I have been following Vista-on-UMPC news for quite some time now (as have all readers of this blog, I am sure) and finally weighed all options. I can now say with some authority that it's a BAD IDEA for UMPC owners to run out and buy Vista on release. *edit* July 1, 2007: Updates to drivers, tips and tricks, and more have made Vista more pleasant for UMPC owners! Take a look at this installation procedure!
I reinstalled Vista on my TabletKiosk eo v7110 with 1G of RAM, and the whole experience hurt. Ow. Ow. Ow.
OW! Poor Upgrade path:
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition owners cannot perform in-place upgrades to Home Basic or Home Premium. They can only upgrade to Business or Ultimate. Home Basic does not include Windows Mobility Center and Tablet PC support, so that's out of the question. Users are forced to choose one of the higher three products.
Choosing Home Premium: Remote Desktop access is turned off so users cannot connect to their UMPC through their full-sized computer. I found Remote Desktop to be a very handy feature in XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 as it makes software installation, routine maintenance, and other tasks much easier.
Choosing Business: Windows Media Center is not included, but Remote Desktop works. Feature-for-feature, this is the closest edition to XP Tablet 2005. Also, if you purchase an upgrade version, you cannot ever do a "clean install." To reformat your PC, you must install your copy of XP, activate it, install Vista over it, and activate THAT.
OW! That Price!
- Home Premium upgrade price: $159
- Business upgrade price: $199
- Ultimate upgrade price: $259
- Home Premium full: $239
- Business full: $299
- Ultimate: $399
OW! Where are my Drivers?
Some manufacturers are still playing the catch-up game on Vista drivers while others are simply telling the user to use XDDM drivers for the older/slower chipsets as WDDM drivers will only be available for newer chipsets. Also, Windows XP had a generic driver stack for many webcams, scanners, and other devices. My ancient scanner used these on XP. They do not work on Vista.
OW! Application Blocking:
jkOnTheRun has a great article on how UMPCs will be aversely impacted by Vista's Application Blocking. The Experience Index on UMPCs will be quite low, so you may have applications that simply refuse to install.
OW! Application Changes:
Outlook Express is gone and won't install. Windows Mail is unimpressive and Windows Live Mail, used to check MSN Passport HTTP mail services, comes with a fat ad bar that won't resize or close. Windows Movie Maker won't work on current UMPC class machines due to application blocking. Aero glass won't work on current UMPC class machines. There's more, but that's just a taste of things to come.
OW! Security Alerts:
Prepared to be annoyed to hell and back. Imagine something as simple as changing the brightness level of your display popping up a Security Alert asking if you are SURE you want to do it? The same holds true for changing most Control Panel settings, device settings, and more. Windows Vista is geared toward either 12-year-olds or the most anal retentive network administrators, not toward heavy computer users who can justify owning a UMPC.
OW! Firewall Alerts:
Again: Expect to be annoyed every five minutes.
OW! Loss of bundled applications:
The only major loss I personally experienced was BlueSoleil. However, any major applications that came with your machine can pretty well be counted as losses unless you buy one of the very expensive upgrade versions like Business or Ultimate.
OW! Windows Media Broken:
Not only is Windows Media Center broken as hell, but Windows Media PLAYER is broken too! I got about 3 frames per second from just about any video I tried to play on it. Identical videos played without problems on XP Tablet 2005.
Other notes: You don't need it.
Halfway through writing this article, I came across this article at apcmag.com. Their first point is my last: You don't need it. The rest of their article (though we have some overlapping points) rings true as well.
I am posting this prior to the release of The Origami Experience (I had intended to wait until AFTER) but the critical question I had about it was answered. It looks like it's just a media front-end and with Windows Media broken on Vista (more on that later) I am going to publish this article now. I'll test Origami Experience when it is released, but I doubt things will get better. While at CES, I noticed that there was not a single AMTEK T700 based UMPC in the entire Microsoft hallway. That should've told me something right now.
Last Words:
If you want an ultra-mobile PC with Vista on it, wait until they're boxed with Vista then wait for reviews of Vista UMPCs to be published. Make sure it supports all the features you want and runs at a speed that's acceptable to you. Vista UMPCs will come - they're just not here quite yet.
References:
In addition to my own experiences, I invite users to take a look at these articles below. Also, keep up with these blogs and all those listed on the right bar over there under "friendly sites" to see what's to come.
- GottaBeMobile.com
- jkOnTheRun
- Will UMPCs run all Vista apps?
- No more clean installs with Vista upgrades
- The day before Vista: Still no updates for some UMPCs
- Ultramobilepc-tips
- Upgrade to Vista is virtually impossible
- Vista index process killing Battery Life
- What Devices do not have HID drivers? (and related posts therein)
- CarryPad
- JKKMobile
2 comments:
Onething is clear for me at this time. Media Center and the Amtek T700 are not good friends. And WMP and the Amtek T700 are not good friends even in XP. I still have not tested in a Q1 but I have both devices and I can tell you one thing. The performance of the T700 is far from what you see in a Q1 and of course as result I´m expecting to see a lot better performance on Vista running in my Q1.
at todoUMPC.com store we have tested Vista in a i7210 and it runs very well on that device too.
I'm telling you all this because may be the right title for your article should be: Do not buy Vista if you own a T700 and expect some problems if you own the rest of UMPC in the market ;)
I agree with the some "OW" factors. I just got a Q1 and had a heck of a time getting it going, but its working for now. The HID drivers are the last big stumbling block, but the plain-pen stuff works OK. As for NEVER being able to install a fresh version of Vista... actually you can. As a matter of fact you never need to by a full copy of Vista. All vista media is the same, just the keys are different. So buy the upgrade version of Vista you want, boot the CD.. now here's the trick, when it asks you for a key just don't put one in. It will ask you what version you want to install, tell it the version you bought and finish the install. An a clean newer system this takes about 15 minutes. You now have 3 days to activate this version of Vista or it goes to sleep - but good news -you now have an upgradeable OS. Pop the CD back in, select install now, select upgrade and put in your key. The upgrade installation will now occur. This one will take about 45 minutes to a few hours depending on the hardware (it archives the entire previous OS until your final boot for recovery which is why it takes so long). You're good to go.
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