A few days ago, Digital Trends published the latest report from Rob Enderle who was involved in consultancy work with the Origami team before it launched a year ago. Its worth reading but there’s a few funnies in it.
He calls the OQO and Flipstart ‘second generation UMPC’s which is not really true in my opinion. I would call them first generation UMPCs because they’re still using old CPU and battery technology. There’s nothing 2nd-Gen about a clamshell and slide-out form factor and there certainly nothing 2nd Gen about these devices costing over $1500. For the price of a Flipstart, you can get 2 Q1s, 3 Pepper Pad 3’s or 5 Nokia N800s (Not that having 2 or more UMPCs helps anyone but you get my point right?) ‘2nd Gen’ also implies that the 1st Gen are out-of-date but I can guarantee you won’t see any massive price drops and clear-out sales because the Flipstart and OQO Model 02 are on the virtual shelves.
My ‘2nd Generation’ bar will be reached when we see a step-change in battery density coupled with a significant step down in CPU/GPU energy usage (or a significant step up in processing/GPU capability for the same energy usage.) When that happens then the 2-hour, non-Vista-capable devices might start to look a little out of date and price/performance ratios start to become more important. Prices could start to fall for 1st Gen devices.
We might see one of those requirements being fulfilled on Wednesday or Thursday with the Q1 ultra *IF* its using the Santa Rosa platform. Microsoft will be very happy I’m sure.
S.
