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GCN Home > 10/08/07 issue

An office in your pocket

GCN Lab Test: Tiny but full-featured OQO runs a full operating system

By Michelle S. Haase

The new OQO model 02 ultramobile PC would look at home in a piano bar. We almost thought we heard jazz wafting out of the box when we opened it.

This model, the successor to the model 01+, has had a major design overhaul. The company traded in the gunmetal-gray color for black, and also rounded the left and right sides for a sleek, sophisticated look. Even the air vents look cool: Instead of a standard mesh grate, the vent covers are circles of varying sizes, making them look futuristic.

The OQO is special because it’s a tiny, one-pound device that is nevertheless a full-featured PC, running full versions of Microsoft Windows XP or Vista. That differentiates it from similar-sized portable computers on the market, which generally run abbreviated operating systems and don’t contain all of the features of a PC or laptop.

Our test unit came loaded with Windows XP and featured a 1.6 GHz VIA C7M ultralow-voltage processor, 32G solid-state disk (SSD), 1G of memory and wireless wide-area network connectivity through Verizon Wireless. Sprint service is also available. It uses the integrated Evolution-Data Optimized modem.

The SSD option offers better protection against bumps and falls than a conventional hard drive because SSDs contain no moving parts. What’s more, they contain their own CPUs to manage data storage so they are also faster. At this time, 32G is the largest SSD commonly available.

But if you need more storage space and prefer a conventional hard drive, OQO offers them in several sizes up to 120G. These drives are shock-mounted and include drop-detect technology that parks the drive when the unit enters a free fall.

We loved the WAN connectivity that tapped into Verizon’s cell phone network. It allowed us to connect to the Internet from virtually anywhere, rather than having to stay tethered to hot spots. The trade-off is that Web pages take, on average, several seconds to load, but the delay isn’t enough to significantly interfere with workflow.

The model 02 offers several other wireless options as well, including 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

The OQO is 5.6 inches long, 3.3 inches high and one inch thick. It looks like a personal digital assistant on steroids and features a magnesium-alloy case to help protect the computer from damage.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, Mobile & Wireless, Hardware



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