OQO Model 3?

According to a Chinese OQO site, the company is prepping a new model called OQO Model 03 which will be a successor to the never-released OQO Model 2+. The new OQO is said to have an Atom Z515 / Z530 / Z540 / Z550 processor (1.2-2GHz), 4.8-inch touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, 32-128GB SSD, 2GB RAM, 1024×600 pixel display (WSVGA) and GMA 500 graphics.

Other rumored specs include a USB port, HDMI port and an expansion port for VGA/Ethernet. It would run Windows 7 OS and weigh mere 0.95 pounds. Expected price is around $2000-4800, depending on the configuration

Raon Digital’s website goes down – Bankruptcy on-the-way?

Looks like all UMPC makers are having a hard time in surviving in the world of (cheap) netbooks. A couple of months back, we reported that OQO’s future was bleak and was on the verge of getting bankrupted. That happened. Now, is it Raon’s turn? Folks at UMPCportal have lost their contact with them. Most importantly, their website has gone down, which is not a good sign for the current customers.

Will the Raon’s customers be rendered helpless just like OQO customers? Personally, I have been a huge fan of their products, but for average consumers, their products have always been a little on the expensive side. Example: An average netbook costs under $400, but most of the Raon’s products hovered in $600+ range

More than 50 percent Main board failures in OQO O2 and E2

There is a poll going on in the OQOtalk forum (most popular OQO community) regarding the Main Board failures. Quite shockingly, the poll is reflecting some really strange results. More than 50-percent people had to get the main board changed atleast once. Some users had to get their OQO’s main board changed twice in an year.

Clearly, this reflects the poor manufacturing quality of the OQO. Too many failing main boards are not expected from a product that costs $1000+. Couple that with the EXTREMELY poor customer support and bleak future of OQO (canceling all OQO 2+ orders), things do not look so good for the current users.

OQO cancels all preorders for MODEL 2+

First we saw the disappearance of the OQO models from the expansys store and now we get the news that OQO has canceled all the preorders for the model 2+. This further makes us think one think: Is OQO on the brink of getting bankrupt?

Clearly, UMPCs are now dying due to their huge price tags and poor demand. Companies need to realize that in such tough times, it would hard for the consumer to shell out $1000+ on a UMPC. ASUS has pretty much understood this fact that they released their tablet/UMPC at a fair price tag of $549.

I am personally not at all surprised due to the fact they were NOT able to offer satisfactory service to the customers in US or anywhere around the world. See this POST for more information about the extremely poor OQO customer support.

OQO 2+ discontinued or its revision coming?

If you go to expansys to order the 1.86 GHz version of the OQO, you will find that the expansys is showing that product has been discontinued. This makes us wonder as the product is barely few months old. This can only mean one thing: OQO is going to launch the revision of its flagship model. It can be that OQO is preparing the revision of model 2+ with Intel Atom 2.0 GHz (Z550) instead of Intel Atom 1.86GHz (Z540).
It may be noted that the power consumption of Z550 is same as Z540 even with the speed jump. Also, it makes sense to equip the flagship model with the best available mobile processor.

OQO customer support sucks in Asia? [UMPC]

OQO customers are facing a lot of problems in providing services to the OQO owners located in Asia. Look at this reply to the customer’s repair query:

Unfortunately we are unable to ship outside of the US. If you could provide a US address that you could use then we would be able to set up an Out of Warranty RMA, but you would also need to have a credit card issued through a US bank in order to pay for the repairs. If this is not able to be done than you can go through Dynamism where the original purchase was made and they will send it to us and they will bill you. Thank You, OQO Customer Care

So, you need to have a US address + Credit Card issued via US bank.

The horror stories do not end there. It took one customer nearly 2 ½ months (living in Asia) to get his power adapter replaced. And to get the replacement, he had to specify a US address even though he had bought the device in the US itself.

Due to the poor customer support, there is no doubt that OQO has lost many of its potential customers. Those have now shifted their minds towards other netbooks/UMPCs. However, we must understand that OQO is not a big company. Most of its resources are outsourced for parts and repairs. And it is quite natural that the customers who buy these $1500+ devices are going to be angry when they will not be provided with the service they expect. Although, it may sounds a little unfair that the US and EU/EFTA countries enjoy direct OQO support while the rest of the countries have to undergo grueling and time-consuming process to get their OQO repaired.
visit OQO official webpage

Games suitable for the OQO [UMPC]

I’ve compiled a list of the games taken from various forums that would run fine on the model 2 and model 2+.

• World of Warcraft (needs Maximizer)
• Starcraft
• Sim City 4 (windows mode only)
• Dungeon Keeper 2
• Grand Theft Auto 3 (run in 16-bit color mode)
• pocket ufo for PC
• C&C – Tiberian Dawn (640×480)
• C&C – Red Alert (800×480)
• C&C – Tiberian Sun (800×480)
• C&C – Red alert 2 (640×480)
• Civ 1 (Fullscreen)
• Civ 2 (800×480)
• Colonization for Windows
• Imperialism 1 + 2
• All the Scumm-VM-Games (fullscreen)
• Starcraft (640×480)
• Tropico (640×480)
• Worms World Party (640×480)
• Anstoss 3 (Football Management Game)
• Trackmania Nations forever

Happy Gaming folks!

OQO Model 2+ supports decoding HD 1080p videos [UMPC]

The OQO Model 2+ has built-in hardware accelerated decoding (Poulsbo chipset using Intel GMA500 integrated graphics with the PowerVR core), which fully supports both 720p and 1080p HD content. Although, for full HD resolution, connect the OQO to an external 720p/1080p display using HDMI. The OQO model 2+ support HDMI monitors up to 1920×1200 resolution. [...]

Watchout when you are buying an External HDD for your OQO! [UMPC]

There are many people who struggle to run their external HDD in their OQOs. Why? Because the OQO has only 1 USB port and some of the external HDDs require two USB ports to power themselves. Some people think that the OQO does not provide enough power via its USB port. No, that is not [...]

OQO launches OQO model 2+

OQO model 2+ claims to be world’s smallest Vista running PC with OLED screen. The new model 2+ comes with a much faster 1.86GHz Intel Atom processor and 2GB RAM unlike it’s older sibling OQO model 2, which ran a VIA processor and 1GB of RAM. According to the folks at OQO, the new OQO [...]