Help MobilityGuru Redesign Psion's Iconic, Ultrasmall 5mx

[fluppeteer]

There does seem to be an interesting divide here between those that want a fully fledged PC in the shape of a 5mx and those that want something usable, affordable and reliable.

That put me in my place.

Basically it's a divide between those that want another Sony Vaio style PC (great from a gadget POV) that will be redundant in 3 months and those that actually used (and still use) a fantastic device that delivered what it promised and nothing more.

I think that's a little unfair. Which Vaio do you mean, because what we're discussing falls between the form factors?

The Vaio subnotebooks were great bits of kit, but they're enormous compared with even the latest Librettos - 3cm in each major dimension. The latest U105 is a full 5cm wider than my 70CT, which is in turn bigger than a Psion. Those subnotebooks were great for being a full PC that you can carry in a bag easily, and they have a far more "proper" keyboard than the 70CT (which is an acquired taste), but there's no way you could fit it in a pocket. The 70CT would almost fit in a pocket if it were thinner.

The Vaio VGN-UX180P on the other hand, like the oqo before it, isn't a "proper" laptop. It may be powerful enough, but it's got a thumb board, not a keyboard. Even on a table, it would be hard to touch type on properly (although I don't own one, and owners may disagree). The 5mx was much better (although the Revo possibly wasn't). People have complained about the VGN-UX180P update, but frankly I doubt it makes much difference to practical usability for a device this size. In my opinion it's too expensive, and possibly more full-featured than is useful, for something that's a PC masquerading as a PDA.

I think there's a market for something with a relatively decent keyboard (touch-type capable) that will fit in a pocket. I don't think such a device currently exists, unless you start adding folding bluetooth keyboards to the UX180P or oqo.

That's why I think a PC-style device in this form factor would be useful. It doesn't have to be blindingly fast by modern standards (so long as it keeps up with the XP desktop, and even at half the clock a Core Solo ULV would do that); even less so under Linux. Since we're already talking about underclocking it, I don't think we should talk about it being obsolete immediately. My Libretto was launched in 1997, and is still going strong (although it wouldn't run XP). Sure, what we're talking about would struggle with Aero Glass under Vista, but it'll be useful for a long time as an XP, Linux, or even Vista "classic" machine. We're a long way from a work horse in that form factor, but a cheap "carry anywhere" PC that you could actually use as a PC (again, keyboard-determined) is, I think, possible. Actually trying to use either the UX180P or oqo as a generic machine is tricky, at least for a lot of people. Many people don't come near to needing the performance of the machine they've got, and this will never be a gaming or photoshop box anyway.

I can defend the reason this would differentiate itself as a PC from the other devices on the market (a more portable "real" laptop) - and why the shortcomings (mostly performance) aren't such an issue, at least if it's cheap enough.

While I'm interested in the PDA idea, I have to say I struggle more to see where it comes in. The PDA market has gradually been eroded by the smart phone market (as someone who used to carry an 8850 and a Palm, and now carries a P910i, I can see why); the NetBook is interesting but too big and expensive for most and never sold well (with either WinCE or EPOC32), which suggests that the "PDA with a decent keyboard" market is limited - and I speak as a Z88 owner. Is the keyboard on the most direct successor to the 5mx, the Nokia 9500, really bad enough to make it unusable?

There's a question of OS, too. I'm not sure that the keyboard-friendly version of Windows Mobile has ever really caught on. I'm not totally sure I trust Nokia's idea of a GUI, but UIQ3 is, by all accounts, worse (and doesn't support high resolutions). You can run Linux on it (I have a Zaurus, and if it had a reliable battery indicator I'd probably use it), but a proper PDA GUI might need development from scratch. UIQ won't help and Nokia's interfaces are proprietary; even starting with Symbian there's a lot of work to do - especially compared with trying to build something out of standard PC components.

I have used many mobile phone and organisers. I am a gadget addict but none have ever lasted as long or have delivered anywhere near to their promises as much as the 5mx (and the 3 and 3c before it) did.

Personally I would happily settle for a modernised version of the 5mx. Colour screen, modern processor, decent connectivity etc... as long as the software is as good as the EPOC OS and it lasted more that 8 hours on a charge. (Maybe the ability to take AA's when you couldn't charge the Li-ion?)

I guess the question is: what do you want to do on it that you can't do on an original 5mx?

Having a colour screen just to make it pretty (and kill the batteries) doesn't help much - although better contrast than the 5mx (eInk?) might be nice. The biggest benefit I can see to upgrading the 5mx is for web surfing, but a keyboard is actually not vital for that (other than forums like this), and no embedded OS has a browser quite as flexible as the desktop OS versions. The Nokia 770 does portable non-phone web browsing pretty well (as did the netbook), and I'm not sure something 5mx-shaped does better. Most PDA uses that could benefit from a "real" keyboard (most notably email) don't benefit all that much from a colour screen, or even a fast processor. I'm not sure the experience on a 9500 is much different from that on a 5mx - in which case, why not just pick up a 5mx from eBay?

Any OS development is either going to have to pick up one of the current ones (for better or for worse) with their GUI and reliability limitations, or start completely from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I'd find this a fascinating project, but it's not a short one. And then you've got no apps. I doubt EPOC32 has been open-sourced while I wasn't looking, although I'm prepared to eat my hat about that one.

Basically: I can see that, with both the Windows version and a PDA version, you can point at other devices and say "why not just use that". I can defend the position of what a Windows (well, x86 with the option of Windows, Linux and maybe OS X) product would provide that's not already on the market. I have a harder time with the PDA idea. However, since I've never tried to use a 9500, and I've already said I can't quite get along with the 5mx keyboard without it gaining a couple of mm, I'm probably in a bad position to judge what would make a PDA with a keyboard usable.

I'm genuinely curious, though - please don't take the fact that I can't see it as an attack on those that can.

 

[Baloo]

Basically it's a divide between those that want another Sony Vaio style PC (great from a gadget POV) that will be redundant in 3 months and those that actually used (and still use) a fantastic device that delivered what it promised and nothing more.

I think that's a little unfair. Which Vaio do you mean, because what we're discussing falls between the form factors?

This is true. The problem is trying to decide what market we are trying to satisfy with this new device?

I think there's a market for something with a relatively decent keyboard (touch-type capable) that will fit in a pocket. I don't think such a device currently exists, unless you start adding folding bluetooth keyboards to the UX180P or oqo.

I couldn't agree more here.

That's why I think a PC-style device in this form factor would be useful. It doesn't have to be blindingly fast by modern standards (so long as it keeps up with the XP desktop, and even at half the clock a Core Solo ULV would do that);

Again I agree. XP has been around for a while and is well established. I do have concerns to how well it would work with something like the Psion. The 5 worked well because the device and the OS were designed to work together. Maybe what we need here is a slightly reduced/tweaked version of XP especially designed for smaller devices. More than WM5 but less than XP. Possibly with a new interface that works better with the reduced key count and touch screen interface? Is the Tablet edition of XP any good?

While I'm interested in the PDA idea, I have to say I struggle more to see where it comes in.

I think I would be happy with using this device as a PDA if it works well enough. Going along with the idea of perhaps a flavour of XP being used as the OS then there is no reason that it couldn't run Outlook.

I have used many mobile phone and organisers. I am a gadget addict but none have ever lasted as long or have delivered anywhere near to their promises as much as the 5mx (and the 3 and 3c before it) did.

Personally I would happily settle for a modernised version of the 5mx. Colour screen, modern processor, decent connectivity etc... as long as the software is as good as the EPOC OS and it lasted more that 8 hours on a charge. (Maybe the ability to take AA's when you couldn't charge the Li-ion?)

I guess the question is: what do you want to do on it that you can't do on an original 5mx?

Having a colour screen just to make it pretty (and kill the batteries) doesn't help much - although better contrast than the 5mx (eInk?) might be nice. The biggest benefit I can see to upgrading the 5mx is for web surfing, but a keyboard is actually not vital for that (other than forums like this), and no embedded OS has a browser quite as flexible as the desktop OS versions.

The main reason for having a colour screen would be for web browsing and the occasional viewing of pictures. I also think that it would be hard to find a decent supply of anything less these days. I don't supposed the demand for decent resolution, greyscale LCD screens is that high. I could be wrong of course.

I have a QTEK 9000 at the moment and I really like the ability to browse from almost anywhere but the WM5 browser really doesn't cut it for me. A proper browser would be a real plus for me although this also means that I like the idea of the device being GSM/GPRS/UTMS connected. I'm not so worried about using it as a phone though.

Any OS development is either going to have to pick up one of the current ones (for better or for worse) with their GUI and reliability limitations, or start completely from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I'd find this a fascinating project, but it's not a short one. And then you've got no apps. I doubt EPOC32 has been open-sourced while I wasn't looking, although I'm prepared to eat my hat about that one.

My main point about EPOC is that it did what it did and did it well. I think that to start again with a new OS would be a (nearly) impossible task now so I concede that the choice would have to be from those that already exist. I have nothing against Linux either and use/develop on it every day but I just feel that XP, although far from perfect, is nicely matured now with plenty of decent apps.

For me it all comes back to my desire to have an updated 5mx. I like the idea of something that looks almost identical to the mx but with a newer OS and the ability to run any number of good applications. I used to actually enjoy writing on my 5. It could be used either with the thumbs (if you didn't have a desk to put it on) or (just about) in a touch-type fashion.

The important thing here is to not get carried away. Some of the ideas coming up in these suggestions are great but would only serve to increase the cost, size, weight and heat of this device.

I guess that designing something that everyone here would like might be impossible but maybe we're missing the point slightly. Shouldn't a decision be made as to the intended market for a Psion 5mx replacement before deciding about the hardware/software?

 

[benjamin]

Have either of you actually ever used a 200+dpi screen?

Sure. The screen wasn't actually my point, I'm all for smooth fonts thru high-dpi settings.

The point is: the 5mx is, was and always will be for a demographic who won't be reading Tom's Hardware.

Speaking for the number of my friends who own(ed) 5mxs and read this site, I'm not sure where that idea came from. The only reason I don't count is that my fingers are slightly too chubby.
Again, I'm being slightly cryptic, but Baloo touched on it below. Your Tom's forum reader is going to have pie-in-sky thoughts of making a tiny "Pee-cee" in such a form factor - such a thing is both unattainable, and utterly pointless. That would be a novelty. The 5mx was a productivity tool.

 

[fluppeteer]

(Device falling between the form factors of existing subnotebooks and pseudo-UMPCs.)

This is true. The problem is trying to decide what market we are trying to satisfy with this new device?

Above all else, I feel that a Psion-sized PC and a Psion-shaped PDA are two entirely different things. A Windows box won't make a good PDA (battery life too short, too warm, not instant-on-enough), even if shipped with some decent PIM software - although if we *are* talking about an x86 box, I definitely think some PIM software should be shipped with it; just because it's not as good as a PDA at being a PDA doesn't mean it's not better than having nothing at all. You can, after all, always run a 5mx emulator on it.

Equally, a decent PDA isn't a PC (even if you run an x86 emulator on it).

That's why I think a PC-style device in this form factor would be useful. It doesn't have to be blindingly fast by modern standards (so long as it keeps up with the XP desktop, and even at half the clock a Core Solo ULV would do that);

Again I agree. XP has been around for a while and is well established.

Equally, with an x86, it's relatively easy to run a lightweight Linux (or BSD, or OS X, or BeOS, OpenStep, or...) OS, some of which might be better than XP to use. I'd certainly want to put Linux on it - preferably as easily as I would on a "normal" laptop. XP is a useful fall-back to have occasionally, though, even if it's not the best OS for the system. It's also what people are used to; any minority system is a risk.

I do have concerns to how well it would work with something like the Psion. The 5 worked well because the device and the OS were designed to work together. Maybe what we need here is a slightly reduced/tweaked version of XP especially designed for smaller devices. More than WM5 but less than XP. Possibly with a new interface that works better with the reduced key count and touch screen interface? Is the Tablet edition of XP any good?

Going off the sales, I'm not sure about the tablet edition. The thing that would make this device more useful than a tablet (or at least, than a UMPC) is precisely that it has a keyboard and works like a normal laptop. EPOC32 is a very nice system (technically and to use), but any PDA OS needs to be both a custom port, and to justify itself compared with the Nokia N9500s of this world (and even those don't sell well). Standalone PDAs are a shrinking market, more so outside the US.

The killer for me is that this device (in x86 form) could run normal Windows apps, not special versions. It would be a "real" PC, albeit not a very powerful one. I can use my smartphone to manage contacts or make notes, or even web browse(ish), but if I want to fire up Photoshop or Word (for something small, obviously) there's nothing like the real thing. Likewise XEmacs and gcc, for a system I'm more likely to use (and not need to cross-compile, in the case of ARM Linux).

I'm wary of trying to make a small Windows machine act like a Psion. I'd rather take a UMPC and, by putting it into a Psion form factor, make it act like a PC. The (relatively) decent keyboard makes the difference.

While I'm interested in the PDA idea, I have to say I struggle more to see where it comes in.

I think I would be happy with using this device as a PDA if it works well enough. Going along with the idea of perhaps a flavour of XP being used as the OS then there is no reason that it couldn't run Outlook.

It should certainly come with something like that bundled (ideally something customized so that it can be run easily with fingers poking the touch screen, and without small text that can't be seen when it's hand-held in direct sunlight). I don't think XP is lightweight enough either in software or hardware overheads to make it viable for a device primarily used as a PDA. YMMV. :?

The main reason for having a colour screen would be for web browsing and the occasional viewing of pictures. I also think that it would be hard to find a decent supply of anything less these days. I don't supposed the demand for decent resolution, greyscale LCD screens is that high. I could be wrong of course.

That may be true, although there's a difference between the quality of the transflective screens on something like a P800 and the fully backlit devices of a laptop. Web browsing may not benefit enough from a keyboard to be worth the size overhead, IMHO. A 5mx with an eInk screen and several months of battery life would be intriguing. I'll be interested to know how well things like Epson's picture viewer sell.

I have a QTEK 9000 at the moment and I really like the ability to browse from almost anywhere but the WM5 browser really doesn't cut it for me. A proper browser would be a real plus for me although this also means that I like the idea of the device being GSM/GPRS/UTMS connected. I'm not so worried about using it as a phone though.

If it's really a PDA, I think it's got to have an integrated phone, because that's where the market is going. For a Windows box, I'd advocate simplicity (and a bluetooth link to a phone). It comes down to whether this is a replacement for a smartphone or not. A Windows box is likely to have the best browsing experience, by dint of being the most popular target platform, but if that's all it's being used for then the form factor might not be making the best use of the space. Of course, make the keyboard a soft keyboard and go with a Nintendo DS-style touch screen, and there's much more area for browsing! (Not a practical suggestion in case anyone mistakes me - too expensive, typing experience too horrible.)

My main point about EPOC is that it did what it did and did it well. I think that to start again with a new OS would be a (nearly) impossible task now so I concede that the choice would have to be from those that already exist. I have nothing against Linux either and use/develop on it every day but I just feel that XP, although far from perfect, is nicely matured now with plenty of decent apps.

Agreed. XP is what people expect, and if it's an x86 box Linux users are used to installing over another OS. It should be painless. Give me an x86 Windows box and I can install other stuff as I wish; give me an EPOC system and I'll struggle (or at least, faff, even if there are HOWTOs on-line). Not that I'd mind a cell phone whose GUI I could fix to be sensible (who's responsible for letting product branding get in the way of *every* phone UI out there?)

For me it all comes back to my desire to have an updated 5mx. I like the idea of something that looks almost identical to the mx but with a newer OS and the ability to run any number of good applications. I used to actually enjoy writing on my 5. It could be used either with the thumbs (if you didn't have a desk to put it on) or (just about) in a touch-type fashion.

Sounds like you're agreeable to the x86 box suggestion, but want it more as a PDA, whereas I want a go-anywhere laptop! I know the limitations I'm going to have, but I'm a bit wary of how well this will be a PDA... but maybe I'm overstating it.

The important thing here is to not get carried away. Some of the ideas coming up in these suggestions are great but would only serve to increase the cost, size, weight and heat of this device.

Absolutely. I'm beginning to rethink my position on the CF card. I don't think this device will appeal if it's any more expensive than the $1000 suggestion, and even that's pushing it. Would it be better to forgo the CF slot entirely and live with USB, for more space/battery? How about a battery that fits in the CF slot (like a drive bay second battery on a laptop)? Do we want an internal disk, or can everything be left to a CF card? (Which would make syncing up easier.) Get a deal on 8GB CF cards/microdrives and the innards start to look very spacious. Get USB working and everyone else has done the hard work when it comes to drivers!

I guess that designing something that everyone here would like might be impossible but maybe we're missing the point slightly. Shouldn't a decision be made as to the intended market for a Psion 5mx replacement before deciding about the hardware/software?

Agreed - I think it's got to be one thing or the other.

I'm still curious as to how serious this proposal is. I'm into OS development, and if this was made as an absolutely bare-bones x86 box, I'd get one just to develop on, as a standardized platform.

I must find time to do some drawing...

 

[fluppeteer]

Have either of you actually ever used a 200+dpi screen?

Sure. The screen wasn't actually my point, I'm all for smooth fonts thru high-dpi settings.

Sorry, hadn't meant to take you out of context (or be quite so caustic). I'm only advocating such a screen because something of similar dpi is necessary if the use as a PC is going to be viable, and because such screens are already in products; likewise the other component suggestions.

The point is: the 5mx is, was and always will be for a demographic who won't be reading Tom's Hardware.

Speaking for the number of my friends who own(ed) 5mxs and read this site, I'm not sure where that idea came from. The only reason I don't count is that my fingers are slightly too chubby.
Again, I'm being slightly cryptic, but Baloo touched on it below. Your Tom's forum reader is going to have pie-in-sky thoughts of making a tiny "Pee-cee" in such a form factor - such a thing is both unattainable, and utterly pointless. That would be a novelty. The 5mx was a productivity tool.

Okay, with you. I think we may have got to the stage where contributors are aware of what's going to be feasible - this isn't going to be a fast machine, no matter what we do. I do think it's possible to make a usable PC in this form factor with modern technology. I'd also argue that, novelty or no, it would be useful - probably more so than a UMPC or Sony/oqo's miniature devices. Especially if simplified and priced as low as possible.

A 5mx PDA was, without doubt, very good at its job. The reason I'm advocating a (slow) x86 machine is that it's very flexible, I can see uses for it, and what I want doesn't currently exist. My concerns with trying to produce a direct descendent of the 5mx are:

1) It would require OS development.
2) I'm not sure how much better than the original 5mx it would really be.
3) I'm not sure how it's differentiated from the N9500 class of devices.

If an x86 machine is a pipe dream, a direct descendent of the 5mx would be interesting, but I think it's a bigger overall project and possibly has a smaller target market. I don't believe an x86 is impossible - and I do believe that a slow PC can still be a useful PC, especially in this form factor.

YMMV.

 

[royal744]

I'm a little puzzled. Folks here talk as if the Psion 5mx was dead. I'm not sure how many people still use them, but I certainly do, and have been for six or 7 years. I have no plans to stop using my 5mx for the simple reason that I have found NOTHING out there that is better than this.

I have read many of the proposed changes and the authors make many good points and suggestions, but here's my bottom line -

1 Battery life is super important - 3 to 4 hours is a joke, Don't do it. I do sometimes use an exterior battery which I plug into the charger slot and get very long life indeed.
2 I don't care about color, especially if it wastes battery life. Higher B&W resolution is desirable, however.
3 The software in the machine is great and the many poublic domain and shareware software is nearly all I will ever need.
4 I agree that USB port(s) are desirable
5 Extra memory capacity is fine
6 I don't care about wireless particularly but if you want, OK by me
7 Don't change the keyboard unless it's actually better and more functional; otherwise the keyboard is fine
8 Don't change the form factor unless it is slightly smaller
9 Eliminate the screen cable problem
10 Don't mess with battery life unless you make it last longer
11 Color is for dopey folks who want to impress their friends. I want to impress me and I don't need color.

 

[Crashman]

There does seem to be an interesting divide here between those that want a fully fledged PC in the shape of a 5mx and those that want something usable, affordable and reliable.

Look, I just want a portable WYSIWYG word processor with internet capability and an easy/useable email program. Looking back at how FAST old laptops used to be, a K6-2 450 with 128MB RAM, Windows 98SE, and Office 97 would do the job, but those were full sized units!

Compare that rig with current electronics, and you'd easily get all that power in the palm of your hand. Heck, you could probably fit that whole 1998 laptop into three modern chips on a PCB the size of a credit card. That just leaves the data drive and display.

The problem isn't hardware, it's software. It takes twice the hardware performance and 4x the RAM to make an XP/XP system run as fast as a 98SE/97 system did.

So we don't need a lot of hardware, just more efficient software. That, from my knowledge, it what the original was all about. Just take a good "smart phone" design, tripple the display size, tripple the battery size, add a little more storage (maybe 32GB of flash media) and a few small applications, and it should fit into a package the size of a 5MX.

 

[kboykool]

The point is: the 5mx is, was and always will be for a demographic who won't be reading Tom's Hardware.

Oh really? I own a clamshell device and wouldn't think of parting with it unless something on the same platform with more power/capability came along. I bought an HP 660LX a few years ago and when it died, I upgraded to the HP Jornada 720. That was in late 2004. The J72x is fantastic. I added SoftMaker applications and have a portable productivity device. I can read PDFs and even view JPGs in 256 colors. Sometimes I take it to Panera and surf via WiFi. There is a community of owners of these devices at http/www.hpcfactor.com and many of them are faithful readers of Tom's.

 

[tygrus]

The high res screen gets to a point that the text/icons/objects have to be scaled up and is wasted.

5W CPU would give <1hr use.

1.5W max, <.5W typical would be the aim.

1.0W for screen
0.5w wireless
0.2w for rest of system (eg. memory)

 

[fluppeteer]

I'm a little puzzled. Folks here talk as if the Psion 5mx was dead. I'm not sure how many people still use them, but I certainly do, and have been for six or 7 years. I have no plans to stop using my 5mx for the simple reason that I have found NOTHING out there that is better than this.

Well, I did try to suggest that the people who really want a "current" 5mx should use a 5mx. I'm not sure how much would be gained by upgrades, compared with what would be lost. Good to hear from a definitive current user, rather than a past user. (Sorry if others are too and I've missed it.)

1 Battery life is super important - 3 to 4 hours is a joke, Don't do it. I do sometimes use an exterior battery which I plug into the charger slot and get very long life indeed.

3-4 hours (switched on) is pretty good for a laptop that you can fit in a pocket. I see it as a device to be used when you don't know you should have brought a computer with you. I'm not suggesting more wouldn't be nice, but I don't see it happening in that form factor (maybe I'm pessimistic). On the other hand, replacement battery packs, or something external that can be plugged into the charger socket, for when you do know in advance that you're going to be using it, would seem like a good option.

A PDA using modern technology should easily get this much life (cell phones do - the screen backlight is the killer).

2 I don't care about color, especially if it wastes battery life. Higher B&W resolution is desirable, however.

I'd be interested to see a device with an eInk (very low power, decent resolution) display. Only for a PDA, obviously. Short of some kind of scaling layer, you'd be looking at building up the user base from scratch, though - change the resolution and it'll be hard to get any existing PDA apps to run (if that was a concern).

3 The software in the machine is great and the many poublic domain and shareware software is nearly all I will ever need.

Funny I mentioned that. If you could run native apps at 1280x400 and EPOC32 emulated apps at 640x200, you might be okay (Palm did similar with the first 320x320 devices). I understand the 5 has a Linux port, but the 5mx doesn't.

The problem is, any substantial change (short of running EPOC32 in an emulator) will need an OS re-write, compared with the 5mx. Without the source, this isn't easy. Paying a Symbian licensee for a port wouldn't be cheap, and all the ports are resolution-dependent.

My feeling is that if all you need are EPOC32 apps, I'm not sure what would be gained from a new device. If you want more, an x86 platform gives you the largest installed base.

4 I agree that USB port(s) are desirable

This is only really going to help (short of for synchronization) if drivers can be made to work. That brings us back to either a large development effort, or an x86 box (or ARM Linux).

6 I don't care about wireless particularly but if you want, OK by me

It would make a huge difference to an x86 box - just as being able to carry a full computer anywhere is a big win (even if it's not very powerful), being able to connect it to anyone's network is another big win. Less so for a PIM - if you're in range of an 802.11 network, chances are you have better options for a web browser (that may be a bold statement), and most other uses of network connectivity are limited. That said, the Nokia 9500 and Sony Ericsson P990 both have 802.11 support. Bluetooth, on the other hand, would be vital - being able to use a phone as a modem is a big win for a device that's practical to be used in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, that might be the big difference I see in usage patterns. A 5mx-style PDA is for use on the go, in the middle of nowhere, on a second's notice and for weeks between charges. An x86 box in the same form factor is for use when you're waiting for a late train, in transit, and when you want to use your computer at someone else's place. One assumes you want a PDA with you; the other assumes you want a computer with you, and the two aren't the same thing. If you knew you wanted a computer, you'd take a full-sized laptop - this is a "carry anywhere" device. If you wanted a PDA, most people seem happy to use a smartphone, but that's just my impression as a mostly-ex PDA user.

7 Don't change the keyboard unless it's actually better and more functional; otherwise the keyboard is fine

Many people love the keyboard. I'm biased - it was just small enough to put me off getting a 5mx. If it can be grown slightly whilst keeping the feel, I'd be happier; existing 5mx owners, by definition, will disagree. I certainly don't want to lose what made it a good device.

8 Don't change the form factor unless it is slightly smaller

I'd settle for a slight growth to accommodate the keyboard, but I'd like to see it slimmer.

9 Eliminate the screen cable problem

Is that the "stripes from broken wires" syndrome? I'd hope manufacturing technology has caught up.

10 Don't mess with battery life unless you make it last longer

For a PDA, I agree. For a PC, I'm not sure it's practical. There are going to be trade-offs, or we'll just end up with an original 5mx.

11 Color is for dopey folks who want to impress their friends. I want to impress me and I don't need color.

For a PDA that's not intended for web browsing, I agree (along with the option of passive lighting). If it's for web browsing, I'm not sure a 5mx is the place to start. For a PC, you need colour. Again, it depends what we're building.

 

[fluppeteer]

Look, I just want a portable WYSIWYG word processor with internet capability and an easy/useable email program.

That depends. Do you really just want a portable WYSIWYG word processor, or do you want a decent approximation to Word? Do you want basic web browsing, or something that can do Flash, Java and Quicktime? Do you really want an easy/usable email program, or do you want attachments, encryption, folder and address book handling? (Rhetorical questions - these apply to people other than you, Crashman.)

The problem is, give someone the former, and they'll complain it's not the latter. If you really want basic functionality (in the interests of maximizing battery life, reliability, responsiveness, etc.) then I thought the 5mx was pretty capable on its own; a Nokia 9500 is certainly designed to do this (although feature creep may have reduced the responsiveness a bit; I've not tried one to know).

A full PC will do the whole lot, but give someone a PC and they'll immediately put Office and Outlook/Notes on it, run IE, and then complain it's not fast enough. I don't think you can sell a Windows 2000 PC these days, even though it would suit the hardware better.

Looking back at how FAST old laptops used to be, a K6-2 450 with 128MB RAM, Windows 98SE, and Office 97 would do the job, but those were full sized units!

Heh. My Libretto is a P120MMX, which will run Win98 okay (and has a "designed for NT" sticker on it). I run an oldish Linux distribution, and it's very snappy (as would be a modern one with an old GUI). I wouldn't dream of letting XP near it, not least because it's only got 32MB of RAM (after being upgraded!)

Compare that rig with current electronics, and you'd easily get all that power in the palm of your hand. Heck, you could probably fit that whole 1998 laptop into three modern chips on a PCB the size of a credit card. That just leaves the data drive and display.

That's pretty much what we're talking about, except that we might be able to make that 1GHz and 512MB of RAM. With enough power management, it might last well (until some idiot installs some bloatware). The only reason I, at least, am shooting for an XP box (given that I'd put Linux on it anyway) is that I don't think something incapable of running XP at a minimal level will sell. An underclocked Core Solo is about as low as the power gets (although I'm not sure about chipset), but even the VIA chips, if they're lower consumption, will run XP easily (and all being equal - and ONLY all being equal - I'll take the processor that's twice as fast). There are lower-power embedded x86 processors (like the Psion 3's!) but once you lose XP there's a real issue with marketting the thing - it becomes an embedded system, and at that point you may as well use an ARM.

The problem isn't hardware, it's software. It takes twice the hardware performance and 4x the RAM to make an XP/XP system run as fast as a 98SE/97 system did.

Well, you can always put Win98 or Win2K on it and save some power...

So we don't need a lot of hardware, just more efficient software. That, from my knowledge, it what the original was all about. Just take a good "smart phone" design, tripple the display size, tripple the battery size, add a little more storage (maybe 32GB of flash media) and a few small applications, and it should fit into a package the size of a 5MX.

I feel your pain. I just think this is more work than cobbling a Core Solo ULV box together and letting the existing OS do the work. You can certainly write such a thing (it's been done again and again), but without an installed base of applications it'd be an uphill struggle. Existing platforms have history on their side.

The N9500 (I don't have shares in Nokia, and I've never used one, I just keep mentioning it because it's the obvious 5mx successor) has the same size screen as the 5mx (640x200), it's colour, it has (AFAIK) okay battery life, and you can add CF card storage to it; it's already smaller than a 5mx, although I'm sure the keyboard isn't as nice. Increase the resolution and all the apps will break. You could redesign the 9500 with a better keyboard, slightly bigger, and maybe even cut the phone off - Nokia might even license the OS to you. I'm not sure it'll sell over the existing one, which itself isn't a big seller.

What we're talking about has to differentiate itself from products that are already available (successful or not). We need something that's definitively better FOR SOMEONE than what's already there.

For the pc-in-a-5mx, let's look at the market position:

+More useful (because of the keyboard) as a PC than a UMPC/oqo/Vaio.
+Better "sitting in front of it" experience.
-Less touch-screen friendly than these.
-Possibly a worse web browser (less device real estate devoted to the screen).
-Worse "take it out and poke it" ("standing up") experience.

+Hopefully cheaper than an oqo/Vaio.
-More expensive than the cheaper PDAs and laptops.

+More pocketable than a laptop.
-Less powerful than a bigger laptop.
-Fewer connectors built in.
-Smaller screen.

+More compatible than a PDA or phone.
-Less pocketable than a touch-screen PDA.
-Less battery life.
-Longer start-up.

+More compatible than a custom browsing device (N770, Netbook).
-Smaller screen area.
-Worse battery life.

It won't be for everyone, but I think there are people it'll be for. Make it cheap enough, and me, for a start.

For the upgraded-5mx-pda:

+Better text input than a touch-screen PDA.
-Less pocketable.
-Harder to use standing up (stylus vs thumb typing).
-Standalone PDAs are being replaced by smart phones anyway.

+More pocketable than a full keyboard PDAs (Netbook, Z88).
-Smaller screen, reduced browsing experience.

+Better keyboard than N770 internet tablet.
-Worse (certainly smaller) screen.

+Better keyboard than a smart phone.
-Possibly bigger, possibly not a phone.

+Potentially, a new, fast, streamlined platform.
-With no installed base or third party applications.

+A better PDA than a laptop (smaller, more responsive, longer battery life).
-Nothing like the flexibility of a full PC.

People wanting a PC that they can type on normally (like a laptop) that can always be carried around in a pocket currently don't have a product; we're talking about an incremental but significant improvement in the keyboard over a Vaio and in size over a Libretto (and hopefully cost over both). There's a gap.

People wanting a better 5mx have, in my opinion, a smaller gap where such a device would be useful between the existing 5mx (monochrome, low storage, but established), the N9500 (slightly worse keyboard, but a phone, smaller, and established), the Netbook (much bigger and possibly more expensive, but a better text entry and browsing platofrm) and the N770 (no keyboard, but probably a better web browser).

Also, subnotebooks are at least a limited commercial success (I'm less sure about UMPCs, but they have the same problem as tablet PCs; the oqo and Vaio are probably too expensive to be representative). The Netbook wasn't, the N770 has bad reviews, I don't believe the N9000 series are big sellers (certainly not as much as the P800/P900 series), keyboardless PDAs are losing out to smart phones, and no other recent keyboard PDA has been viable.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like the PDA idea too. I just think it's much more work for a much smaller potential market than the laptop idea; the risks are higher, and I'm not sure the rewards are. A small PC is a small PC; an upgraded PDA is a major platform re-write.

(Sorry to rant so much - take it as a sign of enthusiasm about the idea.)

 

[fluppeteer]

The high res screen gets to a point that the text/icons/objects have to be scaled up and is wasted.

Just because things need to be resized doesn't mean you have to scale pixel-by-pixel. Large but very smooth icons and text are better than blocky ones. Honestly, it doesn't matter too much for a PDA - above a certain point, the pixels in a custom GUI aren't so useful, although fitting more of a scaled web page on the screen is always good (and you would want all the apps to have dynamic scaling, as the UIQ apps on the P800/P900/P910 phones do).

For a Windows PC, you really can't use a 640x200 desktop, and 800x600 will be a nightmare in many applications. 1280x768, as used very successfully on the Libretto Windows XP laptop, fits normal apps properly, and a device small enough to hold on your palm or sit on your chest is easy to move close to the eyes. The high resolution suggestion is a constraint of current applications (unless you want everything sub-sampled, which would be horrible), but it's not a constraint in use. Note that the Tom's Hardware review of the UX180P reports that the 1024x600 screen is too small for some apps; I'm advocating 1280x768 for a reason. There are enough "normal" 1280x768 laptops that it shouldn't ever cause an issue.

Of course, whatever pseudo-PDA software is shipped with it (the Windows version) should have large (smooth) icons that are easy to pick out with a thumb at arm's length when there's sun shining on the screen. Software designed to be run on the thing is a separate issue from running general-purpose software on it. But don't assume that small pixels equate to small feature size.

5W CPU would give <1hr use.

1.5W max, <.5W typical would be the aim.

Don't tell me, tell Intel! 5W is their figure for the ULV Core Solo.
The UX180P gets about 2.5 hours of battery from what I believe is the processor we're considering (other than that we might like to underclock it). The oqo is similar, but slower.

If we're talking about a PDA, <0.5W should be easy to achieve, especially on average. ARMs are very low power, and I don't believe we're talking about taxing one. x86 processors capable of running XP are another matter.

1.0W for screen
0.5w wireless
0.2w for rest of system (eg. memory)

I'm curious as to where those figures come from, although if you're knowledgeable and they're representative then that's useful to know. That sounds lower than I'd expect, though, especially if a 1.8" hard drive is factored in.

Solely from the x86 point of view, what I'd like to see is basically the contents of a UX180P (which is less long than we're considering, although wider and higher - 6"x4.88"x1.5") rearranged. I'd like to see the 7.2" screen from the U105 (that's 6.17"x3.7" visible, so very slightly larger than the quoted figures, but with an unknown amount of connection space required) and a touch screen. From the UX180P, lose the WAN, wired LAN, MS reader and (unless it's cheap) fingerprint reader. Stick with 512MB of RAM. Keep bluetooth and 802.11 of your preferred variant.

My Libretto is 210x115mm in footprint (8.26"x4.53"); the keyboard is only part of the depth. That's 15mm key spacing (14.5 on the Japanese version). I can touch type on it pretty fast (as fast as a normal qwerty keyboard, although possibly not as fast as my Kinesis dvorak); I'd never get close on a 5mx keyboard. 7.5" is the absolute lower limit for me, with 8" preferable. A rummage on-line suggests the original was about 17cm x 9cm x 2.3 (6.7x3.5x0.9"). To me, a bit of extra length to make the keyboard usable is worthwhile - it can always stick out of a pocket in one direction - and I'd rather make it "butterfly" out to be wider if it has to be smaller than that. The other two dimensions (especially thickness) matter more. People with 5mxs already in their pockets may disagree.

I think 30GB is very generous for storage (the going rate of a replacement 40GB 1.8" drive seems to be >80ukp, which is a substantial chunk of the price). I'd go with 8GB in either 1.8" or solid state if this saved a reasonable chunk of the cost, although it looks like 40GB in 1.8" might be the cheapest thing that's practical. This isn't a main PC, and 8GB is plenty for an XP/Linux dual boot so long as a whole family photograph collection isn't being stored on it. If a (type II) CF slot can be added, that gives an easy way to add storage, along with various low power peripherals that don't stick out of the case. Could a CF slot be subverted to hold a 1.8" drive as an alternative? Certainly using it as an extra (sold separately) battery pack might work.

Add as many USB sockets as you can fit along the side. Probably in preference to video out (although if it's easy to build it into a docking port...) - video performance may be low enough that there's not much gain over a CF or USB VGA adaptor anyway. Make sure they're covered when not in use.

I'm keen to keep the price low - this is for carrying in my pocket, and if it costs anything like the going rate for an oqo or UX180P, I'm not going to want to risk it, which removes the point. The easiest route to that is to make everything optional. Docking station? Pay extra. Arguably, don't have one, and rely on something like the Kensington USB dock (with VGA, ethernet, etc.) Card reader (if there isn't an integrated CF socket)? Pay extra (either let people buy a CF adaptor, or get a USB adaptor). Spare/larger/external bettery for people who do want to use it for 8 hours? Sell it separately. Ship a mains adaptor, but make the car adaptor optional.

I consider 802.11 to be vital enough that it's worth integrating rather than making people waste the CF slot on it, or have a USB dongle in their pockets. Likewise Bluetooth. Everything else I can live without, or buy myself and plug in to USB when and if I need it. If I want to read a card, I've usually got the camera, and the card reader with it (or a SanDisk card that IS a USB device). If I'm going somewhere where I need ethernet and I can't use 802.11, I can bring a USB/ether dongle. What do other people find vital?

The question is, how much will this reduce the price compared with the (expensive) Sony? If not significantly, leave everything in, obviously.

Actually, humble pie time - I have to say, having just looked, the UX180P/UX280 and (especially) UX50 are cheaper than I'd thought, but are still a bit steeper than I'd like for something sitting in my pocket where it can be sat/rained on. I still think it might be possible to shave a little by dropping the dock, but the Tosh screen (or equivalent) might make that up.

Since it's not far off a UX180P in a different case, I'd expect similar performance and battery life (if the battery were a similar size and the Tosh screen doesn't chew it up too fast).

All things are different for a PDA, obviously.

I'll go home and make some technical drawings over the weekend.

 

[mobilesalesman]

The Psion's hardware design was and is the perfect form factor! The only thing it needed is to run a standard operating system, ideally it would be great to use the Dualcor concept of windows mobile and xp. That way when using windows mobile the unit uses little power yet has the ability to run xp applications when needed. Other than that it just needs to be color with nice tft display, multiple usb ports, built in wireless, removable battery and that would be great. I would like to see two types of input cards such as cf and maybe a pcmia if it would fit? otherswise two cf or sd slots.

I think this is a fantastic article and exactly what the market needs. I would pay $1000 to up to $2000 us for such a device right now! Computer hardware people completely lost touch with functionality and this article hits the issue right on!

 

[vff11212]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what's the purpose of this discussion? Are there people who are seriously considering to make a successor of Psion 5mx? Or are we just enjoying fantasizing imaginary successors of it (which I don't mind and I enjoy! )?

 

[cmonex]

fluppeteer you have very good and valid points but you seem to be missing some important things.

first, why do you assume every current pda user who used to love the 5mx is happy with a smartphone or a nokia 9500? awwww web browsing on 200x300 pixels, you *must* be kidding! i get a headache even with qvga after 5 mins of browsing or using other apps that need more res. awwww the nokia 9500's typical nokiaish stupidity and sluggishness and closed OS!
what does that leave for a current clamshell pda? qtek 9000 (same as imate jasjar etc)? yeah, except that it is too small then, wm5 is still slightly annoying. same applies to zaurus, too small, linux is for geeks, i still feel lost with it even though i love my c760.
the 5mx and the jornada 720 had it just right with their size. (and may i say with the OS and GUI too?)
now, anything else? nope.. there IS a niche for a new 5mx/jornada 720 line. more than just one little clamshell device, a whole product range would be good.
you can't just say hey theres the nokia 9500 as that doesnt satisfy a lot of needs. i'm such a user. ruins your point there.

btw about OS'es, i'm not sure why several users here bashed CE so badly.. but CE is actually a very nice solution when you don't want the complexity of a full xp system - and it is still very powerful, see how many apps accessories etc are available for it. amazing! so much more power lies in it, than in the dumb symbian smartphones. stability, yes that's not so good as with EPOC, my psions never ever froze... but ce 4.x-5.x are getting there, now they almost never crash (if not talking about a ppc) and wm5 can heavily multitask without real slowdowns, wow. maybe ce6 will get there actually. xp is already there, for me. i don't have to do much maintenance for my xp pc after having set it up the right way once.
now, the GUI on the pocketpc's (including wm5, sadly) is crap... i'd revert back to real CE, which is more stable anyway after getting rid of that fluff whats on pocketpc's.

so.. i still use the jornada 728 and sigmarion 3 and such stuff, but i don't use the 5mx any more. for one i needed bluetooth - who is as crazy nowadays as using infrared for internet? bleh!! wifi is just a nice extra for me but i know it is a must have today to sell something like this, so i'd definitely include wifi in this new 5mx.
even better, include gprs, edge, umts (evdo for usa), hsdpa, ... much better than to interface to a cellphone over bluetooth. its just a press of a button and you're online if the unit has a cellphone modem built in! not a clunky solution as needing to connect to the separate phone. must have for me. and it'd sell the product much better and easier to lots of people.

so, fluppeteer, you can't be serious when telling all these users to just continue using the 5mx. now epoc was a very efficient OS but a 36mhz cpu? 16mb ram? no onboard office compatibility? no decent web browser (dont mention opera, i could never open more than one window on my 5mx in it and ssl etc sucked.) no colour? no bluetooth, no wifi? please don't be kidding. amazing really. no, i want to have a device that is capable of more than the 5mx used to be, sorry, but the 5mx is just too old now. same deal software wise, just one small example, can't i have smtp auth for email? the psion doesn't have it. ridiculous. sigh.
and now dont tell me to go and use a nokia 9500, it is too stupid and nokiaish. its symbian OS is so limited as well. nowhere as powerful as CE. also if the nokia is the only one choice for a decent clamshell device then the world is really a bad place. we need to have more choices!! there are more users and more needs and more various ones than that.

now about the discussion whether it should be a pda or a pc, i'd say both make a pda version and a pc version i want mirc in my pocket anyway hmm and what about a dualcore like thing??? great idea!!

so, about the pda version, whether it is needed again: the niche that needs a simple yet powerful clamshell pda would be happy with it, with whatever OS - i'd prefer CE without the ppc gui but with a ppc compatibility layer. NO, different resolution isn't an issue and it has never been the real issue when trying to run a program on plain CE that was made for a ppc. the issue is some ppc specific stupid libraries and functions not available out of the box on CE. already partially solved and see what microsoft did for more compatibility when they just spent a little time on this creating an extra lib for ce - been a great help. (sorry for the rant on this, visit hpcfactor.com and you'll see what i mean )

both pc and pda versions - i want a clamshell that can go to tablet mode, you can then have everything in one!
i'd make screen 800x480 at least or better yet 1024x480, if some important xp programs need more than 480 in height (none of mine do) then either you go an insane dpi (1280x600 or whatever) or you'll need to redesign screen and entire case
as an OS, definitely xp.
you can't have a 7.2" screen or the whole thing will be too big otherwise. it should stay slim as well, yeah, 1" or so.. the sigmarion 3 has a nice slim design, only 21 mm, less than 1", and it does have a plain cylindrical li-ion battery without ruining the design!
check out sig3 for more details, its size is nice, larger than an 5mx, but much slimmer and that makes a big difference.
hmm maybe overall i'd agree with fluppeteer on the ux180 idea (screen small enough which makes the whole device small enough too), just give it a better keyboard and somewhat better battery and cheap extra batteries.... yes it's the way to go then. don't forget it keep the nice design i'm soo vain!
some more details though, i'd want solid state, not a hdd, did you see the comparison video between the sony ux'es, the one with a ssd (or cf, i dont care which) booted up much much faster than the hdd one. it is a hilarious video but i forgot where i saw it. also it is much less power consumption and they are getting cheap enough now. i'd want 16GB as a start but make it upgradeable.
ram, 512mb is really more than enough unless you want serious gaming or photoshop, neither of which you're going to be able to do on this system anyway. solder it, you need to save as much space as possible.
CF and SD would be real nice but i'd give up that for two usb ports and for a bigger battery.
the battery, it has to be a lithium-polymer as that can store more energy in the same space as li-ion (iiirc).. and you can even shape it as you'd like. ok, i did refer to sig3 earlier as having a slim design and a cylindrical li-ion, so this is mainly about having as much energy stored in the same space as possible.
as the x86 cpu would want 5 watts (less if underclocked? lets say 4 watts) you need a biiig battery 5 watts is a LOT for such a system.
the display can be made less power hungry (someone even mentioned oled), the hdd can be left out, you don't need a gpu/serious video chip, i dont have one even on my xp pc, but the cpu will be a pita.
for actual numbers, lets take the jornada 720, its li-ion battery can store about 18-19 Wh (when recelled with the best available cells), and it isn't big, so i think we could have 20+ Wh. this is nice but take 5 watts into account and see why an x86 cpu is such a pita. an arm cpu needs less than 0.5 watts... but we *need* x86 obviously.
i think with a very efficient design we can achieve a tolerable battery life especially if you make the extra batteries cheap! it would be small enough for me to carry an extra one with me
one last thing, about the software. give it some specific software that make the thing more usable out of the box. downsize xp, to some lite edition, so that it runs faster and more efficient, less battery consuming. tablet edition would be good for the touch screen. btw what is xp embedded like? i don't know much about it... could it be any good?
one more thing.. tell people not to use that crap outlook hehehe.

thats about it for now.. hope i gave some ideas from my different viewpoint.

 

[fluppeteer]

fluppeteer you have very good and valid points but you seem to be missing some important things.

Thank you. I knew I was missing something - otherwise there wouldn't have been so much enthusiasm for the 5mx PDA idea. I just wanted to know what!

first, why do you assume every current pda user who used to love the 5mx is happy with a smartphone or a nokia 9500?

Oh, I don't. I'd just like to know why they're not. The 9500 is, I believe, the direct descendent - Nokia may have messed up the GUI, and I believe they've got rid of the touch screen (which I've only just realised), and quite possibly the keyboard isn't as good... but it's the nearest thing to a current 5mx. I do think that a modern 5mx that's *not* a phone as well has to justify itself against the 9500, though.

awwww web browsing on 200x300 pixels, you *must* be kidding! i get a headache even with qvga after 5 mins of browsing or using other apps that need more res.

Agreed - if the P990 had a VGA screen I'd be prepared to put up with a lot, but the 208x320 of my P910i is, admittedly, frustrating. However, the 9500 is 640x200, same as the 5mx - and people were objecting that anything more was excessive.

awwww the nokia 9500's typical nokiaish stupidity and sluggishness and closed OS!

Symbian is a direct derivative of EPOC32. Never having owned a 9000 series, is it actually completely closed? Obviously the kernel's not public, but if developing for it is impossible, Nokia deserve not to have sold many. That said, I have little sympathy for mobile phone companies - if they allowed the user more control over skinning the phone (and changing the GUI) in the first place, we'd be able to get around most of what makes them unusable. I'd assumed there was a third party application market for the 9000 series as there was for the 5mx and is for other smartphones. If not, I can see the source of the complaining!

what does that leave for a current clamshell pda? qtek 9000 (same as imate jasjar etc)? yeah, except that it is too small then, wm5 is still slightly annoying. same applies to zaurus, too small, linux is for geeks, i still feel lost with it even though i love my c760.

I'm boycotting the JasJar variants on the basis of Windows Mobile; that said, my experience of the P990 may force my hand. I could live with Linux, if I could actually get at the OS. I can see that the JasJar doesn't have the (relatively) usable keyboard of the 5mx.

the 5mx and the jornada 720 had it just right with their size. (and may i say with the OS and GUI too?)

I'm a fan of the form factor (or of something very slightly longer that I could actually touch-type on). I'm a fan of EPOC32 (for a PDA, far more so than XP), although it would need modifying a lot for anything new. I'm just wary that it would be starting from scratch - the existing 5mx software would probably not handle a new screen well (although I don't know how well things ported to the NetBook, if at all), to the best of my knowledge we don't have access to the EPOC source code, and I've been assuming, perhaps falsely, that the 9000 series, like other smartphones, already has a lot of software available. If compatibility can't be maintained, we'll end up with something like the 5mx when it first launched, not the 5mx after it had been on the market for a few years and lots of software was available. Add support for some modern hardware and capabilities and there's a really significant development effort.

Not that I wouldn't like to see the results, if it were done properly, but I don't think it's an easy project, even with a lot of internet-based support.

now, anything else? nope.. there IS a niche for a new 5mx/jornada 720 line. more than just one little clamshell device, a whole product range would be good.

If there's a lineage, I agree - time for them to develop, for the public domain community to build up, and for the development costs to be amortized over multiple devices. Unfortunately, that model involves the first one being a loss-leader, which is a big ask.

you can't just say hey theres the nokia 9500 as that doesnt satisfy a lot of needs. i'm such a user. ruins your point there.

I'm not saying the 9500 is perfect - I'm just curious how many people who would like a "new 5mx pda" wouldn't be happy with one. If you're such a person, that answers part of my question! If the demand for such a thing was so great, I'd still expect the 9000 series to have sold better than they do, even if they're not perfect substitutes - they're the nearest thing available.

I've never used a 9x00 (I did try a few shops over the weekend, but no-one had one in), so I'll take your word for it that the OS is broken. I think it's a sensible thing to look at, on which to improve, though. Is it just slow, or is the GUI broken? Is the resolution too low? Is the keyboard unusable? Do people miss the touch screen?

Assuming the source to EPOC32 isn't floating around, bear in mind we're comparing an OS that actually exists to (a replacement) one that doesn't. It's easy to criticise - although I'm not claiming it's unjustified in this case. EPOC32 may have been more light weight, but it probably also did a bit less; some of that (pretty colour animations) may be pointless fluff, and some of it might actually be necessary.

btw about OS'es, i'm not sure why several users here bashed CE so badly.. but CE is actually a very nice solution when you don't want the complexity of a full xp system - and it is still very powerful, see how many apps accessories etc are available for it. amazing! so much more power lies in it, than in the dumb symbian smartphones.

My limited experience has been that it's slow, unstable, and the user interface isn't sensible. That used to be the reason I went with Symbian, although UIQ seems to be veering that way itself a bit. There are quite a lot of apps available for Symbian too. My biggest concern is that I'm not sure a Windows interface is the way I want to use my phone, and the impression I've got has always been coloured by the idea that they have a "familiar Windows interface". It's bad enough that my *PC* has a Windows interface (sometimes); I'd rather my phone had a proper phone interface, thanks.

However, I've not used the latest versions, I know they're getting (a bit) better (at least given a fast enough CPU), and the mess that's been made of the P990 may force me to get my toes wet if someone doesn't produce a decent Linux mobile soon.

Re. CE on a PDA, vs a Smartphone, I'm sure it makes more sense - although again, I'd rather have a PDA that's a good PDA than a PDA that's a good computer (otherwise I'd still have my Newton and I'd use my Zaurus more). My smartphone is a "good enough" PDA that my Palm is now rarely used, just to save pocket space. CE in a 5mx form factor won't bring back the impression of an actual 5mx, IMHO - but then I believe Microsoft is the Evil Empire, and I might be biased by a historical impression of these devices without having tried new ones. Is there a current version that would actually work with this form factor? CE is certainly no substitute as a PC for a real XP box, if such a thing can be done.

now, the GUI on the pocketpc's (including wm5, sadly) is crap... i'd revert back to real CE, which is more stable anyway after getting rid of that fluff whats on pocketpc's.

I suspect, never having used one extensively, that I'd agree with you. Unfortunately, I'm not sure Microsoft are willing to lose the brand recognition (unless there's a GUI option setting I've not seen). Microsoft have never been strong at ensuring something is broken before they fix it.

so.. i still use the jornada 728 and sigmarion 3 and such stuff, but i don't use the 5mx any more. for one i needed bluetooth - who is as crazy nowadays as using infrared for internet? bleh!! wifi is just a nice extra for me but i know it is a must have today to sell something like this, so i'd definitely include wifi in this new 5mx.

Agreed.

even better, include gprs, edge, umts (evdo for usa), hsdpa, ... much better than to interface to a cellphone over bluetooth. its just a press of a button and you're online if the unit has a cellphone modem built in! not a clunky solution as needing to connect to the separate phone. must have for me. and it'd sell the product much better and easier to lots of people.

Hmm. As I PDA, with life for which the phone is practical, it might be valid - clearly Nokia think so. Thing is, it massively complicates the device (if only from a certification point of view) - which is why, generally, it's the phone companies, not the PDA companies, that make smart phones. I agree that not having the phone in it makes it look inferior; however, as a project which may have limited backing, being able to use the phone that almost everyone has anyway is not such a bad thing. A P910i is a big phone that happens to work as a PDA; holding a 5mx to your ear is just going to look silly.

Mostly, though, I don't think it's worth the effort to make a x86 Windows version double as a phone. It wouldn't be a very good phone, and the effort is enormous. Bluetooth is much easier. Plus, upgrade the phone and you get better connectivity without updating the PDA (unless part of the business model is to charge for upgrades).

so, fluppeteer, you can't be serious when telling all these users to just continue using the 5mx. now epoc was a very efficient OS but a 36mhz cpu? 16mb ram? no onboard office compatibility? no decent web browser (dont mention opera, i could never open more than one window on my 5mx in it and ssl etc sucked.) no colour?

I'll admit to being slightly facetious in the interests of finding out why people don't find the existing 5mx sufficient. Why do you need more than a 36MHz CPU if the OS and all the apps can keep up? (Remember, Acorn started with an 8MHz ARM, and RISC OS was pretty snappy.) Do you need more than 16MB for plain text emails, simple web browsing (my P800 lived with 8MB for long enough), and genuine PDA functions? For what do you actually need colour, given that it will probably make the display less clear and hamper the battery life? (If we consider eInk, or similar.)

If you want a web browsing machine, is a 5mx really the place to start compared with, say, a Nokia 770? (Which has its own problems, but is at least designed to do the job.) Will anything not running a full desktop browser at a decent resolution actually do a decent job with a web site? Many web sites don't even run properly in Firefox under Linux - a PDA doesn't stand a chance. ("Best viewed at 1024x768." Gee, thanks.)

What Office functionality do you actually need? Never having owned a 5mx, I've always assumed that someone had written something capable of outputting RTF and CSV (like Pipedream, seen on RISC OS and the z88).

The reason I put forward the idea of sticking with an original 5mx is that there seems to have been a split between people (including myself) wanting a full-function PC (with various degrees of practicality), those saying "a 5mx with..." (list of features to make it, effectively, a PC), and those saying "don't need colour, don't need Windows, don't want web browsing, just want a good PDA". The question then is: what exactly is it that the original 5mx did wrongly that needs improving? (Other than the tendency of the screen to break.) That's not the same as "what bells and whistles would you like thrown in?"

no bluetooth, no wifi? please don't be kidding. amazing really. no, i want to have a device that is capable of more than the 5mx used to be, sorry, but the 5mx is just too old now. same deal software wise, just one small example, can't i have smtp auth for email? the psion doesn't have it. ridiculous. sigh.

I have to say I'm surprised nobody ever wrote bluetooth or 802.11 (CF-card) support for the 5mx. Surely they're there on the Linux port for the 5? I'm sure the NetBook had support, and probably not just in the CE version.

It sounds like you've had much more experience than I have, and I may have been assuming that, at some point in the last several years, someone had ported some basics. Maybe the need was never seen - a lot of phones still have IrDA support, for example.

and now dont tell me to go and use a nokia 9500, it is too stupid and nokiaish.

That's either not very specific, or very specific indeed. I merely mention it as the 5mx's successor, but I'll accept that Nokia may have messed it up.

its symbian OS is so limited as well. nowhere as powerful as CE.

Yet, ironically, more powerful than EPOC32 (I have to assume they didn't cut stuff out, given that it's slower). You'd really like WinCE, but without the same GUI? I can't see Microsoft going for it, and maybe a lot of Psion owners won't either.

also if the nokia is the only one choice for a decent clamshell device then the world is really a bad place. we need to have more choices!! there are more users and more needs and more various ones than that.

Well, competition is good. I'm just wary that, effectively, volunteering someone to develop, from scratch, something that's a better competitor than something with as much development behind it as the 9500 with Nokia trying to stop you is... courageous. As a pipe dream, I love it. Again, it depends if what we're discussing is practical. Much of what I've been dismissing I'm only doing because it's not, IMHO, enough better than an existing product to have a market - not because I don't think things can be done better (they almost always can). If something might actually be made (or even if we waste effort describing it), it seems sensible to target the biggest potential result for our efforts.

now about the discussion whether it should be a pda or a pc, i'd say both make a pda version and a pc version i want mirc in my pocket anyway hmm and what about a dualcore like thing??? great idea!!

I like the Dualcore thing too - assuming it's not been patented into oblivion. It does, however, carry all my concerns about the PDA version whilst complicating the PC version a lot. I'd love it, but it's very risky - don't get the PDA right and people might not buy the PC; make the PC useless and it's a very expensive PDA. Plus you'd need the PDA to run at a sensible PC screen resolution (although a bit of dynamic scaling might work). You'd probably only sell to people that needed both, not (as you might hope) people who needed either.

so, about the pda version, whether it is needed again: the niche that needs a simple yet powerful clamshell pda would be happy with it, with whatever OS - i'd prefer CE without the ppc gui but with a ppc compatibility layer.

I like the idea (especially without the PPC GUI), but I'm wary about whence this OS will come. EPOC is, presumably, unavailable. It appears that Microsoft aren't keen further progress on this version of CE, including development of current applications, but I might be reading too much into my browsing of the web site. Microsoft have always made a big thing of corporate branding, and I would be surprised if they're willing to forgo the GUI whilst still providing the bulk of the OS - but I have limited experience of CE, and might be being unfair. There's always Linux, with a home-grown set of tools running under X, and it would be simpler than re-writing EPOC from scratch, but I don't know that the experience would be too amazing. Qtopia didn't impress me over-much, I'm afraid.

NO, different resolution isn't an issue and it has never been the real issue when trying to run a program on plain CE that was made for a ppc. the issue is some ppc specific stupid libraries and functions not available out of the box on CE. already partially solved and see what microsoft did for more compatibility when they just spent a little time on this creating an extra lib for ce - been a great help. (sorry for the rant on this, visit hpcfactor.com and you'll see what i mean )

My apologies. I was talking mainly about EPOC applications, which I strongly doubt would cope well with a change in resolution (again, I may be unfair). WinCE has had to deal with unusual screen sizes for a while (although clamshells less recently), and may well be better. Never underestimate how much someone can mess up an application simply by not testing it on something unusual, though.

Interesting web site, btw - thanks for the link.

both pc and pda versions - i want a clamshell that can go to tablet mode, you can then have everything in one!

Yes... except that I'm not sure you can keep the stability of the 5mx's hinge arrangement. If it can be done, it's obviously a bonus.

i'd make screen 800x480 at least or better yet 1024x480, if some important xp programs need more than 480 in height (none of mine do) then either you go an insane dpi (1280x600 or whatever) or you'll need to redesign screen and entire case

It's mostly dialogue boxes, as evidenced in the Vaio review. Alas, Acrobat probably counts as a common app. There's a big usability difference as the height scales up (even for those who know to put the task bar on the side). I believe the latest guide lines are to make sure that 800x600 works, but assume at least XGA.

you can't have a 7.2" screen or the whole thing will be too big otherwise.

It looked to me as though the U105's 7.2" screen would add 0.2" to the width of the device compared with the suggested size. Plus, admittedly, the frame size - which might rule it out. Failing that, there's always the UX180P's 1024x600 version, but I figured that something that works okay with all XP apps was better than a borderline case - but people with more experience of getting the extra 0.2" in their pocket may feel otherwise. I'll have another look and see how much slack this screen actually needs.

it should stay slim as well, yeah, 1" or so.. the sigmarion 3 has a nice slim design, only 21 mm, less than 1", and it does have a plain cylindrical li-ion battery without ruining the design!
check out sig3 for more details, its size is nice, larger than an 5mx, but much slimmer and that makes a big difference.

Interesting bit of kit, especially since I've not seen a CE clamshell for a while. Slimness does make a huge difference, within limits.

hmm maybe overall i'd agree with fluppeteer on the ux180 idea (screen small enough which makes the whole device small enough too), just give it a better keyboard and somewhat better battery and cheap extra batteries.... yes it's the way to go then. don't forget it keep the nice design i'm soo vain!

Glad we agree on something!

some more details though, i'd want solid state, not a hdd, did you see the comparison video between the sony ux'es, the one with a ssd (or cf, i dont care which) booted up much much faster than the hdd one. it is a hilarious video but i forgot where i saw it. also it is much less power consumption and they are getting cheap enough now. i'd want 16GB as a start but make it upgradeable.

Really? The last set of prices I saw, it doubled the price (for, admittedly, 32GB). If it's cheap enough then it's obviously better, if only for ruggedness. I'm assuming that the old issues with repeatedly writing to solid state storage (this device WILL swap) have gone...

ram, 512mb is really more than enough unless you want serious gaming or photoshop, neither of which you're going to be able to do on this system anyway. solder it, you need to save as much space as possible.

Absolutely. 1GB is a luxury if cheap and small enough, but 512 is probably fine. The only reason I'd consider more is the amount I had to put in this PC to make Notes responsive.

the battery, it has to be a lithium-polymer as that can store more energy in the same space as li-ion (iiirc).. and you can even shape it as you'd like. ok, i did refer to sig3 earlier as having a slim design and a cylindrical li-ion, so this is mainly about having as much energy stored in the same space as possible.

I thought they were actually similar in charge density, and it was mostly the shaping that was the issue? I can't remember whether Ericsson had a patent... The battery from the P990 is scarily small. So long as nobody starts mentioning fuel cells, and whatever we go with is affordable.

as the x86 cpu would want 5 watts (less if underclocked? lets say 4 watts) you need a biiig battery 5 watts is a LOT for such a system.

True, although the UX180P copes.

the display can be made less power hungry (someone even mentioned oled), the hdd can be left out, you don't need a gpu/serious video chip, i dont have one even on my xp pc, but the cpu will be a pita.
for actual numbers, lets take the jornada 720, its li-ion battery can store about 18-19 Wh (when recelled with the best available cells), and it isn't big, so i think we could have 20+ Wh. this is nice but take 5 watts into account and see why an x86 cpu is such a pita. an arm cpu needs less than 0.5 watts... but we *need* x86 obviously.

Sad, but true. I'm not sure that anyone's offering a suitable display, though (which is why I jumped on the Toshiba one) - something a similar size but transflective would help a lot, obviously. The Tosh screen is at least LED backlit.

one last thing, about the software. give it some specific software that make the thing more usable out of the box. downsize xp, to some lite edition, so that it runs faster and more efficient, less battery consuming. tablet edition would be good for the touch screen. btw what is xp embedded like? i don't know much about it... could it be any good?

I'm inclined to go with the full XP, just because people will complain if they don't have it. Offering some "PDA" apps and providing one of the shareware apps that strips the junk out of XP would be welcome. The problem with cutting stuff out is that you always end up cutting out the thing you need...

one more thing.. tell people not to use that crap outlook hehehe.

Or Notes.

thats about it for now.. hope i gave some ideas from my different viewpoint.

I wasn't expecting someone so keen on CE to want this; equally, I was expecting most people who'd like a "new 5mx" to want to avoid CE. Maybe I've been in too many flame wars. Thanks for the insight from someone who at least knows the CE market (which I don't)!

 

[cmonex]

hey
wow, thanks for such a nice and detailed reply!

glad to see some of my points came across, hope they are good ones that give more ideas

about the nokia 9500, it is not unusable, just sad to see what more it might have been which it isn't... after using the 5mx and handheld pc's. it really is screwed up by nokia imo. there are some users who live with it happily, but most don't.
when i said closed OS, i didn't mean there are no third pary apps, maybe it was the wrong name. what i meant is that this OS has a lot less going on, less software, less accessories, fewer possibilities overall.
the GUI isn't very bad but i miss the touch screen, and yes it is sluggish and full of bugs. not saying other OS'es dont have bugs
the keyboard is acceptable compared to others on other current pda's, but it is some steps backwards..
the screen res is less than on the 5mx - 5mx had 640x240, full hvga, the nokia is 640x200. 40 pixels may not sound much, but with this low height it does matter sometimes, and this is again backwards...

jasjar variants, yes their real problem is windows mobile, it is made a little too dumb to use, the GUI is annoying at least for me, you need utilities to make it usable.
windows mobile, however, at least has the power (existing and feasible possibilities) that symbian doesn't. i guess it's because it has more support from MS and from the developers who are already familiar with windows.
oh and yes the keyboard is not better than on the nokia...

so what does that leave... for me, only the handheld pc's i mentioned but again, they are no longer in production. some of them were until recently but no more.

to look forward in the future... what OS to use for this new 5mx... very realistic and practical question, yes. i was trying to offer as a possibility what i would like to see on it anyway, CE.
the older versions of it were indeed crap, i wouldn't put up with ce 2.0 for a longer while for example. but as i said (iirc), it is improving in stability, and in just about everything. it *is* actively developed and quite well.
the bad thing is that nowadays the pda's have CE only as the core, then they get the stupid ppc GUI on top of it. and the applications are written for this gui. though this isn't a problem that can't be overcome technically. the real problem is microsoft of course. i don't see any sign from them that they'd want to revive this platform (called the handheld pc platform a long time ago). so this suggestion wasn't the most practical, still, it would be the best usable - IMO on the other hand, i mentioned a compatibility mode for ppc programs. if that were possible, then it could help a lot. then if manufacturers started supporting this platform again it wouldn't take as much work to make it better than to build a new EPOC from scratch (no, source code isn't available). so, that's a little more practical bit of my rant
i see, you asked if there's a current version of CE that would work with the 5mx's form factor. yes, taking the above into account.

as for linux... thats another possibility, and that wouldn't have to be done from scratch, for one there's a lot of drivers already (i tried a lot of hardware accessories in my zaurus and almost never a problem!), and many programs can be ported (though many times not as simple as entering some commands to crosscompile for ARM). this would still need a lot of *organized* effort to make something more usable than the current qtopia. also marketing and whatnot (this applies to my first suggestion too but thats at least familiar microsoft ).

to make a new EPOC, the main problem wouldnt be the screen resolution (though can't remember now what was the max. res. supported by EPOC), but the code of the old programs. for one, EPOC wasn't unicode and symbian is. we shouldn't go back in time, unicode support is important. that's jsut one example. what about drivers, and new software, developers, etc? i guess that's the same you've been saying

about EPOC software, screen resolution usually wasn't an issue, just some apps had hard coded resolutions, but most apps written for the 5mx were fine for the netbook too, without explicit porting.
no, bluetooth was never available for the netbook pro with EPOC, only for the CE version (and that only because all CF bluetooth cards have CE or pocketpc drivers). the nokia 9500 is certainly much much better at connectivity than original EPOC some more bad things software wise though, the office software, the PIM, the browser, etc. weren't improved enough, except that it can at least open docs without converting.

hmm, the eternal question, whether to include a phone or not? i said yes, and it is mainly because of the common reasons, to have internet connectivity anywhere without having to depend on wlan availability, and to make the product "cooler" as well. won't be very practical to use as a phone but why not include it if there's already a modem (umts, evdo, hsdpa, etc...) doesn't have to be a very serious phone app suite / functionality.

a 36mhz cpu just isn't enough if you want to do some web browsing, without having to give up too much of the experience. i used to use the 5mx for this over infrared and gprs, but that wasn't very good, just emergency or if i was *very* bored. no efficient coding of the browser will help with that.
not saying i just want a web browsing machine, but web browsing capability is important today. what if you want to check your bank statements online, what if you want to win an ebay item in the last minute? what if you'd like to read the news online? or you're away from home for a couple of days and would like to check the usual stuff. etc. etc.
then, if you want to have the possibility to look at some videos sometimes, or at least open some images without having to wait minutes, that again requires a better cpu. you just will run into cases when you need to have this ability. you can't live isolated from the world getting along on your own without this.
i'm not that type of person who just wants multimedia, what's more i don't care too much about multimedia, but if a 36mhz cpu isn't enough even for me, what more can be said?
there is other software as well, for example navigation, voip, etc etc., all these require more than 36mhz.
colour is needed (again IMO) because it is easier on the eyes and helps differentiating stuff in software, gives more information (i.e. in images or even navigation software). it makes the display clearer, because you don't have to be squinting at a greenish-greyish image all the time. the 5mx screen wasnt very easy to read when indoors, even with the backlight. i was OK with it, my eyes aren't old yet, but colour is just so much better. real white-black is more suitable for ebooks even.
of course colour is also needed for the above multimedia purposes.
the battery life won't be helped by it of course, but i think the cpu and hdd are bigger problems regarding that..
office functionality, i'd like to be able to open doc's and xls'es, pdf, ppt, etc for example someone sends me an important document as an attachment in an email. can't require the person to convert it first. this level of office compatibility is already possible, so shouldn't go backwards.

ok, all in all.. there is indeed a split, it might be more complicated than just a pda user=wants pim and some texts vs pc user=wants the full pc compatibility and power. but you said that better... anyway, if the technology isn't ready to make an xp pocket machine without serious usability and other issues (battery, durability, costs, and possibly suspend-resume time), i'd prefer this way. on the other hand even if there are still some smaller issues with the above, i'd find it real cool and a worthwhile idea. so that's why i said both.

what did the 5mx wrongly? nothing but it got outdated. many more things are around now that we couldn't even dream of at that time in 1999... you can do much more with a computer today and it is much more useful, and to more people.

hope some of this (and my original post) helped to answer your very good question (which i think is the real point here), whether we need something newer than the 5mx when there is the 9500..

to add more to it, at the moment, i'm not sure if/how nokia will continue developing the communicator line, the 9500 is 2 years old and i wouldn't want to rely on nokia. there are very good handheld pc's but they aren't made any more (microsoft, sigh). the zaurus again is just one product from one manufacturer and no development has been done in the last years - yes the 3200 came out recently but it's no real improvement or anything. the only things added is a bigger hdd and a better sd slot. that's all!
the only really current thing is the jasjar, it is only 1 years old and might be developed further. again i could imagine something truly better, not this small, and with a better, more sensible gui, and extra functions - sure the jasjar has almost everythign but not quite everything.
what i wanted to say is that there are not enough current options, there is a gap that has to be filled and i see the need for it. (not just crazy myself )
for me that justifies a new product.
but who would/could make it? thats the real question now

back to the other option, a small xp pc with (most of) the issues solved. there would be surely a demand for that too!

now, i don't know how hard that would be technically, was just trying to outline how i would see it possible.
screen resolution, hmm, i do use acrobat and it would be fine (for me) but of course only if you hide the useless menus.
i'd still choose lower but more sensible and usable resolution.
if the screen is an oled or something like that maybe it could be 7,2"
solid state: if sony dared to make a version of their umpc with a solid state disk instead of a hdd, then i guess they somehow have been able to deal with the wearing out issue. don't know details about this, this is one thing that keeps nagging me as well.
batteries, i think li-po can store more energy, iirc i read so and i have batteries for the same device in li-ion and li-po format, and the li-po is much slimmer with the same capacity.
no idea about patents though...
stripping xp, could be possible, if you do it in a wise way maybe make stuff separately installable if needed.

as for your last lines (epoc vs ce), hehe glad that i've been able to show some different things.
a little more explanation on this.. in the time of epoc, CE was really really junk. but epoc didn't get developed further, while CE was and still is... and in the right direction (with the exception of the ppc). that makes the big difference for me!

 

[mobilesalesman]

fluppeteer you have very good and valid points but you seem to be missing some important things.

first, why do you assume every current pda user who used to love the 5mx is happy with a smartphone or a nokia 9500?

what does that leave for a current clamshell pda? qtek 9000 (same as imate jasjar etc)? yeah, except that it is too small then, wm5 is still slightly annoying. same applies to zaurus, too small, linux is for geeks, i still feel lost with it even though i love my c760.
the 5mx and the jornada 720 had it just right with their size. (and may i say with the OS and GUI too?)

now, anything else? nope.. there IS a niche for a new 5mx/jornada 720 line. more than just one little clamshell device, a whole product range would be good.
]

Comonex, makes some great points.

For me I think the Nokia 9500 is not adequate nor is the Jasjar, Pocket pc's, Zaurus, Ultramobiles, etc. What I really want is a touch type keyboard computer in my pocket that I can use everyday software to collaborate directly with the business community.

Thus anything with a thumb keyboard is not adequate and that basically rules out what other mobile devices are available. It needs to be able to fit in a jacket pocket and that eliminates all other options.

I for one can say that I used the Psion and still use a Jornada 728 and am not a user of a Nokia 9500 nor Smartphone as those are just not adequate. To me it is a step backwards from the old Psion and Jornada as the functionality is the most crucial element and that requires a touch type keyboard in a pocket size device period.

I love the many great ideas as far as specs and features most have posted but the core must be a touch type keyboard computer that fits in a standard jacket pocket running a software that can enable a mobile business person to create and share files with anyone.

As far as OS I liked the CE and HPC softwares; my only wish was for MS to continue to support it. If there was an emulator software so that XP software would run on it also it would be the ultimate computer! Or if this modern Psion was running the Dualcor OS which combines Windows XP tablet with the ability to run Windows Mobile that would be perfect too! I am just a normal business person so nothing to tech required like Linux would be a consideration and I do not want anything proprietary. That was the only doom for Psion, for a hardware company to try to not only compete on the hardware front but also try to outcompete Microsoft? that is just not going to work. The reality is every one uses MS so the modern Psion must be able to collaborate and run software to work in a MS world.

 

[fluppeteer]

I'll have to come back tomorrow and reply to the last couple of messages (I want to keep this debate going!), but I just wanted to say:

I've revised my opinion on the Libretto's 1280x768 7.1" screen. I no longer want one for a 5mx replacement.

I want one of these instead:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20061017PR207.html



Meanwhile, would those who started this topic would care to put us out of our misery and let us know whether it's a serious project?

 

[mobilesalesman]

As long as the screen width is not more than 4" inches or so? A long screen that is color and bright is great but the device still must be narrow enough to fit in a jacket pocket, otherwise it is not really mobile.