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Preview of the FlipStart micro PC
By Oliver Rist | March 8, 2007, 7:28 pm
Just banged this out for InfoWorld; a preview of Vulcan’s FlipStart mini-PC. The idea is to be as portable as a phone but as useful as a notebook. Soon as something gets smaller it suddenly scores huge cool points, but as I’m holding the thing, I must say: I have serious doubts.
This thing is the size of a thick Gameboy, but with a clamshell design. Has a 1GHz Intel Pentium M in there with 512MB of RAM, just under 30GB of storage, Intel embedded graphics and runs Windows XP Pro. (And, no, I didn’t forget the CD/DVD drive, it doesn’t have one.) Supposed to run Vista Business, too, but they weren’t sending that out since these are still beta units.
Only had it for a day so far, but InfoWorld really wanted a preview piece so I cooked one up. A more in-depth review will follow. For now, tho, my biggest disappointment is that it’s not as portable as a phone and nowhere near as useful as a notebook–mainly because that keyboard is useless. As in, ‘without useful purpose.’ Imagine the QWERTY keys on a smartphone like my Motorola Q, then make them about two millimeters larger in diameter and space them from each other by a few more millis as well. Leave the key feedback the same–that smartphone hard press ‘click’ thing. That’s the keyboard.
Hey, I’m a big guy, but not freakishly big. Shaq would still look down when speaking to me; Pussy Soprano is definitely wider than I am; and when I walk down the street I look over most people but I’m not getting slapped in the face by errant birds or anything. AND YET I can put the tip of my index finger on the FlipStart keyboard and easily cover two keys–sometimes three depending on location. No way I can work like that.
Plus, I’m still goggled over 30GB of storage. My Zen has more than 30GB of storage for chrissakes. This thing needs a redo. In the preview, I compared it to the Flybook I wrote about back in January from the CES 2007 show. Now THAT was cool electronics. Bigger than the FlipStart, but still in ultra-portable range. Turned into a tablet, has wireless broadband (like the FlipStart) but could take a phone SIM so you can actually turn the PC into a cell phone (not the FlipStart, tho that would make loads of sense in this device), had a built-in GPS and…a real keyboard. It cost more than the FlipStart, but the Flipper still isn’t cheap at just under two grand.
I haven’t given up on it, but that killer application better hit me soon.
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