No it’s not a misprint. The title is lifted from Alexme’s forum post on the Origami Projects forum. He’d like a Q1 Ultimate, that is, his current Q1P with a few new features. Features that probably should have been there from the beginning. Features that would make it the Ultimate UMPC for him.

I have to agree with Alexme’s feature requests. They are incredibly reasonable and Samsung should have been able to deliver them. I suggest you take a look at Alexme’s post and add your own Q1 must have features.

Fake Steve Jobs has been exposed. Fake James Kendrick has exposed himself. Fake Steve Balmer is still a mystery but not as funny as fake Steve Jobs. Large parts of Pamela Anderson have been fake for years and Kevin Tofel picks this point in time to take on take on fake UMPC’s. He argues the hippie love theory of UMPC’s that anything that wants to be a UMPC can be one. That the definition is not important any more.

I disagree. I’m not arguing for a Champagne like definition of UMPC’s (if it’s not from Champagne, France you must call it sparkling something or other) but I think that some definition is important. Yes there are lots of UMPC like devices out there. An expansive definition includes the iPhone and the Nokia n800. But if someone claimed the Nokia n800 was a “Tablet PC”, the community would scream that it didn’t meet the definition of a Tablet PC. The Tablet PC community has worked hard to establish their definition.

Why is the definition important? Picture this conversation:

“What’s that?”
“It’s a Nokia n800 UMPC”
“Can I do all my normal computing tasks with it?
“No but you can do web browsing and email anywhere.”

Now one more potential UMPC user is misinformed. They see the UMPC as a Windows Mobile style device instead of a full PC and write off the whole category.

As for the iPhone, with a nod to Fake Steve Jobs, no hardcore Apple fan is going to call an iPhone a UMPC. If Apple doesn’t want to join the club leave them out! Real Steve Jobs still has a Newton shoved so far up his butt that we may never see a tablet style PC from Apple. So be it.

There is a part of me that does want to dump the UMPC definition entirely and lump all Windows based UMPC’s in with Tablet PC’s as one big category of portable computers with pens. Across the spectrum you can get touch, outdoor screens, keyboards, big, little and in between screens; big, little and in between prices. The common element is the pen, the tablet bits in windows and the ability to complete your normal work with it.

The big question in my mind is if the UMPC category is as big a flop as the media claims it is, why is everyone trying to claim to be a UMPC? We’ve seen a lot of fakes. How about some reality in the UMPC space?

The original Q1 has taken a lot of hits for having a compact flash slot. It’s considered old tech. But the CF slot holds my GPS CF card just fine and gives me GPS capability without any pieces hanging off. Sticking out maybe, but not hanging off. If this ever becomes available in the US I’ll be able to add HSDPA to my Q1 too.  Bring it on SanDisk!

Laptop Alarm is freeware designed to protect your portable computer. Simply turn it on to lock your UMPC when you walk away. If your machine is then turned off or disconnected from power a shrill alarm goes off. It works on any PC but why would you want anything other than a UMPC anyway?

I could see this being very useful for mobile types who occasionally have to walk away from their machine. Stall surfing notwithstanding, sometimes you don’t want to pack up all your stuff to run to the bathroom.

Vista is not listed as a supported OS but it works fine on my Q1 with Vista Biz.

As several folks are reporting, the venerable Q1 is back on Tablet PC Review’s list of the top 10 Tablet PC’s. Even better its at number 7, not sneaking in under the wire when no one was looking.

I must admit to being jealous of Perry’s Motion LE1700 when I saw that he had gotten a unit. Rat Bas%$#@ came to mind. But then I thought about it. I still take my Q1 to places I probably wouldn’t take a larger unit. And it’s so freakin’ light.

The old Q1 continues to hang in there. If you stick 2 gigs of ram inside it does quite well. I had some SQL work to do today that returned some good sized record sets (tens of thousands of records) and the Q1 held up well.  Results weren’t instantaneous but certainly acceptable.

So Motion or Allegiance, I’ll happily take an LE1700 review unit but for my day to day work, I’m sticking with the Q1.

I’m tweaking my Q1 with the Vista Tweaker beta. So far, it’s dead simple to use and I love the fact that it provides descriptions of what each tweak does. Every tool should provide this!

It’s a stand alone app with no install, so it’s easy to play with. If you’ve made registry tweaks to your system or are afraid of making tweaks to your system, give Vista Tweaker a look.

As promised, here’s a short video look at the LE1700 from Motion Computing.

Video: LE1700 review

LE1700 courtesy of Allegience Technology Partners.

For a full review, listen to The Tablet PC Show.