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rsperberg · 03-12-2006, 01:58 PM

Is it only the form factor that makes the UMPC dissimilar from the TabletPC? Your short list seems to say so.

Yet that wouldn't seem to justify bringing out this "ultra-mobile" and pushing it so hard.

I think we have to look beyond today's models — we won't see larger models in future but only smaller, and less expensive. I don't think people would even ask How is it different? if the 5.5-inch models had come out now.

Of course, the market for the UMPC is radically different than the TabletPC's. This isn't a laptop substitute for somebody mobile like a doctor making the rounds; it's intended to supplement your other computer(s) and do what they don't do well — access the internet instantly from spots where you don't have (or don't want to bother with) your laptop, and see a whole web-page's width (unlike a PDA).

Today, the devices have VGA and Ethernet connectors and hard drives, but people will find they don't need them. Those sorts of things will drop away as the untethered web is refined in people's minds (and as WiFi clouds become more common and Web 2.0 tools like Writely solidify).

03-12-2006, 01:58 PM	#18
rsperberg Zealot Posts: 114 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: NJ Device: Kindle Voyage	UMPCs aren't smaller TabletPCs Is it only the form factor that makes the UMPC dissimilar from the TabletPC? Your short list seems to say so. Yet that wouldn't seem to justify bringing out this "ultra-mobile" and pushing it so hard. I think we have to look beyond today's models — we won't see larger models in future but only smaller, and less expensive. I don't think people would even ask How is it different? if the 5.5-inch models had come out now. Of course, the market for the UMPC is radically different than the TabletPC's. This isn't a laptop substitute for somebody mobile like a doctor making the rounds; it's intended to supplement your other computer(s) and do what they don't do well — access the internet instantly from spots where you don't have (or don't want to bother with) your laptop, and see a whole web-page's width (unlike a PDA). Today, the devices have VGA and Ethernet connectors and hard drives, but people will find they don't need them. Those sorts of things will drop away as the untethered web is refined in people's minds (and as WiFi clouds become more common and Web 2.0 tools like Writely solidify).