'90s Newton Beats New Windows UMPC

[profdlp]

In the market for an Ultra Mobile PC? Might want to try eBay.

http://www.short-media.com/images/newsimages/2006/July/newton_feature.jpg

We pitted the Apple Newton Messagepad against the latest Samsung Q1 ultra-mobile PC (Origami project), and -- despite being a decade old -- the Newton won. Find out why by checking out the blow-by-blow account here.

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Apple launched the Newton over ten years ago, but it failed to capture the public's imagination and was ultimately discontinued. Many critics held the view that the Newton failed, not because it was a badly designed product, but because it was simply ahead of its time -- a market for ultra-mobile computers simply didn't exist back then.

A decade on and it seems we've learnt little about mobile computer design. Apple's Newton trumped Samsung's offering with two knockout punches in our head-to-head battle. We feel the title is well earned, what do you think?
As one might imagine, there are a large number of comments in the Talkback section of the article.

Source: c|net (http://crave.cnet.co.uk/handhelds/0,39029444,49282366,00.htm)

[GHoosdum]

That was rather silly...

[Jengo]

you know, come to think of it, that is pretty stupid... the iQ is supposed to be a beat'em all portable computer, not a beat'em all portable computer with 2 and a half hours of battery life, how dumb. And it really is sad that the newton, almost 10 years old gets better battery life.

its kind of like my stupid PSP, i really like my psp dont get me wrong, but whenever i finally get into a game and am really enjoying myself... guess what... the battery is always dying... that never happens on my DS

[drasnor]

Actually, Newtons really were hardcore. Our school used to have Newton eMate 300's (a clamshell design with keyboard and stylus-screen, PCMCIA slots, full I/O for the times, etc.) I keep looking for a broken one to mod.

-drasnor :fold:

[TheSmJ]

I read the article, and the Samsung tablet looks a whole lot better to me. The newton only has a greyscale screen (and only 256 shades of grey), and is missing a bunch of features that modern computers need.

Sure, the battery life of the Samsung is stupidly low, but that aside it runs circles around the Newton. If they fix that it would win hands down.

[Thrax]

Go go gadget shock journalism to drive hits and ramp up the volume of comments.

[profdlp]

Go go gadget shock journalism to drive hits and ramp up the volume of comments.
Thank you for adding yours. :vimp:

[Thrax]

Thank you for adding yours. :vimp:

In regards to the C|Net article, not SM's posting thereof. It has some interesting points, particularly in regards to battery life and mission-oriented operating system design, but it's pretty hokey otherwise.