Samsung Q1 Ultra Review

Come November, it'll be five years since Microsoft started prodding PC vendors to build systems for its Tablet PC initiative. Now history is repeating itself, with Intel rather than Microsoft as the instigator: The chipmaker's CEO Paul Otellini has predicted a market for ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) totaling $10 billion by 2011.

Officially, Intel draws a distinction between UMPCs -- traveling PC companions that run desktop operating systems and applications, with screens measuring about 7 inches -- and still smaller mobile Internet devices (MIDs) -- Web, messaging, and entertainment gadgets with screens measuring about 5 inches. The Sony Vaio UX and Oqo Model 02 don't follow the script so much as split the difference: They're palm-sized Windows notebooks with 5-inch screens and slide-out keyboards.

Samsung, by contrast, is not only faithful to Intel's UMPC blueprint but is now on its second generation: The Q1 Ultra is a 1.5-pound, half-a-box-of-Kleenex-sized tablet with a 7-inch widescreen display, 60GB hard disk, 1GB of DDR-2 memory, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth wireless, and Windows Vista Home Premium.

Don't confuse the Ultra with last year's Q1. Instead of that machine's Celeron M chip, the Q1 Ultra features Intel's brand-new, just-for-handhelds A110 processor, an 800MHz Pentium M descendant with 400MHz front-side bus and 512K Level 2 cache that draws just 3 watts of power. Screen resolution has climbed to 1,024 by 600 pixels. And a bisected-BlackBerry-style split keyboard adds thumb typing to Vista's Tablet PC on-screen keyboard and handwriting-recognition input choices.

Samsung is quick to say that its UMPC is not a replacement for but a partner to your laptop or desktop PC, targeting travelers and students for situations where a notebook is impractical -- when you want to take advantage of a WiFi hotspot to read and reply to e-mail while standing instead of sitting, for instance, or tweak a spreadsheet or presentation even when the lout in front of you has reclined his airliner seat all the way into your lap.

The elephant in the room is that the Ultra costs more than scores of full-featured 14- and 15-inch notebooks -- though, to be fair, less than most under-3-pounds, 10- to 12-inch-screened subnotebooks, all but a few of which lack the tap-and-scribble convenience of a touch screen. Our mainstream test model is priced at $1,199.

A business configuration with Win XP instead of Vista costs $50 less, while a fully loaded version with HSDPA cellular mobile broadband card is $1,499. Students can check out an $899 economy model with a 600MHz processor, 40GB hard drive, and other cutbacks.

Grab and Go ... To Your Desk?

Measuring roughly 5 by 9 by 1 inches, the Q1 Ultra sports a handsome, slightly thumbprint-prone glossy black finish. A touch-screen stylus hides in a hole at the bottom right corner, while the tablet's right side features USB 2.0, Ethernet, and VGA ports under a likely-to-break-off rubber cover. When packing your briefcase, the unit's AC adapter adds just under a pound to the computer's own 1.5 pounds.

The left side offers a sliding power switch that also serves to toggle sleep mode and a locked mode that ignores accidental screen or key taps. On the top side is a second USB port, headphone jack, Secure Digital flash-card slot, and a shutter button for the Samsung's two cameras -- a front-facing lens that can take not-very-high-quality stills at up to 1,280 by 1,024 resolution, and a rear lens used for webcam chats or self-portraits.

Options for the Q1 Ultra include a compact USB keyboard ($100) with a ThinkPad-style pointing stick between the G and H keys and left and right mouse buttons below the space bar, as well as a USB external DVD±RW drive ($150). These peripherals weigh 10 and 14 ounces, respectively, and both worked well.

Indeed, with both accessories in place and the Samsung's back-panel, fold-out easel propping the unit at a handy desktop angle, the Ultra felt like a perfectly nice notebook PC, albeit one used on a table instead of in a lap. Minor grumbles: The keyboard's mouse buttons felt flimsy, and the two add-ons' short USB cables oblige you to cluster the computer, keyboard, and optical drive together instead of spreading them out on your desk.

When you're on the move, the Ultra is easy to carry with one hand, and comfortable to hold in both hands like a PlayStation Portable, using your thumbs for the keys and buttons on either side of the screen. It's somewhat more awkward to support the unit with one hand while tapping or writing with the stylus with the other, though the Tablet PC software's ability to rotate the display from horizontal to vertical helps. (Helps with the stylus, that is; it obviously hampers any attempts to use the buttons.)

The Q1 Ultra's LED-backlit screen is impressively sharp and bright -- although its default backlight setting for battery power was too dim for our eyes; we used the fifth or sixth of the screen's eight brightness levels. (On AC power, naturally, full brightness is the norm.) You can configure an attached monitor to replace or mirror the LCD display, or stretch it so you can arrange application windows on two screens.

Speaking of AC power, our observed battery life wasn't too bad. We repeatedly finished three hours (OK, two hours and 55 minutes) of moderately hard-disk-intensive work before the unit conked itself over the head to enter hibernation mode.