Comments on: i7210 UMPC roundup: what would you change?

By: John in Norway

John in Norway — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 04:44:56 +0000

The battery life problem is solved with the extended battery. The biggest problem I have is that the Q1 is useless outside in daylight. Are any of the new devices any better?

Although we have a very short summer up here, it doesn’t get dark for a couple of those months so my Q1 has to be confined to the house!

By: Alslayer

Alslayer — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 02:58:25 +0000

On my Q1 the main thing I want is a docking station. I made my own by plugging everything into a usb hub except the video. One other thing would be a bigger hard drive. But a docking station is the more important one.

By: Fernando

Fernando — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 14:13:09 +0000

Echo on the battery life, but in the case of the eo, it really needs built-in VGA-out support. That is where the Q1 has a great advantage.

By: Stephen Brandon

Stephen Brandon — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:21:34 +0000

Screen rotation should be a standard aspect (no pun intended) of all UMPCs, and I’ve been disappointed with the general lack of convergence in most of the UMPCs out there–in particular in the lower end base units. It would be nice if all UMPCs had the array mics and stereo speakers of the Q1s and the built in cameras and GPS of the Asus R2H. After all, many users would be much more likly to use voice recognition or to see the UMPC as a digital recorder if they all had the features to promote such use. It would also be great if all the UMPC makers acknowledged that the UMPC *will* be used to store music and watch videos and included larger hard drives in their base units. Last but not least, built in broadband outside of WiFi would be great. After all, the whole concept is to have a computer where you can always be on and using (again, no pun intended). My point is that UMPCs have the potential and, I’d argue, their real potential is to be a convergence device which replaces much of one’s gadget bag with a single portable platform.

Sigh. I’m still looking forward to my Q1 Pentium from CDW. Latest and best estimate is a ship date on or just before 6 October.

By: Jonathan Cohen

Jonathan Cohen — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:41:30 +0000

Battery life and price. Battery life and price. Battery life and price.

Okay, well I can’t expect the price to come down, but I think people would accept a clip-on battery for more battery life. My Thinkpad X41 tablet has this, and I’m happy to lug around the big extended battery in exchange for not having to worry about running out of juice on the go.

Seriously, battery life is a major stumbling block for what are supposed to be portable devices.

By: Ctitanic

Ctitanic — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:06:30 +0000

ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got it now….. I’m to slow to live in the western :D

By: jkk

jkk — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:36:05 +0000

I actually got it Kevin ….

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:13:53 +0000

It was a not so obvious joke because JKK is not related to JK (James Kendrick). Since he has the extra “K”, I added the extra “relation”. ;)

By: Ctitanic

Ctitanic — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:07:54 +0000

BTW, what means (no relation, no relation)

By: Ctitanic

Ctitanic — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:06:47 +0000

Exactly, I never answer to questions like “what device you recommend for me?” because what is the best for me probably could be the worse solution for others.
The 7210 is in my opinion one of the best UMPCs out there. I like it very much. If it was released at the same time than the eo v7110 I probably would have ended with the pentium version of it. I do not like the mouse button but as you can see from JKK video it’s easy to change for the IBM cap. Another thing that I do not like is the 1.8″ HDD. They cost more than the 2.5s” In 2.5 you can find the Hitachis running at 7200 RPM that rock! But… hey… Nobody is perfect. If the Pentium model had a price tag close to 1000 I would probably end selling my eo in ebay and buying one of this but at that price I will keep my 7110 until the second generation is here. ;)