The life of Tablet PCs and UMPCs have not been easy. Like any idea ahead of time we have seen many problems coming from implementations that still do not have a full hardware support. Like the UMPC resolutions at 800x480. Yes, everybody knew that that was not enough but to have a good price they had to compromise this and use a display that was designed for a completely different activity. To have a display with more resolution for that new category of devices (UMPC) would have taken time and would have cost a lot more. And the whole idea behind was to have a device with a price lower than 500 dollars. But anyway… The reason that I’m bringing this is because while some pages spend time looking at the errors we have Bill Gate saying:
"Microsoft has a lot of different tablet projects that we're pursuing. We think that work with the pen that Microsoft pioneered will become a mainstream for students. It can give you a device that you can not only read, but also create documents at the same time."
A really good news for people like me that still believe in the concept TabletPC/UMPC. Keep going Bill, that I’m with you.
Although Gates did a LOT of effort for communicating tablet pc technologies, it seemed that he was alone between Microsoft VIPs supporting that technologies.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, Ms has wasted too much credibility and time. They had a clear winner, even a potential game changer, and they commited the sin of let it idle.
Shame on Microsoft for tablet pc. It's too late :(
And this news are too close to the rumours of HP stopping their slate project.
ReplyDeleteJuan, this is a 3D game where we only see the 2D picture of it. The Courier looked good but to have it working had to give up the open arquitecture of Windows to customize it specifically for that hardware, sounds familiar? Apple style. The full W7 would make the courier too heavy because of the batteries. To get the battery life of the iPad you need to have the body of the iPad with the hardware of the iPod inside. That's what's an iPad, just open it and you will see.
ReplyDeleteNow, the iPad without text recognition is nothing. You will see that coming to Apple market very soon. And you will see that coming from Apple also very soon. So an iPad with text recognition is what we have been talking about since day one of the release of the UMPC concept. Microsoft is spending a lot of time in research creating patches for touch, like the Origami Project Interface and the Surface Interface without changing the root which is the Operating System that's is to heavy for the simple tasks required in Courier or even the surface.
I still use my Q1P on a daily basis to watch video. Sure it's only 800x480, but that's good enough for a quick browse around the web or a video to watch. It runs Windows 7 just fine.
ReplyDeleteIf it had a slightly better video chip... and a little higher resolution... it'd be all the much better. Like the Q1U, heh.
Arshad, Spam are not welcome here.
ReplyDelete