OQO Model 01+

At a time when Microsoft and Intel are touting Ultra-Mobile PCs as an entirely new product category, OQO has already moved on to its second edition. Like the original, the 14-ounce OQO Model 01+ features a five-inch display and a slide-down keyboard, but it now includes 512MB of memory, a larger 30GB hard drive, and a very welcome internal speaker. The most useful addition is the full Tablet PC OS, which opens up stylus input to handwriting recognition and a range of built-in pen-based apps.

The Model 01+ remains a technical marvel. The five-inch 800 x 480-pixel screen is remarkably usable and slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keypad. The dedicated left and right mouse buttons to the left and a very good pointing stick on the right make navigation easy. However, the bubble-topped keys are for short typing bursts only.

A packed-in cable and cradle set link the Model 01+ to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so you can effectively use it as a traveling PC and a desktop. This option works very well if you don't mind having a low-res, low-speed desktop PC.

As with the original OQO, the pokey 1-GHz Transmeta Crusoe CPU and short battery life remain weak links. At times, the Model 01+ was so sluggish that we couldn't tell if the unit was being unresponsive or catching up. The boot time was a tortuous 1 minute and 45 seconds, but the Model 01+ pops in and out of Sleep mode quickly enough. Once we got the Model 01+ booted and programs loaded, the 512MB of system RAM and Lynx 3DM+ graphics chip kept things moving at an acceptable clip.

The 802.11b networking also suffers from uneven signal strength. Worse, you can almost see the battery indicator deplete, with around two hours of active use between recharges.

The Model 01+ occupies a unique but not exactly thriving niche: It's twice the size and weight of a smart phone but less flexible and half the weight of many two-pound ultralights. Most mobile professionals will opt for one or the other, so at least until the device sports a faster processor and high-speed cellular connectivity, the OQO Model 01+ strikes us as a solution in search of a problem.