This weekend I have been playing with a UMPC ;)
It is a pre-production unit that was lent to me for the weekend. It takes a bit of getting accustomed to a touch screen. I am used to the screen only reacting to my stylus. After an hour with the UMPC I went back to my Sahara slate and found myself trying to use my finger to interact with the machine. Touch is a very intuitive way to interact with a user interface.
I feel there a number of exciting opportunities for the UMPC. I would like one as a coffee table device at home. I can see it would be useful as quick note taking device and have been using it for IM. If the battery lasted a bit longer (getting just over 2 hours on this one) I would like it as a portable media player. The sync story needs to be better, if all my email and contacts could easily (without me having to do anything) sync between my desktop and my UMPC then I would get one as a diary / organiser.
I would recommend getting one with 512MB of RAM, or more. I see some of the offerings out there are shipping entry level units with 256MB and 30GB hard drives. WTF!
I can’t see the point, the device will be unusable for much more than web browsing. I expect many sold with this configuration will lead to disappointment.
The minimum spec should be 512MB RAM and 40GB hard drive. My iPOD has a 60GB drive and is nearly full, and that is just music, podcasts and photos.
I will probably get one this year to play with. I would like to cut some code for the device. I have a couple of ideas rattling around in my head.
