Vulcan FlipStart escapes vaporware status, gets reviewed

It's always fun to see a bit of vaporware finally come into existence -- if only for the clever Duke Nukem Forever jokes that invariably ensue. Well this time it's Vulcan's time to show up all the naysayers and finally get the FlipStart out the door... almost. There's actually no word on availability yet, but PC Mag got a review unit of the chubsy E-1001S and even has a pricetag for the beast: $2000. The specs are almost respectable for the size: a 5.6-inch 1024 x 600 screen, Pentium M processor, 30GB HDD, 512MB of RAM and built-in. There's touchpad up above that QWERTY keyboard, which is a nice addition in such a cramped space, along with a pointing stick for double the cursor moving pleasure. Unfortunately, PC Mag seems to have pulled the review, so we don't have much of an idea how it stacks up against the competition yet -- a certain OQO Model 02 comes to mind -- but we're sure we'll be hearing more soon.

[Via Crave]

[adam @ Mar 5th 2007 4:50PM]

i hate stupid people like you who feel the need to whore the 1st post only to say 1st post!

on topic however, i'm glad to see it finally out of vaporware status. hopefully it gets a good review once it gets reposted.

[Scabies @ Mar 5th 2007 4:53PM]

Pentium M processor, 30GB HDD, 512MB of RAM and built-in.
dood I LOVE built-in!!

[ScOObyDoo @ Mar 5th 2007 5:02PM]

It has potential I guess. But $2000 is pretty damn steep.

[Squirrel @ Mar 5th 2007 5:03PM]

Didn't expect it to be that fat...

[rock99rock @ Mar 5th 2007 5:31PM]

I remember checking the flipstart website every week or so, about three years ago, when it was half as thin as that picture up there. Fugly.

[AiboPet2003 @ Mar 5th 2007 5:06PM]

Oh goody! May finally actually get to see one of these!!

I've always been a fan of dinky little "real" computers, having owned several Toshiba Librettos and even a Palmex. Nice to see something so small without trying to reinvent the whole thing.

I can't figure out just HOW I would sit down and actually USE an OQO without carrying a bunch of keyboards, mice, wifi cards...etc. Same with the whole UMPC thing in general.

I still carry around a Libretto 110 for those times I really want to get my XPpro on (very slowly ;-) ...and don't feel like carrying the "real" laptop.

[gadjitfreek @ Mar 5th 2007 5:20PM]

The original design that was on their web page until eight weeks ago was MUCH nicer. This form factor does not appeal to me in the least. My OQO 02 will come better equipped for about the same price. Clamshell is nice...but this device is just UG-LY!

[Steve Paine @ Mar 5th 2007 5:22PM]

I managed to put all the specs together:
http://www.umpcportal.com/products/product.php?id=96
Images are there too.
Don't you just love cache's!

Steve.

[macstibs @ Mar 5th 2007 5:50PM]

512mb is a deal-breaker. Constantly paging to a 4200rpm 1.8" hd is major pita. OQO and Sony both learned that during Rev. 1.

Flipstart took three years to design this thing?? Even if you got Vista running on this thing, it would be a total dog. Basically a non-starter - sorry.

[ZSX @ Mar 5th 2007 5:52PM]

http://www.handtops.com/forum/1217/13//Flipstart_signs_of_life.html#

The review is available here, on page 13 of the handtops forum. Someone managed to catch it before they took it down.

[Kryz @ Mar 5th 2007 6:43PM]

What rock99rock said: this used to look like a funny little fellow:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&q=vulcan%20flipstart&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

That was at least a bit stylish. Now though, it looks like... Well, I don't have words for it. What a god-awful looking dwarf, it's terrible! And about people thinking the OQO is not usable: it has a stylo as well as thumbkeyboard, so in any situation you have a way to input what you would like to input. No, this ChubStart is not going to compete very well.

[Z @ Mar 5th 2007 8:38PM]

Isn't this Paul Allen's invention?

He's been trying to get this thing out the door for years.

[Joe @ Mar 5th 2007 9:33PM]

seems like pcmag.com removed their review, link only redirects to homepage.

[Robin @ Mar 5th 2007 9:34PM]

1) Too Fat
2) Not enough Memory
3) Too small hard disk
4) Too pricey

They are playing catch-up with the OQO-2 and cannot afford to be substandard in comparison (and price).

[Slaven @ Mar 6th 2007 12:19AM]

Wow, I recently gave Sony UX a spin with 1Gb of RAM, Vista and Intel Core Solo for about the same price, yet still walked away unhappy:
http://slavior.wordpress.com/2007/02/25/sony-vaio-ux380-aka-ux280-mini-review/

Good luck FlipStart!

[Robin @ Mar 6th 2007 11:01AM]

I had to post again because I found the original specs and photos at archive.org

http://web.archive.org/web/20050213074419/http://flipstart.vulcan.com/

The Flipstart has gone from a sleek and sexy machine to something that looks like a $50 DVS player from Walmart. Apparently the original design over-heated but to my mind that's not sufficient reason to sacrifice good design. If Jobs, rather than Allen, had produced this it would surely be an ultra-cool and desirable device.