reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
SEPTEMBER 2007MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC 69
$1,200, http://www.samsungusa.comSAMSUNG Q1 ULTRAHIGH FIVE
Great screen, good battery
life, and improved stylus
input.
DOWN LOW^6
Still bad for the fingers; slow
performance in media apps.consumers to use. Instead, you’d be better
served by a full-blown laptop.
With a 7-inch 1024x600 LED backlit
display and a digital pad that’s perfect for
scrolling pages, the Ultra is a competent
web-browsing platform. However, we can’t
justify spending $1,200 on a machine dedi-
cated solely to web browsing when we can
get an actual laptop for a lot less that does
everything this machine does, minus the
nifty touchscreen functions.
The hardware is designed to balance
battery life and performance. In our tests,
the battery lasted between four and six
hours, depending on backlight brightness
and Wi-Fi usage. We couldn’t help but think
that the machine could benefi t from a little
more oomph under the hood, either with aGPU that features dedicated video process-
ing or a little more CPU juice. In its current
confi guration, it’s unlikely that you’ll actually
be able to watch decent-quality video on
this little number.
We remain optimistic that Microsoft and
its hardware partners will turn the UMPC
tide and deliver a compelling touch-screen
experience. There were marked improve-
ments in battery life and input (when using
the stylus instead of a fi nger) with this gen-
eration, but we think the Q1 Ultra represents
generation 1.5 rather than a true second-
generation product.
—WILL SMITH