In an interview with UK site TechRadar.com, Samsung R&D engineer Jeongseon Euh said the following about his company’s plans for its third-generation UMPC…
“We will refresh our design and upgrade our performance and specification. We will continue to invest in form factors. We will launch the 3rd generation of UMPC probably early Q1 next year.”
Design and performance improvements, those are a given. The part about form factors is interesting, though, as Samsung’s current Q1 Ultra UMPC has met with lukewarm reviews concerning its form factor, especially the split keyboard. Will we see a more notebook-like design with a standard keyboard or will Samsung try something new altogether? I’m guessing we’ll see something different.
via SlashGear
Looks interesting. And Fugly. But seeing as it’s from Samsung I’d never buy it anyway
I actually am a fan of the split keyboard. at least i am a fan of the fact that this is a truly handheld device where keys are always accessible. it is my experience that i need a regular keyboard only to enter lots of text.this is not the case 90% of the time. on the other hand i need keys to be available all the time. either to enter a URL(where most of the time only a couple of letters are needed) or to type a short mail, or a comment, or a command. And this keyboard allows to do just that, while sitting confortably and holding the Q1 ultra up like a newspaper.
I think that many people who are criticising this design did not have enough time to discover its benefits.
But I am almost sure samsung will go the mainstream in the next generation…unfortunately…you rarely get rewarded for being original.