Interesting post over at electronicpulp. Is acer working on a MID? Im excited. Not for the MID, although it looks slim and nicely designed, but to see what price they pitch it at. How will they postion it alongside the Acer Aspire.
Acer working on its very own Mobile Internet Device (MID) — Electronic Pulp
Acer mid would be great. They could probably make a cheap mid and they are so big they could sell them in a lot of countries. Gives hopes for getting mids to Finland aswell :D
I still have Acer n311, it was a good companion not long ago.
If try to guess proportion using the size of 3.5mm hole on picture then size of device will be smaller than n311.
I do not see mini/micro USB only non standard docking connector as one on n311. I hope for future in which all devices can be easily connected.
“FIG.6” looks like it is a second display or a mirror on the back of device.
The back is maybe some sort of control touchscreen? I tought MS was working on something like that: control a screen on the back of it…
hopefully all these MID manufactures will have make Windows drivers. there needs to be a cheap alternative to the OQO.
I don’t see any evidence that this thing would have a physical keyboard, if not I don’t see how it can be an alternative to the OQO. Depending upon what you do the Compal made Aigo or Gigabytes might however be cheaper alternatives to the OQO.
Am I in the minority wanting a REAL FULL (Qwerty) keyboard on my MID? If they don’t have a keyboard I tend to look at these things as PMPs rather than MIDs, that’s just me.
EC, You’re a content producer therefore the keyboard is important. I am too. We are, if you take a slice of the population (not the readers here) , in the minority. A poll on umpcportal would probably show a 50/50 response (my guess.)
In my opinion, most people will react better to a sub 20mm thick, no-keyboard device focusing on Web, Video, Ebooks and Navi. Gaming and internet photography (Taking good photos, editing and posting directly from the device) are also two areas that could be interesting although i’d say gaming will be a hard one to get into.
Me, i’m more interested in having that FF browser run like the wind while being able to write posts, emails and so.
Steve
Good point, where/how could one get such statistics? :)
I guess Jenn’s yesterday interview w/people gave some kind of picture of this..
I personally have some doubts though that will these “no-keyboard-is-ok” customers pay the extra for the full OS devices and not just settle for a …..say iPhone? :)
Windows 7 multitouch, I hope.
no physical keyboard is fine by me.
I guess I am (as Chippy is pointing out) underestimating this sector? :)
PMP, Navi, Ebook. All great target customer-bases for MIDs and none of them require a keyboard!
Steve
See this is where I don’t follow, basically your comment about PMP (portablel media player right?), NAVI and ebook reading. These are essentially three things I personally use my iPhone for on a daily basis (aside from replying to this post as my sidekick browser doesn’t want to let me use the reply to threaded feature). Why would I want to pay more have a more bulky device not to mention second device (I can only assume most people are not as crazy as me carrying two and three devices, my goal is to have ONE device once technology enables that) with me that on top of that gives mrs only half if not less battery time than a capable smartphone?
On the navi part I’d have to say that any device aside from standalone GPS and windows mobile devices with builtin or BT GPS capabilities would have so many compromises that it wouldn’t be worth it, fact is (and I’m no expert but I’ve had some experience with them) navigation software for full OS’ are way behind say TomTom software (that’s what I’ve used the most).
Aside from certain added “right out of the box” capabilities win say watching movies I don’t see the point in an UMPC/MID since there’s plenty of cheaper and for that purpose better devices like PMP dedicated devices.
Oh ebook I didn’t touch on that, there’s now a number of good and seat ebook readers for the iPhone, I use the iSilo one though it might not have the most modern/easy/applish UI of them it enables me to use he .pdb files I use for my eBooking.
Yes I have more to say :)
Having now got my Aigo up and running with XP, I’ve just realized how much less I need/enjoy/want to use the full OS pocketable devices with:
-not so great battery time
-obviously more bulkyness than various devices that are more mature for the pocket such as smart phones
-an OS and screen resolution never intended for a 4-5″ screen
-various keyboard solutions not really capable of great thumb or touch typing, unlike several phones now.
Now don’t get me wrong I still NEED a full XP capable device with me but whole in the past (say 1.5-2yrs ago) prior to having the iPhone I wouldve needed the full OS device some 50-75% of the time I was to interact with the web, while on the go. Now that has dropped to I’d say a 10-30% and that works just fine since the full OS devices’ battery times are weak anyhow. Oh yes in that timeframe the Sidekicks got updated too adding a few but oh so vital features one being the ability to chose ANY text from an website in your browser and copy and paste it with your “normal” mouse and keyboard type of commands.
No I’m not trying to rant only sharing my own online computing needs and experiences, btw if you see typos it’s cause I’m using my not so familiar iPhone keyboard with correction :).