Athena vs. UMPC

[brucewilsonpa]

By way of encouraging discussion -- The HTC X7500/7501 is the closest current HTC product to the emerging class of computers being dubbed UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) that seems to be catching fire. Of course the appeal of the UMPC is its reliance on currently popular PC OS -- WinXP or Vista, as well as its small size (most have screen sizes between 4.5 and 8 in). The Athena's 5 in VGA screen, relatively powerful cpu, 8GB HDD, and form factor with the easy-to-use keyboard makes it very close IMHO to the appealing features of the UMPC's, although it's not officially classified as such because it uses the WinMobile OS rather than XP or Vista. I'm personally torn between my x7500 (with WM6) and one of these UMPC -- have tried the Sony Vaio UX390N but sold it because I found its limitations (unreadable screen, reliance on mouse vs. touchscreen, slow processing with vista) too great. But there are a number of newer UMPC versions coming out that seem worth trying (but who can afford them?).... the OQO Model 02 is only slightly larger than the Athena but offers Vista (at twice the Athena price).... the Raon Everun due out shortly is also only slightly larger than the Athena but not as powerful as the OQO but seems like a "hot" seller.

As a longtime proponent of pocketpc/pdaphones and similar pocketable devices, I'm intrigued -- what thoughts do others in this forum have regarding the emerging UMPC compared to our Athena/Advantage devices?

[victoradjei]

By way of encouraging discussion -- The HTC X7500/7501 is the closest current HTC product to the emerging class of computers being dubbed UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) that seems to be catching fire. Of course the appeal of the UMPC is its reliance on currently popular PC OS -- WinXP or Vista, as well as its small size (most have screen sizes between 4.5 and 8 in). The Athena's 5 in VGA screen, relatively powerful cpu, 8GB HDD, and form factor with the easy-to-use keyboard makes it very close IMHO to the appealing features of the UMPC's, although it's not officially classified as such because it uses the WinMobile OS rather than XP or Vista. I'm personally torn between my x7500 (with WM6) and one of these UMPC -- have tried the Sony Vaio UX390N but sold it because I found its limitations (unreadable screen, reliance on mouse vs. touchscreen, slow processing with vista) too great. But there are a number of newer UMPC versions coming out that seem worth trying (but who can afford them?).... the OQO Model 02 is only slightly larger than the Athena but offers Vista (at twice the Athena price).... the Raon Everun due out shortly is also only slightly larger than the Athena but not as powerful as the OQO but seems like a "hot" seller.

As a longtime proponent of pocketpc/pdaphones and similar pocketable devices, I'm intrigued -- what thoughts do others in this forum have regarding the emerging UMPC compared to our Athena/Advantage devices?


Battery life is what separates the men (athena) from the boys (umpc). Even the ulv editions don't have that much staying power :p I have tried the Sony umpc TZ...., and now have the Stylistic ST5112 (not real umpc cos of larger screen) which claims 10hrs battery life, but not really getting that much.

[boinger66]

personally i like zippy performance...

and the thing with vista is... with a 1.2ghz chip as these current umpcs are offerning these days...

i dont feel its well worth it for laggy performance...

and it really depends on what your use for the said device is.. ?

is it going to be primarily a workhorse type eqiupment ?

or is it going to be a simple phone that is powerful ?

i prefer to go for something like an athena... for quick work on the go...

but if im going to be doing any REAL work that requires a computer as in web design / various other apps ... i dont see myself successfully utilizing a umpc...

i prefer the large displays at home for webdesign and coding etc.

and there are many of small notebooks you can buy these days for a good price ... in the range of something like 10" notebooks

this is no bigger than a 8.5 x 11 notebook great for note takign etc.

i was thinking of getting one for college work...

[brucewilsonpa]

personally i like zippy performance...

and it really depends on what your use for the said device is.. ?

is it going to be primarily a workhorse type eqiupment ?

or is it going to be a simple phone that is powerful ? ...

I think this is the key point -- and one which is acknowledged by some of those doing reviews of UMPC -- right now the UMPC's available, while pretty cool in lots of ways, still have a lot of limitations so they can't even match what our WinMobile devices can do. OTOH.... I keep asking myself if I really use all that power of my "primary" computer (core2duo laptop with lots of cpu power, ram and large HDD)..... maybe my challenge is to decide just what I really need??????

[jab]

I am curious. Has anyone used the Advantage to drive a PPT presentation on a projector? How limited is P-PPT?

That would really drive my behaviour.

[wgary]

I am curious. Has anyone used the Advantage to drive a PPT presentation on a projector? How limited is P-PPT?

That would really drive my behaviour.
I use PocketSlides from Conduits. http://www.conduits.com/products/slides/
While you do have to go through a "convert" step, I have found that it faithfully reproduces all features and layout, including most animations. Also allows editing on PPC, which for me is the downside to PocketPPT and why I have never given it a try.

I have projected presentations and videos with no problems using the VGA cable. (Other than troubles finding a video player that handles MPEG-2, which 90% of my stuff is encoded in.)

[boinger66]

I use PocketSlides from Conduits. http://www.conduits.com/products/slides/
While you do have to go through a "convert" step, I have found that it faithfully reproduces all features and layout, including most animations. Also allows editing on PPC, which for me is the downside to PocketPPT and why I have never given it a try.

I have projected presentations and videos with no problems using the VGA cable. (Other than troubles finding a video player that handles MPEG-2, which 90% of my stuff is encoded in.)
have you tried TCPMP ?

[johnwalk]

I personally think it boils down to cpu, I would love to have the ameo running vista, xp, but it would take ages to do anything. I was looking at umpc's today, "was really looking for a bluetooth mouse, no joy as usuall, thanks pcworld." and thinking, nice, but the cpu isnt that much better than my ameo, plus running vista, which is cpu hungry, I just think no, I would like one, but since I got my ameo I don't turn on my pc as much, unless im video converting or doing somthing, which a umpc would be to slow. dual core and a 64 bit operating system, I like speed.
with wm6, or 5, I can do pretty much what I need to do. and lets face it I can remote desk top if I really wanted to do somthing else while I was killing time at work.
its a nice idea, but I think after contiplating one for this lenght of time, I think WM6 is enough for what your average Joe does with it. Be it presentations, excell in my case or sending emails.
Anyway, thats my drunken opinion, and im off to bed.

[wgary]

have you tried TCPMP ?
honestly, I tried it once a while back and it really gummed things up. I do use CorePlayer, but no mpeg-2 support yet. guess I need to give tcpmp another go...

[boinger66]

honestly, I tried it once a while back and it really gummed things up. I do use CorePlayer, but no mpeg-2 support yet. guess I need to give tcpmp another go...
download the tcpmp file that mackaby posted it has all the codecs in it

[victoradjei]

download the tcpmp file that mackaby posted it has all the codecs in it

Does it have WMA support? I could not play a film with that format on tcpmp:confused:

[boinger66]

Does it have WMA support? I could not play a film with that format on tcpmp:confused:
i didnt know there were wma films...

i thought it was windows media audio .. implying audio only ?

[victoradjei]

i didnt know there were wma films...

i thought it was windows media audio .. implying audio only ?

WMV, sorry. My question still hold :confused:

[mackaby007]

WMV, sorry. My question still hold :confused:

Yes it has support, but is very poor. Corecodec are aware of this and will improve on the new Coreplayer over time, but for now, the best solution for WMV is to stick to WMP.

Personally, I detest playing vids in WMV.

[mikealder]

I am curious. Has anyone used the Advantage to drive a PPT presentation on a projector? How limited is P-PPT?

That would really drive my behaviour.
It works fine, I have just loaded a 20MB PPS file to the Hard Drive in the Ameo and it runs great via the 4in1 output cable to the projector, no video embeded, just text and photos, not quite as fast as the laptop but it certainly works well - the time lag is only apparant on certain slides with a number of pictures embeded in them - Mike

[boinger66]

so talk about getting off topic...

but anyways to get back on...

i am actually considering the htc shift... but it will really depend on its price point... as i find it would be good for me to use at school... ofcourse the athena would still be my main device