn’t even do any usability testing. Well, most of these devices have poor battery life (even the U50 does too)...i guess the saving grace is that you can at least swap out batteries.

6. Usage patterns. In a device that small, I think most people will expect “instant-on” abilities which you definitely won’t get with Windows XP on a small, slow platform. Perhaps there needs to be something in between Windows XP and Windows Pocket PC 2004. I guess one of the solutions would be using a non-volatile flash memory for the main memory along with a new type of sleep mode for instant hibernation.

I wonder if OQO will get anymore VC funding after this…

gr00vy, I couldn’t agree more, but its just the result of the insanly long “development time” this poor device had. Had it actually been released on its original schedule, its specs wouldn’t be so outdated. Maybe someone else knows more about the company - or more specifically where all that VC cash went - but I’m honestly surprised they released a product at all.

Yeah, you almost wonder if they should have just cut their losses and not release since they’re receiving so much negative press. Sure, they’ll sale a few to gadget freaks and a few CEOs but not enough to be a success in any way.

Perhaps they had some deal with their VC funders that they’d at least get a product out before getting anymore money.

I hope they still get these out there to real people and gather data on usage habits and usabilities issues and redesign the product. It’s not that bad in terms of the size and form factor…it’s just needs way more polish and more updated specs.

[quote author=“Drachen”]Maybe someone else knows more about the company -

I met them…the geeks from Apple and Microsoft I believe…I can’t quire remember it was a while ago. They were the ones who didn’t have enough ‘creative freedom’ at either company so they went off to form their own…or so I was told.

Erik

[quote author=“tifosiv122”]They were the ones who didn’t have enough ‘creative freedom’ at either company so they went off to form their own…or so I was told.

Otherwise known as the “John Romero Effect”.

I think the Crusoe 5800 is a great chip.

One of tHe problems, the way I see it, is that they used it at the end of it’s life cycle (a new product with a chip clocked at the maximum ‘end of life cycle’ feq)

As you know, these CPU’s go though interations inorder to squeeze as many upgrades out of one die size as possible.

I have a C1mv picturebook that has this chip in it and it is clocked a 720MHZ. It was a first iteration of the 5800 and it runs cool, barley ever gets warm really with very little fan usage.

I’ve tried a few other notebooks with this Crusoe clocked at 1GHZ (the max) and it runs hot.

They should have Transmeta give them a modified version of longrun so the user can set the upper freq limit (easy to do with this chip) and thus tackle this heat issue. At 720MHZ I have no problem at all running XP, albeit i’m not running very demanding apps.