See the fancy Pocket PCs that Intel wants you to buy instead of Netbooks
Behold the ultra-mobile PCs of CES 2009. Intel Ultra Mobility chap Uday Keshavdas reminds us that this—running Vista on $1,000 Pocket PCs you can't type properly on—is what Atom was supposed to be for!
Some of these devices are actually damn cool things, and there's one great moment where Keshavdas points out a device that was designed for blogging with on the move. Someone out there is thinking of us. It's appreciated!
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Thank you Intel, for deciding that we all want to spend $1,000 for portable computers.
The point of UMPCs is supposed to replace the need for both a mobile phone and a laptop with a single device. Some recent netbooks with built-in mini-PCI-e WWAN cards are starting to fulfill that expectation though.
However, I am sympathetic to the $1000 price point of a device that's more like a smartphone with the power of a laptop, than the $400 netbooks which are more like laptops with the power of smartphones.
Until that materializes, however, I can tether a 13" Macbook via Bluetooth to a BlackBerry Bold for 3G bandwidth anywhere.
The archetypical UMPC is the OQO.
Oh well, they are doing the same mistake that the car industry made - they don't try to build what people want to buy, but they build what they think would give them the most profit if people bought it.
The latter may happen, especially with loads of advertisement, but when push comes to shove those will be the first to dropped by buyers, because they bought it without needing it.
And of course everyone is surprised by the success of devices that people actually want and are offered at a price that those who want it can actually pay (netbooks). I don't see that happening with the devices in the video any time soon.
I just want a wacom style sensitive display with an atom spec board in an etch a sketch form factor!