Falling somewhere between a PDA and a Tablet PC, the OQO Model 01 is a handheld device that offers full Windows capability in a pint-sized form factor
Powered by a 1GHz Transmeta processor, you won’t find this the quickest unit of offer, but for corporate documents and word processing it’s more than capable. The built-in 5-inch transflective screen has an 800 x 480-pixel resolution and while our initial reservations were that it was a little too small for daily use, this proved unfounded, as we quickly grew accustomed to it. On the downside, with a slide out keyboard, which comes with a pointing-stick to navigate the cursor, the device is rather top heavy and awkward to hold and type with any speed. The best way of using the device with any accuracy is to rest it either on your laptop or on a table. In this way, we found it far more comfortable to use.
The OQO Model 01 weighs 397g, which is nearly twice the weight of the average PDA but you do get a fully functioning version of Windows XP Professional. Designed with the business users in mind, you’ll be able to hook it up to your server in exactly the same way you would you laptop. It may not be the fastest machine available but for a micro-portable it more than lives up to our initial testing. The OQO Model 01 costs £1570 (inc. VAT) and is available in this country from Expansys.
For a full review of the OQO Model 01, see the next issue of WL on sale 9th June.
