Kevin Tofel has been providing some very interesting ongoing updates on his experiences with a Samsung Q1 UMPC device. Everything from unpacking to usage scenarios is there at
JKOnTheRun for our vicarious pleasure.
Among his first experiments with usage scenarios is an
article about a topic that is near and dear - what it's like to read on the Q1 with Microsoft Reader. Yes, I know, nobody seems to like that reader because of the abominable version of DRM. But the article is very interesting, as is the whole idea of reading on a UMPC.
Kevin says, "...my impression is that this might be the perfect screen size for reading an eBook as it closely resembles the size of a paperback book." He would like to see a higher resolution, and we would all like to see better battery life. But he makes note of how it's a lot more convenient to turn pages on a UMPC than on an active digitizer screen like those built into the typical tablet PCs, because you can just use your finger instead of the special stylus.
My own impression is that UMPCs will be excellent for e-book reading, but the battery life needs to improve. Look for it to become popular for reading once the next generation of lower power CPUs come out. Screen resolution will improve with time as costs come down. And one of these days, UMPCs might even come with future versions of e-ink.