The
xpPhone isn't even out yet and already it has competition. ViewSonic has announced its own take on the idea of a phone with Windows XP as the OS, in the form of the VCP08. With an Intel ULV processor, half a gigabyte of RAM, and 8GB of storage, it has just about enough to let you run XP productively, and once you open up the clamshell casing you'll find a 4.3-inch display and a full QWERTY keyboard to do it with. The outside is adorned with a 2 megapixel camera, plus a 2-inch screen and numeric keypad for your old school phone needs. An asking price of $800 and what we suspect to be pretty atrocious battery life will likely be the biggest hindrances on this device's path to respectability, but all the same, we totally wanna play with one. You should mosey on past the break to find a picture of the retro-looking externals.
posted Nov 12th 2009 5:40AM
iphone.
You must be going blind too.
Tourettes?
Old-school Nokia Communicator might have been a better call, doesn't look much like an iPhone. Any Communicator fanboys out there?
This phone gets a big thumbs up for looking like a Nokia Communicator. This looks almost exactly like a successor of an E90.
Yeah, perhaps if you glued two iPhones together....
Since when does the iPhone have a physical keyboard...hinge-clasped halves for that matter?
Looks better than its competition but not sure about the navigation. XP on my phone though?? :/
Ugly on the outside, Windows XP on the inside
Inner Beauty is the Real Beauty
At least the inside and the outside match.
Ugly on the inside, Windows XP on the inside
I think full OS's on phones is the way forward.
AGREED. I've been telling people this for years. You can have a "phone" mode which is basically a skin that hides the full OS for purely phone type functions like calling and email. Then, when you want to run full OS apps, you can reveal the OS underneath. The OS would be smart enough to know its running on a phone style device which would optimize resolution, screen size, orientation, etc. But, then developers wouldn't need to develop completely new apps, just tweak regular apps written for full Windows. I don't know, maybe crazy, but I just feel just as convergence of hardware is the way forward, so it convergence of the OS!!
So...are we the only three people that think this way? I've been telling people for years, my "perfect" computer would be one that had a beautiful but simple touch-screen interface while mobile, and when I get to my desk, one port that plugs into a cable and breaks out to a keyboard/mouse/display port, so I can use it as an actual computer.
Obviously to this point, the power to drive a full-OS just wasn't there, but I think we're on the cusp of that being a possibility. I'd love to see an absolutely lite version of Windows 7 running on my phone. Obviously that requires an x86-compatible smartphone CPU, but...it could happen...
Agreed. You said it all.
I like it.Although if they upped the storage to 20Gb that would make it perfect. :)
It's already got more space than my EEE 900. And I paid 500 (five hundred) just to be the first to have the 9" EPC.
Why the hell is ViewSonic making a phone and releasing it in china of all places? Aren't they American and based in California?
lol
It is like the all-american Ford.... build in Brazil.
Take note than most american corporation are anything but loyal to their respective countries, specially Apple
Did you actually read the article?
This is from the Google Translation: "The official said, according to ViewSonic, VCP08 PC Phone Europe and the United States market price is 800 U.S. dollars, equivalent to about 5,000 yuan."
That indicates it's coming out in Europe and the US first.
The gloss is making me giddy.
That keyboard looks really nice
holy hell...whats the battery life..2 nanoseconds? is it nuclear? no it can't play crysis, but its jealous!...does it blend?...well captain kirk might think so
Many things blend if you use a phaser on them first.
That sure is a glossy keyboard ^^.
*photoshop fail*
This is a serious question, but would it be possible to run World of Warcraft on this? (yes, i know that almost all of 8GB of storage will be pretty much used up)
I seriously doubt it, but it can probably run Warcraft 2
Author forgot to mention it has apps, obviously, about 10 million at launch?
I'm ready for some good DOOM action meself... what the hell, just toss some "Alone In The Dark" while commuting... that'd be a gas fo' sure!
is this a clamshell or a slider?
Make this with exact same phone with android and I'm in. Touchscreens are for teenagers and their wannabes. Real professionals use Querty!
"Touchscreens are for teenagers"
You mean people who still have the reflexes to type on them?
You might be old and busted, but don't hate.
"... QWERTY keyboard WITH WHICH to do it ..."
xp on a phone? really, guys? the layer on it to make it phoneable on a day to day basis means its probably XP on a technical basis only. just what i need-BSOD on a phone
isn't battery life more important than features on a phone? I coudn't imagine a full-fledged OS getting very good battery life
The answer is... it depends...
Hopefully they did this right; which means an "always on" operating system (such as WinCE, Android, or WinMo6.5... but my bet is on WinCE) that handles the phone software, PIM, email, IM, etc. That means decent battery life.
You only have to wake up XP for the serious desktop application sort of work. Of course, once you do that, your battery life will be only measured in minutes... 90 minutes if you are lucky.
Think of it as a slimmed down modern version of the Shift. If they did the dual OS correctly, it will be a winner. If they rely on WinXP to handle your phone calls, it will be a big time loser. BSOD discussions aside.
that looks really nice... reminds me of my old Nokia communicator i had
I can recognize an optical mouse on the top rigt keyboard corner
and left and right mouse click on the top left corner.
I want it.