What IS that thing???
Posted by Zealot on 05/31/08 in General, UMPC, Ultra Mobiles
Over at Gizmodo, Matt Buchanan has an excellent and quite complete breakdown of the terms used these days for small PCs. “Category Creep” has resulted in a lot of confusion for the average consumer over just what exactly these devices are for. The post takes a good shot at defining the most popular terms, considering which devices belong in each category and predicting which should be shaking out in the next year or so as small form computers become more and more common (and less and less likely to be used as makeup mirrors).
Buchanan intros the piece as follows:
When Blam broke the news on Dell’s mini Inspiron, there was one he was stuck on: How to categorize it. Is it a subnotebook? A UMPC? A netbook? (Knowing the specs might have helped, but probably not much.) Part of the problem is that the category names themselves are very new and pretty vague. Here’s a mini-compendium of the most popular terms for dwarfish laptops being tossed around, where they come from and what they’re trying to say. Help us decide which ones to keep, and which to ditch.
He covers the terms Ultraportable, Mini-notebook, ULPC, Netbook and UMPC. I have seen a couple more terms in the wild, such as the term Micro PC used by Sony for it’s Vaio UX490.
So what do you think, should the lexicon break down to just a term or two, or should marketing, like a fairy’s heart, beat wild and free? Are any of these terms keepers? Personally I feel that the term UMPC will stick for hobbyists and geeks, but the mainstream will need a more vanilla term like Netbook.
Anyone have any other names for the little darlings, not counting what you call them when you throw them against walls?
Written by Zealot · Filed Under General, UMPC, Ultra Mobiles
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I’m not so sure UMPC fits the expansive category due to the fact that many simply don’t fit this category. However, I prefer UMPC due to it’s simplicity and that it seems to be the most widely accepted. For me the best is what my websites name is Ultra Mobile or Ultra Portable and last but not least Ultra-Mini,darn now even I’m confused, who knows?
Oh the heck with it, figure it out for yourself! Hehe…
Thanks,
UltraMobileBlog
I call them UMPC first; and then categorize then by their functionality. The Dell is a mini notebook or sub notebook.
Why do we need to categorize those? Did we categorize 17″ laptops as Big-Ass-Notebooks? Not so much.
Just call them notebook or laptop, I don’t think we need any fancy name for anything that is in the same shape as predecessors, with same mechanics and technology. Sony’s UX or samsungs are different breed, those already have a name, UMPC although they are anything but a PC, that’s different story, more like Compact Tablet.
So, unless it has some new functionality or innovative way of dealing with tasks, they are what they are. Like small inspiron, just a Laptop.