Compal, other manufacturers skeptical of MIDs
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 22nd 2009 6:29AM
posted April 22nd 2009 6:29AM
posted April 22nd 2009 6:29AM
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It's a niche market. If they at least cost as much as a comparable netbook, I'd be the first in line.
That niche being? People on TV and in movies who use them mostly to manipulate the power grid, the FBI's databases, or to reprogram nuclear ICBMs.
Who would have thought that surfing on the toilet is not the market we once thought it was.
i want that hardware as a phone...
Me too.
It's funny. I find Netbooks to be ridiculous, neither large enough to be useful or small enough to be truly portable. The MID on the other hand is much more reasonable, drop it in a bag like you do any cell phone. I'd prefer something like the N810, but incorporating a phone, so it's 1 device I need to carry.
MID's will rule... no one will want to carry an almost laptop, they'll want to carry something just slightly larger than a phone.
As stated, price is out of line. If they cost the same as netbooks, people would prefer MID's I think.
I should mention that I recently borrowed an N800 from a friend and I've been using it quite a lot for both jotting down my thoughts and for work. I love it and now find it indispensable... whatever phone / device I buy will be at least as portable and functional, but I will not carry or use a Netbook in a crowded subway. I would use a medium sized (Kindle or Sony eReader) slate tablet with touch screen... that would be ideal.
Love the cat picture.
Sorry! I quit.
Awwwww.
needs more LOL
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/funny-pictures-cat-is-excited-you-got-him-a-nice-butt-warmer.jpg
As noted by ALL comments prior to mine, everybody wants a MID but want it to functional, i.e.: it must assemble all capabilities and prerogatives of a top notch smartphone, a PMP, and approach the browsing and computing power of a netbook.
Such a device would render obsolete netbooks , not the other way around.
It seems that Archos and Texas instruments realized this and promised to deliver such a device quite a long time ago , but since then the project seems to have moved in vaporware land.
Toshiba's maybe will put the necessary features in their new TG02 and 03 but nobody yet knows for sure; and THC's Thoth is still just a project for a distant future.
I think that the main reason this MID/smartphone/PMP/GPS/Videocam/ dream device is nowere to be found, (although the technology to produce it has existed for years) is that all producers are afraid to cannibalize their lines of netbooks and smartphones in which they have already invested considerable sums of money , before the investments have fully payed off.
Exactly. People are not going to flock to an $800 to $1400 device that doesn't do everything they need or want, when a $300 device does almost all of it. The MID could, but the manufacturers aren't yet interested, I don't know why.
I should correct myself by saying, no one is interested in a Mobile INTERNET device only... it has to do a lot of other things. Netbooks can do a lot of things which makes them popular, but literally, MID's are not useful enough... I hope that point was clear even though it wasn't clearly stated.
A PMP / MID / Phone / PDA / etc device in 1 is what I have been waiting for. Must have useful productivity software otherwise, don't bother. Word, PDF, Note, Handwriting, Sketching. I believe I'm describing a UMPC that isn't $2000. :o
I don't see how a MID or netbook does it all. The key missing feature for me is PIM functionality with alarms. This requires an OS that remains on all day long, or wakes from sleep instantly. A MID or netbook (w/ XP) that is powered off to save power doesn't do me any good when I miss a meeting, or don't get notified that an important email has arrived.
What I want in a MID is 3G and either a) 24+ hour battery life, b) an OS that can wake from sleep on alarm/notification, and takes less than 3 seconds to do so, or c) a dual OS platform that allows me to run XP and thus all Windows-based application, while switching to Windows Mobile for around the clock PIM functionality.
I'd gladly fork over $700+ for a compact, all purpose MID/Smartphone.
Look, I and many others TRIED MIDs.
We spent the money and the time and we got rid of them because they didn't do enough well enough to justify carrying them around.
I went netbook and it fit the bill. -others did too.
I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the MIDs but after the first review I thought it was not the product for me. It was too expensive, the battery life was horrible and it was just too big. I was thinking it might find a niche market but I didn't know who was their target, I thought I was at first. The concept plain doesn't work, if I were one of the manufacturers I would have pulled the plug when the first reviews came out.
i only read this because of that cat picture.
me too. it's so kewt
I wonder if Apple has anything to say about that.
I see this more like a pricey-PMP than an actual computer. If I want a small computer, I'll go with a netbook.
that should be less pricey but it is quite the extensive piece of machine for your buck!~
exact same keyboard as my touch pro o.0
There are certain tasks that they're really great for, but it just happens to be mostly tasks that the average joe on the street doesn't really need. Plus, as smartphones get smarter, there's more and more overlap between their abilities.
I think it's telling that netbooks have been getting bigger, with 10" screens now common. Basically, the bigger it is the easier it is to use as a notebook: more screen real estate, larger keyboard.
Blackberries and smartphones only work as well as they do because the software is designed around the hardware.
MIDs won't take off until they stop trying to be little notebooks and start acting like smartphones.
I disagree.
We already have smartphones. They run all day long, but they don't allow one to run the multitude of Windows-based software.
We have netbooks. They run all the PC software that I'd like to carry with me, but they don't run all day long.
The missing middle ground is where the MID should exist. I'd gladly give up the 90% size keyboard (a slider would suffice) if I could get the all day functionality of a smartphone, instant on w/ alarms and notifications of my PDA, and the ability to run PC software when necessary.
A dual OS solution would probably work. Most of the time it would be running a mobile OS, e.g. Windows Mobile, which would give all day usability, but then quickly boot up into XP when needed. Shutting down XP would put it back into Windows Mobile.
I have an N800. I like it, but not as a MID. I use it with a Bluetooth GPS, media player (local and streaming), and SSH. The web browser is slow enough to be frustrating most of the time, and downright unusable once in a while.
It also make a good companion for my phone (N95), being able to view pictures taken by browsing the phone over BT, and transferring back and forth.
I think the biggest problem with netbooks is that they really aren't useful while standing up, or sitting on a park bench. And for my eyes, the screens are too small for use with a traditional "start menu" desktop. A touch screen would help with a UI designed for it, but then you're back to the MID form factor again.
I'm excited by the idea of the N900 (the next gen Nokia), since it's going to have the latest OMAP processor and much more system RAM. That should make the browser perform better.
If there is enough profit per device to make the manufacture of these MIDs worthwhile, there will be people who buy them, and so they will be an economically viable niche market. The successful companies in this market will recognize that the main driver for buyers is features, not cost, and not try to turn the MID into a low end commodity market like the netbooks.
I am lucky enough to have a good job, and this is my indulgence. I don't smoke, don't drink and don't care for fancy cars, my wife is low maintenance and has a job that pays well too. So dammit, I am willing to fork out for this cool toy. She can have her shoes and purses.
The perfect device - 5" quality touchscreen screen, 200 grams, Windows XP, appropriate connectivity and a quality keyboard - is worth 1000$ to me. So var the Viliv S5 is closest, and I think my perfect device is within reach.
It is obvious there will not be a high volume market for MIDs. They don't do any one important job better than any other device, and most people are not going to blow a thousand bucks on a toy. But plenty of smart companies find a niche and generate a steady stream of income from it. This could be a very good niche to be in, especially as much of the technology used to make a good MID can be exploited in other applications, often industrial ones, where the profit margins are much better than in the consumer marketplace.
Where can you find a low maintenance wife? Was that an upgrade, or did you have to wait for the service pack?
I'd say cumulative application of service packs. The first 3-5 years were high maintenance and costly financially and at times stressful, but things definitely have improved with continued use of the product and preventative maintenance permitting avoidance of unnecessarily urgent (and costly) repairs, as well as changing service requirements as the years passed by.
Of course, a fundamentally stable operating system and hardware at the initial encounter is the basic reason why things have worked out well.
Cheers.
i'm highly interested in the CrunchPad.
That to me is the right thing for MID. It gets the touch panel in people's hands finally, and very well i'd surmise.
I work for this kind of manufacturer to do MID. My boss and I do NOT think it will be successful for only one reason. this MID stuff is what CPU company want to make money out of supplier and consumer. They promote some application that we are not sure if it is useful. Once this company found its processor sells better in netbook, this company will let MID die.......
To promote something that is only good for it product is not a good business model.
I don't think there is any room left between a good large-screen smartphone like the iPhone et al and a netbook/ultraportable with a much larger screen and full-size keyboard. What functionality does a MID provide that a future 3.5" touchscreen/dual-core Smartphone doesn't provide? It surely can't fill in for the full typing of a netbook?
How about the ability to run XP, and the millions of applications available on that OS? Not every application requires a full keyboard.
As I mentioned previously, the current lineup of MIDs has not differentiated itself from the smartphones or netbooks. My perfect MID would combine a smartphone and a netbook, allowing one to boot into XP when needed, but otherwise it would run Windows Mobile, providing an extended battery life.
Didn't want to post anything about this at first cuz I thought it was crazy, but Qualcomm will probably take most of the MID (and some UMPC) share within the next 2 years. When I read all the stuff about Intel's Moblin and the recent talk about "netbooks, MIDs and UMPCs were meant for simple tasks like web browsing, music and video playback and document viewing and editing" it was clear that ARM SoCs would try to get into the market. With the Snapdragon SoC Qualcomm could easily take the MID market from Intel because they have all the essentials integrated into the chip. Plus with the newer dual-core ATI-graphics-infused version slated for later this year at least half of the MIDs UMPCs and netbooks in late 2009/early 2010 will be based on the snapdragon chip because Intel's Atom TDP just isn't low enough and even with the Moorestown platform, you still need the communications chip plus Lincroft and Langwell. Intel's chips are x86 compatible yes, but by hyping a new and generally unfamiliar Linux software stack they're bringing Moorestown down to the level of ARM SoCs like the TI OMAP and Qualcomm's Snapdragon. In my opinion, for Intel's MID dream to work out great in the midst of chips from Freescale, TI and especially Qualcomm, their x86 microarchitecture will have to be further die-shrinked, integrated and the total dissipated power will have to be further reduced. I'm a big fan of Intel's UMPC and MID chips and was really looking forward to the promised sub $500 communication devices but it was a big flunk cuz 1 year later truly connected Atom-based MID's are still hard to find (with the exception of the OQO 02+) and remember it's been 2 years since the emergence of the Stealey. Qualcomm has promised sub $500 MIDs with all the familiar connectivity and I hope they deliver.
By the way some popular Linux distros like Ubuntu and Fedora have now been ported to the ARM architecture, so it's just a matter of time before ARM SoCs level the playing field.
This here is my 2c!