Users can check e-mail, surf the Web and stream live TV and radio on the super-lightweight, two-button Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet. But will consumers cotton to such ‘miniature Internet devices’ when smartphones and netbooks are growing in popularity?
LAS VEGAS - Remember the Newton? In 1993, Apple Inc. began selling what it called a Personal Digital Assistant — an “all-in-one” handheld device that kept your contacts and your calendar handy, let you send e-mail and eventually let you browse the Web. It had no keyboard; instead, you wrote directly on the screen.
The Newton was phased out in 1998. It was ahead of its time.Now its time has returned. Newton is back — only now it’s called iPhone and Droid and Archos.
After years of being about the Next Big Thing, the annual International Consumer Electronics Show this week is all about the next little thing — small-in-one devices that are blurring the distinctions among tiny netbook computers, dedicated media players, e-book readers and cell phones.
It’s all because content is the new king. As different people use electronics in different ways, publishers are under the gun to deliver whatever content people want on whatever devices they have.
Some want a full computer in their pockets. That’s why we have netbooks, whose sales rose by 72 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to the DisplaySearch PC Shipment and Forecast Report. Sales of desktop systems and traditional notebooks, by contrast, fell by about 11 percent.
Others use their mobile devices to organize their schedules or to watch video and listen to music. That’s what gave us iPhones and Zunes. Or they want directions to their destinations (GPS devices). Or to streamline all their books (Kindles).
A huge segment just wants something portable for nonstop tweeting and Facebooking.
But as people become increasingly wired, they’re realizing they just don’t have enough pockets (or thumbs) for all those standalone devices. That’s why the drive that is reshaping consumer technology is toward so-called converged devices.
“The game has totally changed,” said David Krebs, director of mobile and wireless research for technology analysts VDC Research.
Stand-alone mobile software packages no longer run separate phone functions, like calling and personal data, Krebs said. Instead, they’re crafted together as an integrated platform.
If the new devices now on the market and those expected in the next few weeks are any indication, they could very well be slimmer, lighter, more powerful heirs of the Newton.
Are infant MIDs already outdated?
The shorthand is “miniature Internet device,” or MID. Products like the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet, which was released in September, can play your music and video files stored on a hard drive as large as 250 gigabytes; boast access to the full Web (with support for Flash-based sites) and workplace applications like e-mail and conferencing; stream live TV and radio over WiFi (some with built-in Tivo-like DVRs); and provide GPS navigation.
The Archos 5 runs on Google’s Android operating system, which offers more than 16,000 more productivity, gaming and communications apps. It has just two buttons, it’s only 5.6 x 3.1 inches, and it weighs about 6 ounces.
The Archos 5, however, is just the beginning. At 8.2 x 4.6 inches, the viliv X70 EX runs Windows XP. And the UMID M1 — at 6.3 x 3.7 inches, it fits in a jacket pocket — runs Windows XP and adds a real qwerty keyboard in a cell phone-style clamshell design.
MIDs remain in the early-adopter stage right now, but they’ll get a big push at CES. Viliv will debut the N5, with a 1024-resolution 5-inch screen and its own qwerty keyboard, and Dell is expected to pull the lid off an Android MID that would include 3G connectivity.
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