Small computers are great, so this was exciting to hear: After years of hype, the Vulcan Flipstart has finally become an actual product. Hopefully it will be shown at CeBIT 2007 somewhere.
Looking at the specs, photos and James Kendrick’s informative video, the product doesn’t look too promising, though. Pretty ugly design, no touchscreen, quite heavy and a rather high pricetag. What a disappointment.
The Raon Vega, the Sony UX, the Oqo and the upcoming Arima UMPC (to be sold in Europe by Medion and Gigabyte) all look far more advanced and better engineered.
All of these devices share a major problem, though: They are small bricks. Compare that with the Nokia N800, which weighs just a bit more than 200 gramms and runs for days on a tiny battery. The above-mentioned UMPCs need a big battery and still run a few hours, only.
Update: “Days?” Read Karel Jansens’ clarification below.
The 770/N800 may be a great line of hardware, but giving incorrect information doesn’t do them much good: the Internet Tablet will run for a maximum of 6-7 hours (2-3 hours with WiFi on, around 10 hours playing music with the screen off). Those “days” refer to the standby time.
The IT’s battery is 1.5 Ahs; not huge, but not especially tiny either. One nice battery feature of the Internet Tablets is that they take a bog-standard Nokia BP-5L battery, available in any good phone shop and cloned like mad.
True, “days” on the N800 includes non-use, since that’s how you use a portable computer: Pick it up, use it for a few minutes, put it down.
Thanks to the system’s agressive power saving, the N800 will last for days on one battery if you use it like that.
You cannot leave a UMPC turned “on” like you can with the internet tablet.
UMPC’s adavantages:
-plays any video format you thow at it with decent framerate, etc.
-plays Flash 9 content
-has a better Browser (i.e. Firefox 2.0)
-has a much better email client (any client is better than what is included with the N800)
-supports BT headset
-Skype video
-Large storage capacity
If it doesn’t fit into my pocket, then I’d rather carry a laptop. The N800 fits.