OQO brings the OQO Model e2 to Europe
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted Sep 17th 2007 9:22AM
posted Sep 17th 2007 9:22AM
OQO has finally brought its wares to the rest of the world with the introduction of the Model e2, the opening of an international office in the UK, and the hiring of a former Palm Europe Executive. In case you were wondering, the Model e2 appears identical to North America's OQO Model 02, albeit with a UK style keyboard. For now, distribution is limited to eXpansys, Portix, and Dynamism, shipping at prices between £846 and £1,359.95. Yeah, the same kind of "price parity" Europeans have long enjoyed applies to the OQO Model 2s, too.
Nice package. I could use that as a PMP/PDA if it had WiFi, decent storage and long battery life.
Who needs that if you have an iPhone?
Someone that actually need to work
@ Constables
The 02 does have Wi-Fi
to Macindows:
People who don't like Apple.
I don't need a cellphone and I'm looking for at least 30 GB storage.
Funny, I was at Wired NextFest in LA yesterday, and in a period of about five minutes at the OQO booth I overheard not just one, but two people say out loud "Oh - so it's kinda like the iPhone except not as good?". Ouch.
???
The OQO isn't a PDA, it's a full Windows PC! No hacking needed to run 3rd party apps ;)
I'm in the UK and bought a OQO Model02 from Expansys as soon as they had them available (a couple of months ago) and now they've brought out a UK-specific version. Doh! If the only change is the addition of £ to the keyboard then I don't mind too much.
I ordered an OQO 02. It arrived broken. I RMAd it. Got a second one. It was broken.
I cancelled my third order after they dicked me around on my third replacement and took weeks and weeks to process it.
I'm furious at OQO. I bought my Model 15 weeks ago, and it has been having lock-up problems since the day I received it. It's still under the 1-year warranty, so I thought I was covered, right? Well, it turns out that their tech supports is very unreliable. In retrospect, I *should* have returned it within the 30-day money back guarrantee and suffered the 15% restocking fee, but it's far too late for that now.
I've re-imaged it twice myself, and for the past 15 weeks, have been following OQO tech support's instructions in trying to figure out the issue. I've even sent it in for repair, and all they did was add scratches to it, and send it back to me still broken! I've been paying $60/month on top of that to Sprint, for a device that I cannot use for more than 15 minutes before it locks up!
Because of all of this, I recently asked for a return-for-credit, or at least allow me to upgrade to the newer model (I offered to pay the difference), but after 20 days, I got denied. They're saying that I'm effectively stuck with this broken unit, but that they're willing to re-image it themselves (never mind that they've already scratched it up)!
I'm fed up with this. 15 weeks of this is enough. I urge you to heed this warning and STAY AWAY from OQO! Even if you get a unit that works properly right out of the box, if anything goes wrong with it, you're likely to get tremendous headaches dealing with their tech support/customer support.
Furiously,
-Dan.
PS: I'll keep updating this website with the full transcripts of my conversations with OQO at: http://dan.bourque.googlepages.com/oqotroubles
Cheers,
-Dan.