http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/10/jkontherun_vapo.html#comments

I’ve been reading e-books on the Pepperpad (and doing a lot of browsing – its a really comfortable solution)
Standby on that is much better than most UMPCs as is battery life. (3 hours)

Regards
Steve.

Ah okay, that’s what I was wondering. I don’t really use a suspend mode on the cPC because 80% of the time I am using the PPC side. I’ll boot XP, get what I needed, and then turn it off – hence the >minute boot time. Of course, if XP is still on and I am in the PPC side, switching over is instantaneous.

Bear in mind that I like to read eBooks…a lot. Which means I am holding the device in my hand for long periods of time. If the device is in XP and it’s hot, that won’t be much fun.

So just out of curiosity, how is battery life when your UMPC is in suspend mode? Can it make it the whole day? Days?

I agree with you about the sea of UMPCs…I can’t wait to see what 2007 and 2008 will bring.

I’ll give you the heat issue. You could probably watch a 320×240 1.2mbps video on the pocketpc side of things without heat build-up.

XP takes 5 seconds to start up on my UMPC. Suspend mode works perfectly. Why would I need to reboot it every time? The Vega takes 6 seconds as I recall. I probably soft-boot my PocketPC after less usage hours than my UMPC come to think of it.

I guess if they hit the right target market and can keep the margins high enough it could work. I mean its not as if it’s being launched into a sea of UMPCs (unless they wait another year!)

Steve
Carrypad.com

Let me ask you a couple of questions:

When using a UMPC, do they get very warm? (i.e. warmer than a PDA does)

What’s the start-up time?

You had mentioned “saving 4 seconds switch-on time?”, but it is actually closer to a full minute. WM5 starts instantly, just like on any Pocket PC; it’s only the XP side that takes a while to come on, so I was just wondering.

In any case: I believe that the market is big enough for all types of devices, and that having more options available means consumers will be able to make more personal need or desire-driven choices. Perhaps some ground may have been lost by DualCor, but I don’t believe that they haven’t got a place in the micro Tablet PC/UMPC market. I think the more the merrier, because it means more for me to choose from.

Thanks for the conversation.

Thanks for the answer.

“has been exactly what I needed at times”, “massively improved battery life” and “I have a 5? screen and the difference in what I see is amazing” sums it up.

It battery life can be improved on a 5″ UMPC, why would you need a Dualcor?

SOrry to keep going on about this but I really believe that they are losing too much ground now. The 4.5 hour 4.2″ Vega is here and DualCor need a new USP.

Steve.

“Is there something that better on a PocketPC than on WIndows XP/Vista except saving 4 seconds switch-on time?”
Yes, there is massively improved battery life when using functions that can be done on the less battery – hungry WM5 side of the device…such as reading eBooks or working in mobile Office programs.

“Wouldn’t you prefer your PocketPC integrated onto your phone? (WM5 Smartphone.)”
I have that now with my JasJar. It’s nice, but no – I don’t prefer it. For one thing, the screen on the cPC completely spoils you – especially when in WM5. While the average PPC Phone is sporting a 2.8″ screen, I have a 5″ screen and the difference in what I see is amazing. Although the JasJar’s nearly 4″ screen is great, it doesn’t even approach this visibility level.

You said “I believe in the cPC because once it has built-in WiFi and BT, it will be near perfect for my needs.”

What needs ‘profile’ is it that you think matches the DualCor?

Is there something that better on a PocketPC than on WIndows XP/Vista except saving 4 seconds switch-on time? Wouldn’t you prefer your PocketPC integrated onto your phone? (WM5 Smartphone.)

Steve.

At the risk of sounding like a marketing droid myself, mobile computing is in its infancy, and anyone who says they know how these Origami/UMPC/convergent devices will be used is really deluding themselves. I have my own ideas, of course (I think a hand-sized device with a laptop-sized amount of computing power, that you can unplug from your docking station and take on the road would be invaluable, but that’s just my take), and I’m sure Mike does, and Judy, and Rob Howe, and Bill Gates, and you-name-it. But to quote Neal Stephenson, “You may have envisioned half a dozen potential markets for your product, but as soon as you open your doors, one just explodes from the pack and becomes so instantly important that good business sense dictates that you abandon the others and concentrate all your efforts.” I personally don’t think dualCor is being unreasonable in the way they are proceeding; I’m sure their hoping that some application (real-world application, I mean; not software application) will make this device invaluable to some segment of the market.

On the flip side, yeah, they’re really late. And they’re going to miss the Christmas season. And their web site is really really out of date. And they haven’t done a demo or a roadshow or gone to a trade show in a long long time, so far as I can tell. So it’s possible that, no matter how good their device is, they will (or maybe already have) miss their window.

But they’ve made a bet that customers will find a valuable use for having both WM and Windows XP (or Vista) on the same device. And maybe they’re going to be proved right. All I know is that I wish I had an evaluation copy.

Just my own thoughts, of course.

Now…what makes you think that this was a one shot deal for any of us to get answers? The way I see it, a dialogue has been opened and as long as we all talk in calm tones, we may get replies.

I suspect that what might have happened between CES 2006 and today is that there may have been promises made when things looked a certain way, but perhaps things didn’t go as planned. It happens…

Reading what Rob said about needing a lead investor shows me that they have a product that is ready to get off the ground if the right person will fund it. The fact that I have one in my hand shows that it is not vaporware, it’s just not finished or mass-produced at the moment.

I believe in the cPC because once it has built-in WiFi and BT, it will be near perfect for my needs. If it has the capability to add various plug-in radios “under a sliding screen” as Rob alluded to…wow. The technology he’s talking about is impressive and evidently it will be feasible if the right person will step forward to make it happen.

Where are Paul Allen or Bill Gates when we need them?

Rather than bash DualCor for trying to get the word out about the cPC – yes, perhaps a bit too early, I would like to commend their innovation and talk about the possibilities until this device that I want sees the light of day.

I would like to think that a consumer cPC will become available sometime during the next year. I can wait, even if it is a bit impatiently.

Never received an answer. Their phones weren’t even working for a while (it was my question, regarding their status, to gottabemobile.com that got a a phone interview).

They seemed none too proud to show off their product almost a year ago, and then on the day they were to “release” the product, they instead “announced” that there was going to be a developer program.

I understand why you asked the questions you did- and i’m not suggesting (although my language may have shown otherwise) that the interview needs to turn into a name-calling match or a fist fight… it would just be nice to hear some real answers.

You got a prototype and a chance to get the interview that everyone would have liked to get-
it would have been nice to get some hard answers regarding what happened between CES 2006 and today, and what is the likelyhood that any of us non-industry types will ever get to purchase one.

There is always the possibility that if you post a respectfully worded question to Rob, he might answer. Antagonistic vitriol is not usually the way to get a polite response, though.

You posted the same comment both here and on Pocket PC Thoughts, so you evidently are worried that your voice won’t be “heard”. I hear you. I don’t particularly agree with you, but I hear you.

The ‘core proposition’ (creating a kind of ACPI, control and data bus between low and high power computers that share preipherals.) is quite a nice idea of course. I’d love to share a disk, screen, loudspeakers, network from my UMPC to my smartphone. I can use my smartphone as a control device and leave my UMPC in a bag. The problem with cPC is that you are forced to have a pocket PC (The DualCor doesn’t have cellular radio right?) locked into the same casing as a UMPC. That negates many of the reasons for sharing resources in the first place and doesn’t solve any of the problems of sharing resources onto a Smartphone. You end up with three devices to look after. Now if they had developed a wireless way of doing this, a kind of advanced UPnP or clustered parallel BIOS, then I could keep my smartphone in my pocket and my UMPC in my bag. That would make for a very valuable IP.

The other advantage of this core proposition is battery life but in 18months, this problem will be solved anyway. We already have 4 hour UMPCs (Samsung Q1b, Raon Digital Vega) so its been proved that you don’t really need to hard-control a UMPC to achieve useable battery life.

Their core proposition doesn’t have much of a useable life in my opinion. In fact, I think they’ve just wasted 30% of the value of it in their one-year delay.

Regards
Steve.

You know- we finally get a chance to put DualCor on the spot and all the interviewer does (yes, i know who she is and that all the tech blogs love her) is ask leading questions- and fluff ones at that.

What about bringing DualCor to task for missing the launch by a whole year? What about nailing them for their deceptive marketing on their website (Dualcor is better than a UMPC? UMPC’s have launched and can be bought, my friend).

Just makes me mad- they were ready to change the world, put OQO in it’s place, remap the mobile workforce. And then, nothing.

Here was the opportunity to ask the hard questions, not get them to read from their marketing and investment brochure.

Shame on you Judie.