Nice but flawed. | Samsung Q1 7" Ultra Q1U-V (Intel A110 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)

It's almost perfect - after a few tweaks. | Samsung Q1 7" Ultra Q1U-V (Intel A110 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)

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	• Samsung Q1 7" Ultra Q1U-V (Intel A110 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium) Samsung Samsung average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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Q1 Ultra - an innovative UMPC

I've tested various UMPCs, and this one is very innovative and fits my needs quite well. The keyboard is small like many say, but you can get used to it (as long as you don't have really large hands). The screen is touch only (no active digitizer), so you'll run into significant vectoring issues. The processor is slow, but in return you get excellent battery life. So, as long as you're not looking for the performance of a dual-core processor, you'll be able to run your basic office applications and stay productive with extended use times. Finally, the best part of this unit is that it stays relatively cool in your hands compared to many other UMPCs I've tested. I would recommend upgrading it to 2 GB of RAM and running XP instead of Vista.

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Nice but flawed.

First and foremost, it works and works well. Both with the original 60GB disk (I used a 4GB "EP" SD chip for ReadyBoost) and with a SanDisk SSD I fitted (look up Hugo Ortega for how) it works at nice speed. The screen is clear and bright, you need good eyesight of course.
The flaws:
- WiFi range mediocre. At home it failed to work in a room where several other devices worked fine. Set up the WiFi in a place where signal is known strong otherwise you will go nuts trying to juggle the mystery messages in the setup screens.
- the mouse thingy at the left is virtually unusable. Last resort. It is a joystick but it either zooms or crawls, does not seem to have much dynamic range. Fortunately you can use the cursor or a fingernail.
- the screen does NOT allow you to rest your hand on it, the sensor will not be able to figure out the stylus. This makes handwriting a bit awkward since you need to rest your hand somewhere and almost everything has some kind of button or sensor on it. Portrait-right mode is the best for right-handed since the lower edge is clear of gadgets.
- the split keyboard is not very good. Not because it is split, but because the buttons are just too easily mistaken and also the choice of what is on the buttons is awkward. It works, but not any faster than stylus onscreen. For logins if you have a "strong" password you will go nuts trying to get your password right.
- THE THUMB READER IS MISSING. Despite it being in all the images on Amazon, the model they ship does not have the reader. And I still have not been able to figure out if Samsung will agree to sell it separately.
- the velour sleeve supplied has effectively no protection. You will want something to carry this safely.

Battery life seems good, there seems to be minimal crapware installed, in many ways this is a good experience. But there could be definite improvements. Handwriting recognition is fast and accurate. It is a bit large to be a pocket machine but is quite unobtrusive in a bag. It is big enough to show email, documents, and web quite clearly.

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It's almost perfect - after a few tweaks.

Let me start by saying that out of the box this product would never receive 4 stars. This is why; Vista on 1Gb of ram just won't do.

Samsung have clearly listened to some complaints as my unit did not come with McAfee installed, in fact that amount of bloatware was very limited. Upon booting the device installs itself, then needs an hour to create a backup on its drive. Which is annoying because it places it on a hidden partition swallowing up 13Gb of storage (of your 60Gb).

The touch settings in Vista are pretty bad by default, so you really need to tweak those a lot to get them right (turn off the silly mouse "help" pointer, enable the keyboard instead of handwriting recognition etc...).

After that you need to do something mean to it; rip it open and swap out the 1Gb module for a 2Gb one. It's not for everyone but there are some very handy video tutorials online. All you need is a small screwdriver and steady hands. The 2Gb module (2Gb DDR2 notebook memory) cost me $49. With 2Gb you'll notice a MASSIVE increase in speed. Applications now run smoothly, open fast and there is little to no disk memory swapping. But like I said; it's not a question of an easy to open panel, you need to remove the entire backside of the machine to reach the ram. Why Samsung don't just deliver it with 2Gb is beyond me.

Once you have upgraded the ram and tweaked the OS you need to turn off the Vista indexing service (google it), this reduces the amount of drive accesses for indexing your files. All that does is help with file searches which you probably rarely do anyway.

Now with 2Gb, better tweaks and some services turned off you'll want to turn off the Vista Aero settings (once again; google it).

It's taken you 2 hours, but now you have a PERFECT speedy little UMPC that runs nice and fast.

Some general observations:

The mouse pointer is beyond useless. It has little to no acceleration, use the stylus and keep the mouse in joystick mode, it'll make scrolling much easier.

The "dialpad" popup keyboard is horrendous, ignore it and never touch it again.

The keyboard on the device itself is for emergencies only. Because that is about the only time you'll put yourself through the agony of typing something on it. The best and (in my opinion) fastest way to type is with the on screen keyboard, or the (optional) Samsung portable keyboard (or any small keyboard of your choice). The Samsung is listed for $89, but comes with a built in eraserhead mouse. Amazon has a folding Bluetooth keyboard for $29 which is a great option for this machine.

Audio is impressive, nice and loud.

Wifi is great, it connects much faster than my Dell XPS notebook and never drops a signal.

The device boots in under a minute and wakes from sleep in around 12 seconds (including connecting to wifi).

The screen is perfect; great resolution and extremely bright and sharp.

Heat is an issue. It DOES get warm, but never to the point where it will burn you or that it becomes too hot to handle.

The Microsoft Origami interface is awesome. Anyone that has seen Media Center will recognize the look and feel. It's a media center/application launcher optimized for touch screens.

Bluetooth is stable, they use the Widcomm Bluetooth stack (which put simply means they use a third party company for the Bluetooth software and not the limited Microsoft package).

The package is a little limited. You get the unit, a charger, a battery, a wrist strap (that also works as a handle, very clever) and a cheap (poor quality) case. In my opinion Samsung should have delivered it with the organizer case and a keyboard, but I fully understand they wanted to keep costs low on it.

All in all it's a winner. I picked it over the competition (Sony UX380 or the OQO model II) because of the screen and the fact that I can upgrade the Ram. The Sony is limited to 1Gb no matter what you do, and the OQO is underpowered with a VIA cpu. Even though this device is only 800MHz I felt that it ran faster than the OQO model II I tested. It also has the perfect screen size to resolution ratio. The Sony has a higher resolution screen, but is 2 inches smaller making it near impossible to work on for longer durations.

My only real annoyance with Samsung is the model numbering on the Q1 ultra series. First of all; calling it Q1 was plain stupid. The previous model was also called Q1, and it's nothing like this machine, so google searches for "q1 ultra" return 100's of hits on "q1 ultra portable" which is usually NOT this device. Note to Samsung; next time, call it Q2.

Then the various models of the Q1 Ultra; they make one with no Bluetooth or cameras, one with Vista, 2 cameras and Bluetooth but no fingerprint scanner, one with XP, 2 cameras, Bluetooth and a fingerprint scanner and several others. All with cryptic names. Bad move. It's near impossible to determine what the exact specifications are of this machine.

All in all I can highly recommend the Samsung Q1 Ultra for people shopping for an ultra portable PC. If you use Skype, Office, Internet Explorer/Firefox, Mail and most other basic applications you will be very happy (once again; only on 2Gb). It won't do well on heavy applications like video editing or graphic designs.

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Shed your arsenal of gadgets while on the go--your notebook PC, PDA, and MP3/PMP player--and replace them all with the incredibly small yet amazingly powerful Samsung Q1 Ultra V Mobile PC (model NP-Q1UA0000). This next-generation UMPC improves on its predecessor with a QWERTY keyboard on the front (split in half on either side of the 7-inch touchscreen), a slimmed down weight, increased battery life of up to 4.5 hours, and Intel's new ultra-low voltage mobile processor that's designed specifically for UMPCs. And in addition to wireless access via Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth (through a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone), this Q1 Ultra can access HSDPA cellular broadband networks with a separately available modem for ubiquitous, on-the-go 3G wireless connectivity (requires separate activation with cellular provider).

Weighing just 1.52 pounds and measuring less than 1 inch thick, the sleek, elegant Q1 Ultra CMXP has a pearl black casing and can be carried in a small briefcase, daypack or handbag. Yet it offers a full range of computing power normally associated with a laptop computer thanks to its Windows Vista Premium operating system. Other features include a 60 GB hard disk drive, 1 GB of RAM (400 MHz), the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator video card offers up to 128 MB of shared video memory allocated from the system, 10/100 Ethernet networking, two USB ports, and a VGA port for connecting to a monitor. Take advantage of enhanced power-management features to use the Q1 away from your desk for longer periods of time with up to 4.5 hours of battery life using the included 4-cell standard battery--or an astonishing 11 hours with the optional 8-cell power bank.

The 800 MHz Intel Ultra Mobile processor A110 is based on the Intel Pentium M processor, and it delivers an innovative collection of energy-efficient silicon building blocks and technologies designed to enable the productivity, security and manageability capabilities you expect from a PC. It also offers a 512 KB L2 cache and 400 MHz front-side bus (FSB). (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.)

Windows Vista Home Premium is the operating system for users with advanced computer needs, and it includes all of the Windows Media Center capabilities. Every edition of Windows Vista provides the essential tools and technologies to help protect you whether you are browsing the Internet, connecting to a wireless network, or just reading e-mail. All editions of Windows Vista include new tools that can warn you of impending hardware failures long before you have lost any important personal data. And, all Windows Vista editions include parental control features that allow you to manage and monitor your family's use of games, the Internet, instant messaging, and other activities.

New Design for Easier Productivity
The integrated split-QWERTY keypad is located to the left and right of the LCD. Positioned ideally for thumb input, you can now respond quickly to emails, instant messages, update presentations and spreadsheets, and more without the need of a virtual, on-screen or external keyboard. The Q1 Ultra is equipped with a 7-inch widescreen WSVGA LCD touch screen that boasts a native, high-resolution of 1024 x 600. The new, LED backlit LCD supports 300nits of brightness, making the Q1 Ultra ideal for both indoor and outdoor applications.

Facilitating seamless communications across a range of environments, the Q1 Ultra features a 300 pixel webcam, along with a high-performance dual-array microphone, enabling face-to-face video chatting/video conferencing. Additionally, a high-resolution 1.3-megapixel camera supports video recording and still pictures, allowing you to simply snap and send videos/photographs with a single device.

With the integrated Bluetooth technology, you can connect wirelessly to peripherals such as your cell phone and make cable clutter a thing of the past. Bluetooth 2.0+EDR is up to three times faster than its predecessors, offering a maximum data rate of 3Mbps, and is also backwards-compatible with Bluetooth 1.x devices. It also offers 54g Wi-Fi connectivity (802.11b/g) for downloading email and surfing the Web in both corporate and coffeehouse environments.

Instant Media Gratification
The instant-on AVS Multimedia features allow you to experience movies, photos and music the touch of a button and without having to boot the Windows operating system. The Q1 Ultra supports many video formats--including AVI, DVD, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD, ASF and TS--and is also compatible with MP3 and WMA audio files. You can listen to your music or movies privately using the headphone jack, or using the built-in speakers with enhanced SRS TruSurround sound. Treat friends and family to photo slideshows and easily access your picture library with the AVS Now thumbnail gallery, which makes it easy to scroll through your entire photo collection.

Ultra-fast Mobile Broadband
This version of the Q1 Ultra is compatible with Samsung's optional HSDPA cellular modem. High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is a new form of mobile broadband that is capable of transmitting data at speeds up to seven times faster than the best 3G networks in existence. By improving downlink capacity, and so removing this potential bottleneck, HSDPA allows you to enjoy large-scale multimedia downloads, such as DVD-quality movies and interactive multimedia games, with high-speed wireless Internet access comparable to speeds of fixed-line ADSL services.

What's in the Box
Q1 Ultra Ultra Mobile PC (Q1U-V; NP-Q1UA0000), stylus, AC adapter, 4-cell standard lithium-ion battery, printed operating instructions. Pre-installed software includes AVStation Now 5.0 MultiMedia, SRS TruSurround Sound, McAfee Virus Scan (30-day trial), and Adobe Reader. It's backed by a 1-year warranty for parts and labor.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3