When Microsoft unveiled the Origami concept a couple of years ago it promised cheap, lightweight and portable Windows XP machines customised for touchscreen use and with significantly better battery life than could be expected from the current range of laptops.
When they arrived the first generation UMPCs (as they became officially known) were expensive, heavy and suffered from poor battery life. Additionally they weren't that easy to use with just a touchscreen, so most required the addition of an external keyboard.
The Ubiquio 702 looks to fix some of these failings and offer the kind of ubiquitous computing that Microsoft's viral marketing seemed to suggest ahead of the Origami launch.
The 702 is cheap. At just over £400 including the extended battery (£400 for the 701 with the standard battery) its much more in the ballpark of a standard laptop as far as price is concerned. The extended battery adds some bulk to the top of the device, but has been cleverly designed to act as a built in stand when laid down on a desk, so that the screen is angled towards you and is therefore still quite readable.
The screen itself is about 7" in diagonal and readable from quite a wide angle. Its not so good out of doors, although still readable. Native resolution os 800x480, which is quite blocky on a 7" panel, however the interpolated resolutions of 800x600 and 1024x600 are pretty awful, so you'll only want to view them when dialogue boxes or other buttons run off screen. This is true of all UMPCs I've tried with the 7" panel so shouldn't necessarily put you off the Ubiquio.
The weight of the device is considerable - just a whisker under a kilo, but then a large chunk of that is the double battery. Acceptable then, if it means you can run all day away from a charge. Unfortunately not. The 702 lasted between four and five hours on the extended battery, depending on how it was used. Whilst this is better than you'd get from a normal UMPC it still means carrying the charger around for a regular top-up if you need to last a full day.
The extra weight causes problems when writing too. The 702 is heavy to hold in one hand when using the Tablet Input Panel to write on the screen with the other. The stylus is good, and extends to nearly the same size as a regular ballpoint. However the size of the screen means that when writing you have to be careful not to touch it with any part of your hand lest it registers a tap or spurious bit of character recognition. Added to the weight testing your non-writing hand its a bit of a trying experience.
Performance is about what you'd expect from a 1GHz CPU and 512Mb od RAM: pedestrian but usable. It easily copes with the sort of tasks you'd expect of it and you're unlikely to be doing any heavy Photoshopping or the like on a screen this small. A re-adjustment in expectations is still necessary however. The installed OS is XP Tablet Edition, the main benefit being the TIP mentioned earlier. This does run some overhead compared to standard XP Pro, which may explain the occasional sluggishness.
Hardware-wise the Ubiquio is a shiny black plastic unit, slightly larger than a paperback book. It looks quite slick, in a geeky tech kind of way. The screen dominates the front of the device although there is quite a wide bezel containing the majority of the controls. To which: a trackpoint style device to the right of the screen, with left and right mouse buttons to the left; page up and down, settings and screen zoom keys under the trackpoint and on the left a five way controller and buttons for the Ubiquio menu app and the TIP launch. Above the screen are four status LEDs. On the right hand side are the headset socket, volume keys, USB port, power and unlock buttons; whilst on the left hand side there are the power connector, another USB port and the wireless hardware switch. Underneath is what appears to be a dock connector but there doesn't yet appear to be a dock available.
Included software is limited to the non-standard Ubiquio launcher, which could come in useful for use as a portable media player. The dial-keys application is included here, of which I have nothing good to say, although someone seems to like it as it continues to be part of the UMPC install.
The final thing to note is that the supplied slip case is quite the most awful I have ever seen, being little more than a cloth drawstring bag big enough to contain the 702. It is supplied in the most awful bright yellow shade which I imagine would never see light of day in the hands of any self-respecting user. To balance this you do get a very nice cradle which angles the 702 nicely for writing on your desk, although the warning about not touching the screen when writing still applies.
On the whole I liked the Ubiquio 702 with one serious reservation. The screen calibration isn't set until after the user login has completed. This means that if you need to enter a password on the 702 (to access a domain or for device security) it is virtually impossible to use the stylus to hit the required letters on the virtual keyboard. There appears to be no workaround on this problem except to use the mouse to click the letters of your password. Given the severity of the problem and the security issues it brings to the table I'd have to say that I couldn't recommend the 702 for use in an enterprise environment, although for home use you may find it to be an acceptable risk.
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