OQO model e2

OQO’s model e2 is a truly stylish UMPC. The jet-black aluminium frame has a reassuring heft, which makes the e2 feel expensive from the off. It’s not overly heavy though, and at just 500g, it’ll sit in a jacket pocket.

Slide the spring-loaded display upwards and a full Qwerty keyboard is revealed. Well, when we say full, all the letters are present and correct, but a Function key allows every key to double up with a secondary function. Unfortunately, this is where the problems begin. It’s not comfortable to sit and type in a conventional two-handed fashion, particularly as you can’t tilt the screen towards your typing position, and the small size of the keys makes the two-thumbed alternative even more fiddly.

Typing in short bursts, entering web addresses or composing brief emails for example, isn’t too painful an experience, but embark on a whole paragraph and you’ll find that errant key presses will see you resorting to the Delete key all too frequently. The barely legible font on the keys themselves is one of OQO’s less sensible design choices and, when you factor in the entire absence of a Windows key, you have all the ingredients for mild aggravation.

The cramped keyboard layout isn’t helped by the fact that OQO has squeezed in a trackpoint that sits under the right thumb and two mouse buttons, which sit under the left. But although the keyboard is undeniably compromised, the trackpoint is an unmitigated success — tactile, responsive and eminently usable even on the move.

Shrinking a fully working PC down and cramming it into a handheld device means that, inevitably, compromises have to be made along the way. Indeed, the OQO’s 5” display might be a touch limited by its native resolution of 840 x 480, but the image quality is superb. There’s not a hint of graininess and the panel is stupendously bright — transfer a few movies onto the ample 60Gb hard disk and the quality is enough to rival, if not embarrass, even the best dedicated PMPs. The ambient light sensor that adjusts screen brightness to your surroundings is a nice touch, too.

Performance, unsurprisingly, lags a good way behind that of a comparably priced ultra-portables. The ultra-low-voltage VIA C7-M processor has a single core running at a modest 1.5GHz and while it’s enough to keep XP Professional operating relatively smoothly, it’s still way behind Intel’s ULV processors in terms of performance. There’s enough power for office work, but demand too much of it and everything grinds to a halt. The e2 is also available with a 1.6GHz processor, but the extra 100MHz isn’t going to drastically improve performance.

It’s a shame that the keyboard puts such an unsightly blot on the e2’s copybook as there are elements of great design to be found throughout the e2. Like all UMPCs, its low screen resolution can leave option boxes and ‘OK’ buttons hiding tantalisingly off-screen, but OQO has thought of this. The zoom buttons beneath the mouse buttons let you use higher resolutions, such as 1000 x 600 and 1280 x 720, for just those moments. Of course, image quality suffers as a result, but being able to switch resolutions with a tap of a button is infinitely preferable to battling through Windows’ menus each and every time. Conversely, the zoom buttons also make it possible to quickly zoom in to make sense of complex documents. The touchscrollers at the bottom right of the screen are similarly handy and make light work of navigating huge spreadsheets.

But what’s truly novel about the e2 is that OQO has obviously spent time thinking about how to actually make it useful. Be in no doubt, you’re paying a premium for the privilege of owning the first practical UMPC, but despite that obscene price tag, dodgy keyboard and sluggish performance, the e2 still sets the benchmark to which all other UMPCs must now aspire.

Specifications

IA C7-M ULV (1.5GHz), 1Gb RAM, 60Gb hard disk, 5” screen (800 x 480), 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, Windows XP Professional, Part code SKU-1030103, Warranty 1 year limited
Size 142 x 84 x 25mm
Weight 500g
Battery Life 2h 57
Recharge time 1h 59