Rodfather Mobile

No love for UMPC inkers
I am writing on my old trusty Samsung Q1.
A year ago most tableteers wouldn’t even
consider this as a viable inking device.
I’ve gotten used to it and I hardly have
any vectoring issues with it even with
my palm resting on the screen. Now
I have the Fujitsu U810, which in my
case, has even a softer touchscreen. In
a nutshell, inking on the U810 is plain
horrible.
Looking down the line of future
UMPC’s such as the HP 2133, which
I consider a subnotebook, and other
Asus Eee PC clones, it appears there’s
a slim to none chance we will see a
viable UMPC inking device. Even MID’s
will pass and try to go with finger
touch interfaces to compete with the
iPhone/iPod touch.
So what’s left for people like me?
Hope OQO continues with including an
active digitizer? Hope future Nokia
Internet Tablets will still have a
touchscreen and include a stylus?
Oh well… I’ve all but given up on
seeing a UMPC with a 7″ screen
that has a dual-mode active/passive
digitizer.

I found out Inkseine was available a day early from Rob of gottabemobile.com so I went ahead and installed it.  So far it seems cool.  It works perfectly fine on the Fujitsu U810’s touchscreen.  I like the interface, but I’m not exactly sure what I’d use it for.  I’d still rather use Windows Journal for ink blog posts.  It’s fun to use so I suggest you try it out.

National Handwriting Day
Well, well. I found out from Sumocat (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2008/01/its-national-handwriting-day.html)via
GBM (http://www.gottabemobile.com/National+Handwriting+Day.aspx)it’s National Handwriting Day today.
This day was chosen using John Hancock’s
birthday which makes perfect sense.
GottaBeMobile has been posting a lot
about ink blogging lately. I’m not sure if
interest will blow up significantly, but
it would be nice to gain a few more
inkers.
-Rod
P.S. Going to try out
Build 52 (http://www.markandtanya.us/scribbles/Build52v2.html).

Another ink attempt on U810
Well I figure I better practice
inking on the Fujitsu U810 since
I’ll be stuck with this for a
while. It’s just not easy writing
on this super light touch screen
that’s super slick with a thin
stylus.
I really wanted to use this for
mobile/on-the-go inking since
I grabbed the domain name
‘mobileinker.com.’  I envisioned
myself using this while out of the
house and moblog my entries
on the fly.

My First U810 Inkblog
I thought l should try ink
blogging at least one time on
the U810. It’s just very difficult.
First of all, there seems to be a
delay when you first make contact
with the screen. So you end up
writing the first word of the
sentence over.
Second, the screen is very light
touch. I’m training myself to
not place my palm on the screen
which isn’t difficult due to the
5.6" screen.
3rd, the screen is too smooth.
It’s like trying to write with a
pen on glass. It’s taking time
to get used to writing on
a smooth surface.
Last, the pen is too thin. Not
easy to get a grip on it.

I started messing with the webcam on the Fujitsu U810.  The overall quality is poor.  The framerate is much less than 15FPS and the picture quality isn’t all that great.  But hey it’s there and I can find a use for it.

First thing’s first.   The audiodg.exe process shot up 25% to 100% CPU% whenever I tried to use the cam.  This is the process in Vista that basically handles audio processing.  It ended up being bad Reaktek HD audio drivers that came preinstalled.  Whenever the mic was accessed, the audiodg.exe process would shoot up.

I ended up going to the Realtek support page and installed the updated the Vista drivers.  Now whenever the mic is accessed, the audiodg.exe process doesn’t go crazy.  The most I’ve seen it go up is around 10% now.

Software

It comes with ArcSoft’s WebCam Companion 2 software.  It’s fairly basic which does the job of capturing images and video from the webcam.  It also has a motion capture mode and the ability to edit the clips you have recorded.  It’s not the greatest piece of software but it does the job.

Online Video Sites

Ustream.tv works.  The CPU% shoots up close to 100%.  For some reason, ustream.tv performed a bit better when using IE7.

Justin.tv worked fine but there’s a very long delay of 10-20 seconds between what’s live and what is played back.

Flixn.com works great.  There’s no need to register.  You basically record a video clip from the webcam straight to the site and the end result is a webpage and links to embed the video to another site.  I can see myself using this service the most.

Viddler.com is quick and easy.  Great use of the webcam to record clips.

Youtube’s quick capture feature didn’t seem to work.  It sat there waiting for the server to respond.  I’ll try again later but doubt I’ll use it since you have to go through the process of filling in required fields before even capturing a video.

Recording a clip to ‘my library’ with Operator11.com worked fine.  I didn’t try joining a live broadcast but I’m sure there wouldn’t be too much problems.

Well, I went ahead and bought a Fujitsu U810 UMPC from newegg.com.  It arrived yesterday I’m just about done installing apps on it.  Since I just installed Live Writer, I figure I should write my first blog post from it.

I will try to piece up some kind of review and express my reasons for choosing this device.

For now.. something strange happened.  The touchscreen sensitivity has turned super light.  It’s weird.  When I first booted up, I swore the screen was medium to heavy touch since it took a good amount of pressure to register a click.  Now, the screen is so sensitive, I can draw with the fat of my fingers.  Vectoring is a given.  It’s a lot more sensitive than even my Samsung Q1.  While it does make navigating the screen a lot easier — for inking, it’s almost impossible.  I really don’t know what happened.  I may install XP anyway so we’ll see if the issues remain.

Phew.. it’s going to take some time getting used to this keyboard.  With a bit of practice, I can 6 finger touch type very fast with this.  Definitely much faster than thumbing it.  After writing this post, my fingers are feeling a bit cramped though.

Joel Johnson of Boing Boing produced a humorous video review of the Fujitsu U810. I think he should push out more videos.

Top quotes of the video:
“On the outside.. the Fujitsu Lifebook U810 UMPC is a strange little toad of a machine”

“Is that not the f*cking future?” (After pressing the keyboard light button)

“This is exactly the device I thought I wanted 10 years ago”

Zing!

I Made A Talking Head Video Review: Fujitsu Lifebook U810 UMPC - Boing Boing Gadgets

Since James liked the last one, I’ll focus on some devices that are hot in the news.

There seems to be a lot of demand for small, cheap devices but still retain a full sized touch keyboard.  But how small could you go?  By most accounts, the smallest you can go and still have the ability to 10 finger touch type seems to be around 9″ width devices like Panasonic R7 or Fujitsu P1610.  As of now, these devices can go up to the $1500-$3000 range.

Now we’re starting to see cheaper devices with the same width to provide the ’smallest you can go’ keyboard.  The differences here are the rest of the parts.  The innards use first generation UMPC’s components, such as the 7″ 800×480 screen,  but with stripped components, reduced storage and low memory.  Not to mention the lack of Windows which reduces costs considerably.  At $399 for the Asus Eee PC with Linux,  this is generating a lot of interest.

Size Breakdown

The Packard Bell Easynote XS and Asus Eee PC are in this same boat and are the most similar in size.  These are the OLPC clones/cheapass  subnotebooks with 7″ screens. 

The keyboard on them should be similar to the Vye S37/Kohjinsha SH since the width is around the same.  It’s funny how long the Vye S37/Kohjinsha SH is even with the 3 cell.  With the 6 cell, it may extend up to an inch more.

The Shift is interesting since it lacks length and a bit of width compared to the ‘bigger’ devices.  Along with the screen mechanism, there doesn’t seem much room for the keyboard.  The keys must be squashed vertically quite a bit.  I’m not sure if you can 10 finger touch type on this. 

Chippy was able to type fairly fast with just his thumbs though.

As for the Fujitsu U810, well, it has a touch keyboard but by no means full.  There’s been a lot of flak about whether the keyboard should even be there since it’s not very useful as a touch keyboard.  With all the keyboard combos with the function key, it may be frustrating.

It sounds more appealing to me looking at U810 as a thumb keyboard clamshell device but with the ability to touch type with four fingers if you want to have it sitting on a tabletop.  Plus it’s a convertible Tablet PC.

Kevin Tofel over at jkOnTheRun just received the US model of the Vye Mini-v S37 Convertible UMPC.  He does a quick unboxing of the device while his Samsung Q1P is nearby for size comparisons.  I can’t wait for a followup and hopefully Kevin will address some of the issues I will explain below.

[Link]

—–

The main difference between the S37 and the Kohjinsha SH6/8 is the S37 comes standard with a 6-cell extended battery and USA keyboard layout.

One thing I’m curious about is the screen.  There have been reports the S37 screen has a matte finish and is not as bright as the Kohjinsha’s as noted here and here.

From UMPC Portal forums:

Firstly, let me tell you something important. The screens on these two devices are DIFFERENT. I didnt notice it at first but now they are side by side I can see it. The S37 is dimmer and has a matt finish (you can hear your nail scraping on it.) The SH6 is brighter and has a smooth finish. Both are 1024×600 and both are soft touch. The screen brightness on the S37 is 30% dimmer (at full) than the SH6 (as measured with a light meter) The frame on the S37 is also slightly buckled. I have emailed Vye about this and am trying to find out if I have some sort of prototype or wether the OEM has done a screen swap.

Dynamism IS carrying the 800MHz. They also just confirmed the screen type on the S37: “The screen is more of a matte screen but does have a slight reflective finish on it.” (They also won’t supply a UK plug. Boo. Considering the prices, you’d think they’d chuck one in )

Another is battery life.  From this review, the 3-cell battery on the Kohjinsha SH6, bought straight from a store in Japan, is getting 3.5 hours with heavy use.  This is odd since that range of battery life is normally only experienced with the 6-cell battery.

Battery

The battery is so small, once again you have to see it to believe it. I’m surprised the amount of power this thing can dish out and it’s only a 3 cell battery. While running 720p video, wireless off and full brightness, I got around 3.5 hours of battery. Another example is when I was in class for 5 hours straight, I had wireless off, 2 notches down from full brightness, was playing iTunes, sometimes typing and playing a little video every once and a while, I got 5 hours of battery. Not bad, but if you want more time, you should go for the more powerful battery.

I’m hoping the battery life issues have been resolved, but I’m doubting it.  Hopefully the reviewer can be contacted and reconfirm that statement.