HP UMPC 2133! Meh
Engadget's got pictures and specs of the soon to be released Hewlett-Packard Ultra Mobile Personal Computer, the 2133. HP's offering in the UMPC sweepstakes will garner lots of attention, of course, but I can't help looking at it, and many other units like it -- including even the OLPC charity notebook -- and think that it costs too much to be considered cheap, it's too big to be considered small, and it's too heavy to be considered light. When you get right down to it, they're just cramped laptops at laptop prices. Can we get Palm to fix the Foleo and put it back on the market?
According to our source, these will hit on April 7th, and it looks like those pricing whispers were pretty accurate as well: $600 will buy you a 1.2GHz C7-M, a 120GB drive, 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Basic, while $749 bumps you up to 1.6GHz and Vista Business and adds Bluetooth, another gig of RAM, and a bigger battery. There's also a mysterious $849 Vista Basic model listed as having "regional" availability (the others are listed as "Smart Buy") with Bluetooth and bigger battery, but we don't see why it's more expensive than the Vista Business version.
It's spec'd to be a great laptop with an itty-bitty screen. But is that really a UMPC? What mobile device needs Vista? My desktop doesn't. It's just got to be cheap and sturdy enough so you don't care if you drop it or break it or lose it while you wander the world and do a few things with it. I don't know about you Rockefellers, but $600 matters to me. Somebody get Fisher-Price to make one.
According to our source, these will hit on April 7th, and it looks like those pricing whispers were pretty accurate as well: $600 will buy you a 1.2GHz C7-M, a 120GB drive, 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Basic, while $749 bumps you up to 1.6GHz and Vista Business and adds Bluetooth, another gig of RAM, and a bigger battery. There's also a mysterious $849 Vista Basic model listed as having "regional" availability (the others are listed as "Smart Buy") with Bluetooth and bigger battery, but we don't see why it's more expensive than the Vista Business version.
It's spec'd to be a great laptop with an itty-bitty screen. But is that really a UMPC? What mobile device needs Vista? My desktop doesn't. It's just got to be cheap and sturdy enough so you don't care if you drop it or break it or lose it while you wander the world and do a few things with it. I don't know about you Rockefellers, but $600 matters to me. Somebody get Fisher-Price to make one.
