More on TechnologyTell: Gadget News | Apple News
Samsung Origami-class tablet gets a knock in PC Mag
May 2, 2006 | 10:51 pm
|
By David Rothman
“For $1,099, you’re better off with a more capable — and keyboard-equipped — convertible tablet.” – PC Magazine review of the Samsung Q1. More reviews via jkOnTheRun.
The TeleRead take: So what about screen quality? Will this machine suffice for e-books? Here is PC Mag’s opinion without direct mention of them:
With a native resolution of only 800-by-480, the Q1′s display is sharp enough to view basic business documents…
Below the scroll button is an Auto Scaler button, handy for toggling the screen from 800-by-600 to 1,024-by-600 resolutions. You can connect to an external display via the integrated VGA port, using a handy Auto Scaler button . This is useful because when you move from a 7-inch screen to a larger display, you have to change the resolution to make it fit, most external displays are in the 4:3 aspect ratio. That’s where the 800-by-600 resolution comes in. Although 1,024–by-600 is handier for 16:9 displays, the higher resolutions are good at making everything thing fit into a 7 inch screen. Alternatively, if an application is too big for the screen, you can make it fill in better by using a higher resolution.”
My conclusion: None at this point. I need to see the Samsung display for myself. Could it be like the Pepper Pad screen–fine in the eyes of some beholders, not so fine in the eyes of others? I’ll be getting a Pepper Pad review unit in the next few weeks, by the way, to see how the recently added Mobipocket is running on it.
Related: Samsung to sell 400,000 Origami-class machines in a year? The e-book angle.
|
Previous
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Comments:
They lost me at “For $1,099″. I had the impression that these devices would cost around $600–already a hard sell. For 11 Benjamins, Origami’s should offer nothing short of full color, hi res, holographic E Ink display.
Oh well, one less ebook platform to worry about.
I don’t say this often, but PC Mag is absolutely right – for that kind of money, you can get a pretty good laptop. I like the idea, but based on my experience so far with the Fujitsu Liebook 1510D (which is much like these Origami machines, but with a keyboard attached), the battery life and aggressive brightness of the screen makes it a non-starter for e-books. You don’t get much here you won’t get from a Pocket PC except a bigger screen and more reader options…but the price premium is a bit much for that.