Ultra portable PC
is a real computer

I’d been begging for an OQO for nearly a year. I saw one at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January, 2004 and couldn't wait to try it. It wound up taking me close to 12 months to get one to play with. But, as soon as regular production OQOs hit the market I began living with a model 01.

It may look like a PDA, but the OQO is really a fully-functional Windows XP computer.  It’s just 4.9 inches long, 3.4 inches wide, 0.9 inches thin, and weighs only 14 ounces. You could probably fit one in a coat pocket or purse, but while it seems quite sturdy I think you'd want to protect it more than that.

Inside is a 1GHz Transmeta processor, 20GB hard drive, 256MB of RAM, an 800 by 400 pixel color transflective display, 3D graphics with 8MB of video RAM, integrated 802.11b WiFi and Bluetooth, a microphone, FireWire/1394 and USB 1.1 ports and a stereo headphone jack.   OQO has no built-in speaker. 

For typing and cursor control there’s a slide-out QWERTY thumb keyboard, what OQO calls a TrackStik with mouse buttons, a digital pen (to use it as a mini-tablet computer) and a thumbwheel.

The rechargeable, removable lithium polymer battery has a clever LED charge indicator on the back. The company claims up to three hours of computing per charge, but if you're like me and keep WiFi turned on all the time, expect more like two hours. In normal use the battery gets warm to the touch, which makes the OQO feel warm to hot in long sessions.  If that bothers you, there’s a software adjustment to keep the internal cooling fan running a little longer.

OQO comes with a small but heavy metal desktop stand, an AC adapter and a docking cable that plugs into the three connectors on the bottom. That docking cable is thick and long and could be described as OQO's umbilical cord. The cable provides you with new connections: a 3D accelerated 1280 x 1024 VGA video output, additional USB and FireWire ports, an Ethernet connection, another place to plug in the AC adapter and an audio out.

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