Author: Tarandeep Kaur

Posted on

OQO customer support sucks in Asia? [UMPC]

OQO customers are facing a lot of problems in providing services to the OQO owners located in Asia. Look at this reply to the customer’s repair query:

Unfortunately we are unable to ship outside of the US. If you could provide a US address that you could use then we would be able to set up an Out of Warranty RMA, but you would also need to have a credit card issued through a US bank in order to pay for the repairs. If this is not able to be done than you can go through Dynamism where the original purchase was made and they will send it to us and they will bill you. Thank You, OQO Customer Care

So, you need to have a US address + Credit Card issued via US bank.

The horror stories do not end there. It took one customer nearly 2 ½ months (living in Asia) to get his power adapter replaced. And to get the replacement, he had to specify a US address even though he had bought the device in the US itself.

Due to the poor customer support, there is no doubt that OQO has lost many of its potential customers. Those have now shifted their minds towards other netbooks/UMPCs. However, we must understand that OQO is not a big company. Most of its resources are outsourced for parts and repairs. And it is quite natural that the customers who buy these $1500+ devices are going to be angry when they will not be provided  with the service they expect. Although, it may sounds a little unfair that the US and EU/EFTA countries enjoy direct OQO support while the rest of the countries have to undergo grueling and time-consuming process to get their OQO repaired.

[related OQOtalk thread]

visit OQO official webpage

Posted on

ASUS Eee Shell ultra-thin netbook to launch in April 2009

After the nice success of their ASUS EEE S101 netbook (review), ASUS is planning to launch another ultra-thin netbook in the month of April, EEE SHELL. It will be more powerful than the ASUS EEE S101 and will have even better battery life. The price is going to be around US$486-571, which is the same price at which the ASUS EEE S101 was launched.

ASUS Eee Shell ultra-thin netbook to launch in April 2009

Folks, April is not too far away. Right? [via engadget]

Posted on

Resco Contact Manager for Windows Mobile released

Resco Contact Manager which was in BETA from the past few months has finally been released. Here is the description,

This newest addition to the Windows Mobile application family at Resco is a very promising application, which shows great potential. Resco Contact Manager is a fully touch-optimized program offering superior tools in order to manage your contacts, calls and text messages.

The application allows users to easily navigate, search quickly using letter navigation, view text message conversations in a chat-like view and much more to make phone calls and sending text messages a fun and easy activity.

Posted on

Mayakama DVD to Pocket PC 6.0 released

Folks at Mayakama have released version 6 of their most popular software, DVD to Pocket PC. DVD-to-Pocket PC allows you to watch not only DVDs, but also home movies, downloaded content and other video files on your Windows Mobile phone. Turn your phone into a Pocket Movie Player. DVD conversions are up to 4 times faster in the new version. In less than 45 minutes, you can put a full movie on your phone. Now supports the new hi-res devices such as the HTC Touch Pro2, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and Toshiba TG01.

– Rip any DVD, including copy-protected movies
– Conversion of AVI, MPEG, and DivX source files
– Fit-to-Card option (auto-adjust quality to the size of the memorycard)
– Variable quality video slider, with 5 levels of user control
– Variable quality audio slider, up to stereo CD quality sound
– Convert chapters or whole movie
– Assign any drive as the temporary disk
– 400% faster on most PCs
– New, easier wizard style user interface
– Move video back and forth between memory card and PC

Go and grab the new version from this link

Posted on

Gigabyte M1022, S1024, T1028 unveiled at CeBIT

Gigabyte is showing a slew of netbooks at CeBIT. The TouchNote T1028 and S1024 are regular tablet style UMPCs. On the other hand, the M0122 is a traditional netbook and does not come with a touchscreen unlike T1028 and S1024. We also appreciate the option of higher resolution (1388 x 768) on the 10.1-inch screen. It would the web-experience much better.

Touch Note T1028 specifications:

  • 10.1” LED Display 1024×600 or 1366 x 768
  • Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) or N280 (1.66GHz)
  • 1GB RAM (2GB Max)
  • 160GB HDD (2.5”)
  • 802.11a/b/g, 3.5G, WiMAX
  • Windows XP Home
  • 3x USB, 1x ExpressCard, Multi-card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
  • 4 Cell (4500mAh) or 6 Cell (7650 mAh) Battery

Thin Note S1024 (M/G/P)

  • Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz)
  • 10.1” 1024 x 576 LED Display
  • 1GB RAM
  • 1.8” PATA 80-120GB HDD
  • 802.11 b/g, 3.5G
  • Windows XP Home
  • Multi-card reader (MMC/SD/mSD)
  • 2x USB, 1x VGA
  • 6 Cell (3400 mAh)
  • 890g (with battery)

BookTop M1022

  • Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz)
  • 10.1” 1024 x 600 LED Display (or 1366 x 768)
  • 1GB RAM (2GB Max)
  • 2.5” 160GB HDD
  • 802.11 b/g/n, 2.1 and 3.5G, WiMAX
  • 1.3MP Webcam
  • Bluetooth
  • Windows XP Home

More pictures here

[via engadget]

Posted on

Nokia to enter Netbook market?

Nokia is in talks with the various Taiwan notebook manufactures for its possible entry to the netbook market. Compal Electronics and Foxconn are top-two potential partners, which are likely to get the order from Nokia for its netbook production. According to Digitimes, Nokia is still yet to choose between the Intel Atom platform and Qualcomm Snapdragon platform for its first netbook.

We would certainly like the Nokia to go for the Intel Atom platform as the it will let them to come out with Windows-based netbooks. Qualcomm Snapdragran is being used on the Toshiba TG01 smartphone and we would like to be a smartphone-only processor. Intel Atom or the VIA Nano are much more suitable for making powerful netbooks. Nokia MIDs (N810 and N800) could never make a big splash in either MID market or netbook market. The core reason was the use of proprietary linux distro and slow processor.

Posted on

OLPC Netbook price drop – now costs only $180

The one-laptop-per-child (OLPC)’s price has been lowered to $180. Although, not exactly $100 as it was originally rumored to, any price reduction is highly appreciated (from $204 to $180). Negroponte is going to roll out its next version of the OLPC netbook, which will sport a dualscreen with virtual keyboard on which it would be interesting to see how easy it is to type on the virtual keyboard.

[Netbookboards]

Posted on

Asus EEE PC S101H dressed in Pink released in Australia

ASUS Australia has released the pink version of the EEE PC S101. The already stunning S101 looks even more stunning in pink. One would think that the pink color is released for the women. Yes, you are right about that. But, it is actually means more than that. It also meant to support the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Hardware-wise it would be exactly same as the S101H. It can be find Myers store in Australia for AU$1,099. Yesterday, we posted the review of ASUS EEE S101, which is basically a S101H but with 2 differences:

  • different battery: 2cell vs 4cell
  • S101 uses SSD instead of HDD.

[via eeepc]

Posted on

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 having problems with the Fan?


Lenovo IdeaPad S10 is high on popularity list, but unfortunately not for the good things. The major complaint that we have come accross is that the fan in the unit constantly spins up and down. Now, you may wonder that this is a common phenomenon in notebooks and netbooks that the fan spins according to the processor utilization. But, in the Lenovo S10, the fan goes on full blast even if it is very cold and nothing is being done.

We have the Lenovo S10 review unit and we will be looking into this matter for sure. Stay tuned for the review, which will be out tomorrow or day after that.

[via engadget]

Posted on

11-inch netbooks coming in 2009

If last year was the year of rise of 10.2-inch netbooks, this year, we are going to see 11.6-inch Netbooks. Asus and Acer are planning to launch 11.6-inch netbook models with a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution. If you guys do not know, this is the same resolution that is sported by the Sony Vaio TT series and VAIO TZ series. Till now, there are three major criteria that differentiate a netbook from a notebook:

  • resolution
  • screen size
  • processor

First two are blurring away as netbook manufactures are not only bumping up the screen size, but resolution is also getting a jump from 1024 x 600. So what is next? Core 2 Duo or Celeron 2 processor in a netbook anyone?

[via digitimes]