OQO Model 02 now NOT shipping

Well, if Tuesday's news about the Model 02 shipments had you camping out at your mailbox, Innovation Information Interaction (the i-cube blog) suggests you put out the campfire, pack up the pork and beans, and head back home. According to i-cube's source, OQO has pushed back delivery of all XP units a few weeks due to various events in Asia, including yesterday's magnitude-5 earthquake in Indonesia and production difficulties of the wireless-antenna cover.

It is not yet clear whether Vista models, earlier said to be shipping in late April, will be affected.

Comments

[Kenrick]

Could that be old news? Unless I'm out of it as far as current events go (which is entirely possible) I wasn't aware of a major Indonesian earthquake recently, except for the one in early March. The story cites the Chinese New Year too, which was in February.

[Jenn]

That's what I was thinking, too, but the U.S. Geological Survey website cites an earthquake that hit Indonesia yesterday.

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/last_event/world_indonesia.html

[Opus]

As one of OQO's future customers, I ordered a Model 02 w/XP Tablet & Sprint WWAN on Jan.10.2007, 3 days after the Jan.7.2007 announcement & online store presence.

Model 02 Vista versions could not be ordered until Microsoft's release date. Prior XP orders could not be changed without canceling then reordering thus going to the back of the line. Same went with Verizon WWAN when it was announced later (I wanted Sprint anyway).

Since then, there has been no official status from OQO about any delays of model 02 shipments even after repeated inquiries with their support staff.

I did receive email last week from OQO indicating they would take care of orders & delivery costs for the Express Vista Upgrade program of all model 02 XP orders since Jan.31.2007 so they would not miss the Mar.30.2007 registration deadline.

They also emailed me last week indicating the belt clip case & auto/airline power adapter were back ordered giving me the option to go online to accept partial delivery receiving the rest later at their expense, or do nothing and wait longer for all of it, I chose get what I can now.

I guess I was naive in thinking they had their act together before the 01.07.2007 release or after Tuesday's 03.27.2007 "official" announcement that they would start shipping model 02 XP versions. I found the shipment announcement by accident on oqotalk.com referencing engadget.com's post before it was officially posted on OQO's web site.

OQO support staff have stood by original shipment date estimates of 8 to 12 weeks from the order date. The maximum 12 weeks out starts next Monday, Apr.02.2007 for the very first XP orders while my order's maximum last day should be Wednesday, Apr.04.2007. We'll see...

Anyways, thanks for the heads up. Not sure about the "rumors" or excuses, but I appreciate someone keeping us informed. Hopefully quality will not be an issue. So close, yet so far away...

[Kenrick]

Mobility Today is claiming the rumor is false:
http://mobilitytoday.com/news/007581/oqo_no_delays

[Opus]

Think Mobility Today is a little too critical of JKontherun, all posts including his have pointed to a specific source that sounded believable.

Problem is OQO has not been upfront & forthcoming with their customers concerning any status on the shipment dates of the 02. So all we got to go on is rumors and speculation.

Bob Rosin is still vague on shipments and 4 -6 weeks would indicate late shipment if that applies to those of us that ordered within the first 2 weeks from the 02 release.

Also, 01.07.2007 Jory Bell in the video interview with Engadget said they were going to start shipping 4 weeks from their announcement that day. I took that as they were all set with manufacturing to respond to orders within 2 months.

Despite all that has been said or not said, I still can't wait for my order, due no later than mid next week if they are truely not late, so here's hoping production & quality are right on...

[Opus]

sorry, it's me again. Looks like someone got "spanked";), Innovation Information Interaction no longer has any blog references to OQO. When I read the delay in shipment posted by them there was another post I believe on OQO's announcement of shipments starting. It's like they never said anything!

[Jenn]

Thanks for the update, Opus.

I wonder why they couldn't just correct the post with an update. Taking it down completely is rather suspect.

[Opus]

Update on shipments as of Wed.04.04.2007: couple people claimed seeing 17 now 16 XP Pro units for sale at RCS, a reseller for the OQO's. Boy Genius, who has evaluated the model 02 & did an unboxing of a prototype now has his "order" and posting a new unboxing. No confirmed shipments to individual customers as of this morning:(, as of this morning, my order is 1 day beyond the max. estimated shipment date.

[Kenrick]

I got one! It came from Dynamism, not directly from OQO. I have some info about it on my webpage:
http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/techteach

I like it quite a lot. Once in a while I get the mouse drift syndrome though. I'll try a typing speed test and more this weekend...

[Jenn]

Great news, Kenrick! Looking forward to your ongoing coverage and impressions.

Any luck yet, Opus?

[Opus]

As of Mon.04.09.2007 - no hope in sight for those of us that did our orders with the OQO online store. "Within the next 2 weeks" has been the mantra... I would hope the flood gates open this week, no less than next week...

On the flip side Kenrick and a couple other lucky owners that got theirs from resellers that got 1st priority with a few "VIP's" last week, have been very humble and willing to share their experiences.

I would recommend everyone that has a chance, check out Kenrick's personal site & blogs on the OQO 02, he has produced overwelming insight & information in a small amount of time including benchmarks, real world demonstrations, unbiased observations, and several videos.

If & when I get mine, I hope to share my experiences but it will be no match to what has already been shared out there. Until then, Opus

[Opus]

4amPT-finally got notice my 01/10 OQO model 02 order was shipped, should receive by Monday.

This week appears to be the start of the 1st set of OQO online orders being shipped, most early reports were based on customers thru resellers or "special VIP's".

So far the word is out on early orders received, the wait (and $$$$) is worth it, and from Kenrick's review it appears to run just fine with Vista including viewing video media.

[Jenn]

Great news, Opus! Let us know your first impressions and other thoughts when you get it.

[Opus]

Got my 02 last Friday & it was definitely worth the long wait. Power is great for music, videos, internet browsing, WiFi signal, Pdf/Word docs, road navigation, and even trying a snowboard game.

Not into unboxings but admit packaging is classy, as someone said taking cues from Apple. Feel like Christmas from Macy's, although that is far from my scene.

Exterior has nice professional look & feel while having that certain sexiness to it. Very solid construction although sliding screen feels slightly "wobbly" and power supply plug into 02 feels flimsey, which also does not identify which side of plug is up.

Keyboard has nice tactile touch, all thumb keys easy to reach & press. For that "cool factor" I like keyboard backlight's blue glow. Special characters hard to find, not only hard to read, some require FN instead of Shift, but should get better as I get used to it.

Pen has nice feel but PC has no storage silo, without clip case which is back ordered have no where to safely store it. I get the pen & clip case with the XP Tablet model, but think it should be included with all models. Touch screen would be nice, but even if wacom pen was lost the thumb keyboard & joystick can handle pretty much any input.

With the small screen & nonstandard 800 x 480 resolution, it takes some tweaking to get the fonts readable. Like most UMPC's it can be a pain when some dialog forms crop controls but I like the FN keys for easy rotate & zoom.

Overall I am very satisfied with the 02. It will provide me exactly the right size & power I need for pretty much any type of software I use.

I have to say the 02 is not for anyone. Some people look at it and 1st thing they say is they can't read the small print. It is small but that is not the point, it is the trade off for true PC portability.

[Jenn]

Thanks for that, Opus. Your assessment is balanced, fair, and informative.

I've read elsewhere that the screen was a bit wobbly, but I think it was in reference to a pre-production unit. The BGR mentioned recently that some of the newly shipped devices were full of scratches and had some issues with connectivity. I hope you got one of the perfect ones :)

Are you able to type at a reasonable speed?

[Opus]

I'm not used to thumb keyboards or phone text messaging so it is hunt & peck for me.

Used to typing 100+ WPM on full size keyboard so for now it is real frustrating, mainly finding special characters.

I would have simliar problems with touchscreen keyboards like dialkeys since I rely on tactile feedback of real keys. Although I already see using the built in thumbkeys as my primary means of text entry, I anticipate most of my input will involve the use of the joystick mouse on the keyboard which I forgot to comment works absolutely great, similiar to those erasure head types on laptop keyboards, except I find I have better control using my right thumb & clicking with my left, rather than the anti-ergo forefinger thumb position with laptops.

The touch scrollbars are a very nice addition, have to remember to hover cursor over window I want scroll sometimes, a focus issue.

I set up WiFi with my home broadband so I love moving around the house totally wireless with as good signal as my work laptop although I'm still waiting on the extended battery so it's plugged in for power when I'm in one place. It's good for 2 strong hours, again similiar to my work laptop, which is a fairly new Dell Latitude.

Screen is very sharp, reflection from direct sunlight but I would expect that with most screens, I'm sure the protective film that came with it is part to blame.

Zoom is real cool fitting a higher resolution screen in the 5 inch 800 x 480 dimension but it does blur small text so like I said before it needs some tweaking. Might help accomodate some software requiring higher resolution.

[Opus]

Should have summarized, all in all text entry is reasonable, think I'll get good at it in time.

My arrived bright & shiney with no scratches so that is peculiar, heard of that & one other incident, most everyone else I've read had no problems either. It was one of my fears to wait so long & have to ship it back, shades of new Xbox & PS2/3 1st shipments!

[Jenn]

Given my trademark longwindedness, I don't mind your lengthy comment at all.

What's your WPM using the thumboard? It looks fairly usable, though I'm curious about whether all the keys are within easy reach. I think I have really weak thumbs because they get sore after only a short time of stretching (required with the UX keyboard).

Very good to hear that your unit was in perfect condition :)

[Opus]

Sorry I haven't had a chance to test my WPM prowness, but if you check Kenrick's web site, he indicated performance similiar to your report on the Sony UX, anticipate improvement with more use. I do have to say I'm getting better with more use & will try a WPM test when I have time, and find a good app to test with.

I'm new to tablets plus tryimg to get things in working order. Just got my DVD/CD docking station, very sharp looking but media does not eject well, known issue waing for a fix but have work around. Need to find out more about codecs, DVD movie needs some for Windows Media Player, but did manage to test movies with GOM Player instead, Pixar Cars movie looked great but did not have time to watch it all.

Anyway used virtual CD drive with ISO image to test snowboard video game with a little tweaking, now with DVD drive I can install other software like MS Office 2k7 Home & Student to use OneNote