I’d have to say Microsoft did a great job with their cryptic Origami Project campaign. The marketing buzz it created rivaled or perhaps surpassed that of Apple. For the past 3 weeks everyone spend their days searching, speculating and coming up with possible faux designs for the Origami.

Contrary to what several people thought, the product isn’t one bit disappointing! The Origami (previously Haiku) is an ultra mobile device that might soon replace or eliminate my need for my PDA.

According to a Channel 9 Video, the first devices will be running XP with a 800×480 native resolution on 7″ touch screen that is able to emulate higher resolutions. The touch screen is nothing short of brilliant! You can type using your thumbs (i digg the on screen keyboard), use the built in stylus or a bluetooth/usb keyboard.

The batteries are replaceable, and have an average run time of 3 hours which is a bit disappointing, but you cannot expect a lot more with a 1Ghz class CPU and Direct X 8 level graphics.

It comes with an ethernet jack, wireless connectivity, bluetooth 2.0, 2 built in mics for better voip on the go, VGA out, 2 USB ports in addition to a CF slot; I’m not sure if it’s CFIO which would allow EDGE, EVDO, UMTS connections to the internet when a hot spot is not available. As well as optional GPS and portable Digital TV modules! Impressive!

Portability and small form factor PCs are nothing new, last November i reviewed a similar device with a 5″ screen; now the main difference between UMPC and other devices currently on the market is the software that drives them. The Sony U50 ran on Windows XP Professional rather than Windows XP Tablet Edition, without a touch screen, you always had to lug the portable keyboard, the lack of platform specific APIs meant that no applications were designed for this device form factor/resolution.

I don’t know about you, but I personally can see this in a binder on one side and a wireless keyboard on another. I would no longer need to use paper, or lug a huge tablet PC to meetings. And with a price close to a Pocket PC Phone Edition (it sells for $599-$999), you can bet a Samsung Q1 will make its way to my hardware arsenal sometime soon.
For more on this:
Check out Gartenberg’s Analysis
Read Scobles Entry
Read the Origami Project Team Blog’s Debunking Myths Post
Go to Microsoft UMPC webpage

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 9th, 2006 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Gadgets, Hardware, Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.