Here is an edited transcript of OQO related comments Steve Gibson made about his Model 02 in the most recent episode of his and Leo Laporte's Security Now podcast. They were made response to a question from a listener.
http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-165.htm :
[The quotes in the first paragraph refer to Leo reading the feedback from a Security Now! listener.]
Leo: ... "Steve, during the Google Chrome episode you briefly mentioned you have an OQO PC. I've been interested in them for years, ever since they were announced prior to release" - yeah, they announced it and, like, three years later released it - "but I've never had the opportunity to see one. Would you comment a bit on yours? I'd love to hear your review. P.S.: Security Now! is my favorite programming across all media - radio, television, film. I listen to it while running and doing yard and housework on the weekends. I love the show. Please don't change a thing."
Steve: I'm in love with my little OQO, Leo.
Leo: Really.
Steve: I really am. The only complaint I have is that the battery life is about three hours.
Leo: Well, that's not bad.
Steve: Well, no, it's not bad. It's like many laptops. And in fact it's a little bit more, probably about maybe, yeah, about three hours. The reason I have it is that I wanted true connectivity. My goal was that I wanted to be able, wherever I was, if something comes up, I wanted to be able to answer the question, check Wikipedia, or check for something. I mean, just I'm - when I'm sitting here at home, I've become so used to the persistent, wired-into-the-network mode. And when I'm in a restaurant or I'm at Starbucks or I'm anywhere, it's like, hmm, gee, I wish I had a 'Net connection. And I've got my little Treo, that kind of has a web browser but not really. And I didn't go with an iPhone because they were on the wrong network. ...
...So anyway, but I just wanted a real Windows machine. So this is a - it's 800x480 resolution. It has a Wacom active tablet as part of the screen. Although I've got to say in my experience I have a couple tablet machines with much larger screens. There you really do need real estate for, like, scrawling and writing and taking notes and things. So it's really not very useful to have, in my experience, that Wacom. Although I think they've done it more for vertical, like vertical OEM applications is why it's there, for, like, specific custom purposes.
But I really do like it. It has answered the need I have felt for quite a while of just having it always with me. It's small enough that literally it can be in my pocket. And it lets me be on the 'Net because it has a Verizon wireless WAN built in, a little antenna you can pull out if you need greater signal strength. And so wherever I am, I don't even need WiFi, I'm able to get on the 'Net at completely acceptable speeds. ...
...I did want to mention that the OQO Model 1 was pretty much horrible. It was a Transmeta chip. It had a horrible sort of like flat plastic keyboard. The Model 2, which is now what they're selling, is far nicer, a real BlackBerry or Treo-style click-click-click keyboard. And anyway, it's just a tremendous little machine, if it works. I mean, it's expensive. It's pricey. But it finally answered my need for literally always having a connected Windows, real Windows machine with me.
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