Messages

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General Discussion / Why Hasn't Somebody From Sony Or Oqo Gotten A Clue?

« on: October 24, 2007, 11:27:18 pm »

adf -- that's a really interesting theory and consistent with the products and the uses that I've seen these things put to.  Interestingly, I found myself comparing the UX to my Blackberry this morning, just randomly thinking, and found that the BB won hands down in the necessary respects... i.e. I can actually type lengthy emails on the thing if necessary, and it only costs $100.

speculatrix, may I henceforth refer to Vista as "(spit) Vista" in my written communications?  That's awesome.  I saw a brand-new notebook with decent specs die on the altar of free-upgrade Vista.  It was horrible, but if XP or 2K had been loaded on the thing...  Anyway, the moderately non-techie owner returned it.  (!)  Not fast enough for him.

You know, Capn_Fish, I enjoyed Ubuntu for all its great facets, but could never reconcile myself with the resource hogging.  Compared to Slack or Gentoo it just seems a bit... not bloated, but heavy.  I guess that's the Gnome talking.  Last time I gave Fluxbuntu a shot, though, it was a mess.  What's Xubuntu like first-hand?

And lastly, desertrat... yep.  Although there's lots of modern software that won't run on 98.  I'd recommend 2K, which is what most of my machines run.

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General Discussion / Why Hasn't Somebody From Sony Or Oqo Gotten A Clue?

« on: October 24, 2007, 12:13:29 am »

While looking around for a suitable upgrade to my C1000 I checked out the two leaders in the available-in-the-U.S. UMPC market.  After handling a UX and reading extensively on both the next-generation UX and OQO models I have begun to wonder... what is WRONG with these people?

From the beginning, the Sony UX's primary complaint has been "the keyboard is really, really bad."  And now, how many models and years later, the keyboard is still simply, absolutely, crap.  I tried to type out a sentence on a brand new UX390 the other day --  a machine which retails for ~$2000 -- and had to stop in disgust.  The keyboard was completely unusable.  My hunt-and-peck $30 cell phone is more usable for text entry.

The main issue with the OQO from day one has been the processor speed (that pretty much goes without saying, as soon as you read the word "Transmeta" in the specs for the 01 and 01+).  But in their latest model they've "upgraded" to a processor that *again* significantly underperforms its competition (as in, 2-3x slower)!  And they're *also* asking quite a bit more for this little wonder than they ought to be given its shortcomings.

Why haven't OQO and Sony caught on yet?  I really can't understand why these old hands have failed to address their machines' primary issues in the past several years.  I also don't understand the market force that gets people to actually buy these things (especially the horrid UX) for many times the hoped-for UMPC price point.  They're failures of the UMPC model, but they SELL so well!

Getting back to my initial question, though -- what's up with Sony and OQO?  Are they that unresponsive?  Is this what we have to look forward to in the UMPC field?  Brand stagnation, with the only real innovation being caused by new companies entering the market?

Just wondering.  :-)

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 23, 2007, 03:00:24 am »

Da_Blitz -- thanks for the info and the kind offer.  I'll see if I can come up with anything to usefully test-compile.  The Kohjinsha seems like a nice piece of kit.  I'd love to get my hands on one.

adf -- floating point all the way.  I do a lot of natural language processing / AI work... if I can get a decent bump to FP operations, that makes my life a heck of a lot easier, definitely.  Probably doesn't force me to write better code like having no serious FP support would, but what the hell.  I dunno, the way-more-powerful route has its draws, but I like small sizes... I'm looking at a good 100% premium for way-more-powerful in my favored form factors.  (Saw an 11.1" Vaio today, gorgeous with great KB, the 12.1" HP next to it was about $1300 cheaper for better specs.  Dang.)  A UMPC with a decent processor with good FP and graphics performance would do me just fine.

As for power vs. weight, that's a game I've been playing for over a decade, now.  I'll gladly take an extra 0.5 pounds to grab a couple extra hours of battery life or balance out a more powerful processor.  I'd just prefer not to.  

Really, the Pepper Pad 3 is looking quite awesome at the moment.  I've got to try one out.  I suppose I could probably grab one for a bit under market on Ebay.  If the Geode is so powerful, I really don't see an issue with picking one up even at MSRP.

Edit: Great googly moogly!  I can get a new Pepper Pad 3 for $399?

I'll definitely look into the "find one with a broken screen" option.  Good suggestion.

Thanks!

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 22, 2007, 08:58:02 pm »

I'm not really a hardware guy (well, I don't keep current, anyway), but those specs don't sound that great.  256MB of RAM and a low-clocked Geode?  The Geode is supposed to be a zippy chip, but is it *that* fast?

I can work with the 256MB I guess... I'm looking for something that's much faster than the C1000's CPU, though.  Is it?

Otherwise, I like the low price and the positive talk about the thumb board.  I'd be interested in hearing any comments or suggestions on this thing.

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 22, 2007, 07:55:15 pm »

nilch -- you mean the U101?  Decent machine.  I'd have to find one to see if it was thumbable as hoped.

Hey Capn_Fish... yep, that's the cheapest option.  I'm a bit squirrelly about having a lappie running in my backpack.  I don't live in the safest part of town and I'd hate to scramble the damn thing's brains if I forgot to shut it down before doing the hundred-meter-dash.  I haven't had a chance to give it a try yet; I'll see what I can get set up this week, try it out before the weekend.

Regardless, it's looking like there's not much in the way of an actual solution in currently-available UMPCs.  OQO, too slow and crappy.  UX, too expensive with a crappy keyboard.  Everything else, only available at a 5000% premium on Dynamism, and generally not very thumb-typeable-looking.

Oh, and there's the EEE-PC, but that doesn't look very thumb-able either.

If the OQO has the UX's power... or the UX had the OQO's price and keyboard... mmmmm.

Oh, well.  Thanks for all the further suggestions.  I'll see about the laptop-in-a-bag solution.

Cheers.

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 19, 2007, 01:22:18 pm »

Awesome!  Thanks guys for all the additional responses.

Meanie, yeah I've heard that the touchscreen on the OQOs are problematic.  It's unfortunate, because I rather like the way they look.  Also, they can be had cheaply on Ebay.  Too bad.

Da_Blitz -- although I've love to have a big Beowulf on tap, honestly, I'd settle for a single decent CPU.  :-)  In my quest for on-the-go coding it's either been ancient Pentiums, PDA-level processors or Crusoe chips, none of which have the punch to knock through my code at a reasonable speed.  I've had decent luck with Pentium Ms -- my Dell X300 is quite nice in particular -- but those devices tend to be too big to stand with easily.

I suppose I could also switch to non-compiled languages, but where's the fun in that?  ;-)

tg, thanks.  I've been wondering about the keyboards, obviously, since that's probably the most important part of the machine for my needs.  The UX has a bad reputation (I'll try one out tonight, hopefully), while the OQOs seems a bit better.  It's promising that the next-gen OQO will be even better, but I'm not out to pay next-gen prices.  I'll keep my eyes open for more keyboard feedback.

Hmmm.  I guess I'll see if I can get my hands on an EEE-PC and see if it's stand-able, but I doubt it.

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 19, 2007, 03:04:44 am »

Z in hand, cheap laptop in satchel, same remote box concept?

Hmmm.  That always seemed a bit cumbersome, but given that I'm considering making a rather large purchase in lieu of that working I'd say that that idea definitely has some merit to it.  :-)  I'll give it a shot tomorrow.  Then we'll see if I need to come back to the idea of dropping a grand on a replacement.

Thanks!

Phil

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 19, 2007, 01:38:21 am »

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply.  :-)

Nope, it doesn't need to be pocketable.  I've always got a messenger bag so that I can carry my Fujitsu P2110 (although I guess I wouldn't need that with a proper C1000 replacement).

I've been looking at the EEE-PC for a while.  The price is attractive, but I don't know if it'll be thumb-typeable and its CPU is a bit underpowered as well by all accounts.  I have a number of subnotebooks, but the ability to *always* be able to work while standing and buy myself an extra 7-8 hours of coding per week is priceless.  I can type one-handed, but it's slower than a good thumb board like the C1000's, and awkward when the train is crowded.

I'd heard the OQO was weak.  I have a friend who's worked there from well before the initial release and the specs have sounded anemic (for the price) for as long as I've known of it.  I've considered the Sony UX series but have heard its keyboard is a weak point and it's also fairly expensive.  Anybody have any experience with these?

Flipstart looks good, as do other UMPCs.  I guess any first-hand accounts would be useful.  I've been keeping an eye on Ebay to get a decent deal, but it'd be hard to get my hands on one to test any particular model out.

As for a remote box, that's a very good idea.  Unfortunately half the ride is in tunnels where no reception is possible.

Thanks again!

Phil

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General Discussion / C1000 Owner Looking For Something Faster

« on: October 19, 2007, 12:56:19 am »

I recently (end of September) purchased a C1000 through Conics.net.  (I'd owned an SL-5500 for several years and had been shopping for a Cxx00 for a while.)  I installed pdaXii13 Akita and zgcc on my C1000 and, with just one keyboard hiccup, I was on my way, happily coding for an extra 1.5 hours a day on my city's standing-room-only trains.

I love the ability to thumb-type.  I love the small size.  The battery life is amazing (I go several sessions of heavy use -- recompiling VERY often -- without recharging).  The screen is beautiful.

Unfortunately, I could really use more power.  A heftier CPU and more RAM would increase my productivity quite a bit -- I spend more time staring out the window waiting for a recompile than I do writing code at times, and while writing games on the Z certainly adds to the design / code challenge and forces me to optimize early and often (not a bad thing when you're a one-man shop), I'd like my unoptimized code to at least RUN on the thing.  It's a PITA to need to optimize before I can see results.  I have already bumped the CPU to 624Mhz.

In short: I'd like to find a thumb-typeable PC with a decent screen, low weight, better CPU and more RAM.  I'd be willing to go about 3x what I paid for the Z (about $400).  I've shopped around but most stuff is expensive and / or rare.  Figured I'd see if anyone had gone the same route already.  Any suggestions?  Ideas?  Experiences?

Also, if there's anything I can do to speed up the Zaurus that would be great to hear as well.

Thanks, and cheers.

Phil

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Zaurus - pdaXrom / Pdaxii13 Keyboard Issues

« on: October 15, 2007, 03:35:56 pm »

What keys are you trying to use for curly braces? I think they're mapped to Fn+M and Fn+M, not Fn+U and Fn+I like the were.

Hmm.  I was attempting to use the {}-marked keys for the braces -- I'll try Fn + M and N, but when I checked the keymap it was the {} keys that were actually being used.  I wonder if default C700 keymap is actually what's being used?

Thanks for your quick reply.

One sec while I power up my C1000 and check it out...

Yep, Fn+M and N works perfectly.  Problem solved.  Back to my code!

Thanks, Capn_Fish.

Cheers,
Phil

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Zaurus - pdaXrom / Pdaxii13 Keyboard Issues

« on: October 15, 2007, 03:25:18 pm »

Hey all.  I did a search and came up with nothing on this issue.  For some reason, not all of my Fn-modified keys are working in OpenWM -- in particular (and most annoyingly) curly braces.

I checked the keymap and everything seems to be set up properly.  Any ideas?

Edit:  Oops, I forgot to mention that this is pdaXii13 Akita on a C-1000, just flashed about two weeks ago.

Cheers,
Phil

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For Sale / Wanted / For Sale: C1000 + Accesories - Sold!

« on: September 20, 2007, 08:49:32 pm »

Is this still available?