Score one for Mike Cane, he visisted RCS and got to put his grubby mitts all over a sexy young XP version OQO Model 02. Surprisingly, the cops were not called.

He managed to fondle it long enough to slobber all over the thing, saying, “That keyboard! My God! It looks gorgeous to begin with. And the feel is just marvelous. OQO got the keyboard right. The keys have great feedback, the spacing is just right, and they feel like they’re made of metal. No cheap feel at all, no wobble of the keys in their sockets. The trackstick also has a great feel. It’s fast and responsive.”

Unfortunately, reality set in and Mike realized that it might not be the perfect UMPC. He goes on to say, “The unit has Windows XP on it. I open WordPad to test the keyboard. Thumb typing goes very well. But what I’m seeing on the screen troubles me. I think OQO messed with the fonts. I start out in Arial by default and Select-All then switch to Times Roman (New Times Roman? Whichever frikkin Times is there by default!). This confirms my suspicion: Plain text looks bold. And somewhat blurry. Bold text looks Extra Bold. And blurrier. What’s strange about this is that the text in the menus and dialog boxes isn’t that way at all.”

However, in the end he conceded, “If I was rich and wanted to guarantee I’d always have a PC with me, I’d get the Model 02 over the UX despite the lack of touchscreen; the keyboard and size outweigh the screen for me.”

I’m leaving aout all the good parts, so be sure to read all about Mike’s experience here.