OQO Launches - A REAL Pocket PC that differs from what came before

Michael Gartenberg | October 14, 2004, 07:35 AM

I first saw the OQO last spring and I was pretty impressed with it at the time. To re-cap, the OQO is the first in a new class of ultra portable PCs hitting the US market. The concept is not new (although since Toshiba killed the Libretto, it's been years since you could get one of these devices in the US without going through an importer) and devices that are similar sell moderately well in Japan. They historically have not sold well in the US, where buyers are less likely to pay a premium for a small form factor. Often, devices like this get introduced as mass appeal devices, fail and then get re-positioned as "vertical" oriented products. Here's a good rule, vertical markets are often where failed horizontal products go to die. I think the OQO will be different and there's some good prospects for success.

I have had the pleasure of using one for the last few months and it's definitely as device whose time has come. The problem with many other products in this category is that they simply mimicked the traditional notebook design and then shrunk it to miniscule proportions. You end up with a laptop that's too small to touch type and too large to thumb type. The OQOs design manages to overcome this issue as it's designed to be used in a cradle with a full keyboard and monitor at your desk, can navigate with a pen while referencing information and use a small thumb typable keyboard for light mobile editing tasks such as email or web browsing. Of course, it also runs Windows XP so all your regular desktop applications will work just fine out of the box.

The form factor is very nice although I wouldn't call it quite pocketable. The screen is beautiful and looks good indoors as well outside. My battery life was just a little under two hours which is acceptable if not perfect. The designers also made some curious choices. There's Bluetooth and WiFi for connectivity which is good but the designers opted for Firewire (hard to imagine the need for that on a device this size) and as a result used USB 1.1 instead of 2.0. There's also no VGA or Ethernet on the unit so if you're traveling, you need to take along the docking cable where these ports live (I made do with a USB Ethernet adapter and used MaxVista to remote control the screen of another PC using WiFi).

It's easy to compare the OQO to a PDA or s subonotebook. It's not either. It's really a new class of device and probably the first one that has enough mass appeal not be constrained to the vertical market of death. Consumer appeal will likely be limited to enthusiasts who are willing to pay the premium for the coolest and smallest PC in the market. Road warriors will love the size and form factor as well as the fact that they can probably shed their PDA and Media Player. Mainstream business users will need to be educated a bit more on the value proposition of small size vs. high end laptop features.

OQO should also think about doing some cost analysis for business users that could use Windows XP applications instead of having to re-write things for a PDA as well as the computing implications for a mainstream user to get an OQO and docking stations for work and home instead of a traditional laptop or two PC combinations. There's a lot of potential here and the OQO folks really do understand mobile computing. It will be very interesting to see what comes next from these folks.