Seamless UMPC nearly a dream machine
As a perpetually traveling journalist I am ever keen to have a totally portable machine. I started traveling with the TRS-80 Model 100 which was designed by Kyocera of Japan, who licensed the same design to NEC, Tandy, and Olivetti. (Historic note: This model was the last computer system of which Microsoft’s Bill Gates wrote a significant amount of the code.)
It was wonderful. Using a cassette it would hold 8,000 words which was all I could write on a flight from Sydney to London. It had a built in modem and, important this, was driven by four AA batteries.
Later I switched to the NEC-9600 whose operating system was designed in, I think, Guildford, England, and again ran on four AA batteries.
This sort of defines what I want in a portable computer. Ultimate portability and easily replaced or charged batteries. Given that background you can see why I leapt on the Seamless NeXt Generation ultra mobile PC — S-XGen for short — like a starving dingo on a dead rabbit. It has a fold-out qwerty keyboard, a 4-inch LCD screen and seems quite the article.
Sadly, it is not and it will not make it in the market place. It will be a footnote in computer history because there is competition coming which will see it off.
I am not put off by the fact that it only runs Windows Mobile CE 5.0 with the Mobile Office Mobile Suite.
Yes, the price at US$1,400 is more than I had in mind but I could bit the bullet and just, just manage it.
It is said to run for at least 8 hours on one battery charge. Manufacturers were ever optimistic on matters like this so make that six hours which is really not a lot for what I want.
You won’t be able to use your usual programs which means you need to buy a number of new programs which, in truth, will not run terribly quickly.
Seamless thinks the S-XGen eliminates the need for a separate laptop, cellular phone, Tablet PC and PDA. WiFi, Bluetooth and tri-band cellular wireless technology.
I don’t think so. Not for one moment.
You can cross out the cellular phone bit as a start. There is simply no way I am going to unfold this, admittedly cute, machine to take a call. And I will need a separate laptop for some of the programs I use when I am overseas simply will not run on it in any version. I no longer use a PDA so that is not a great saving. All the rest are interesting but will not make this a compelling buy.
Sadly, the S-XGen is nearly there. It could easily have been exactly what I wanted. But it does not quite make it and there will not be a lot of people paying $1,500 for this machine. Especially as there will be a lot of competition as we will see in the coming weeks.
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