Q&A With Motion Computing Coming Up, Submit Your Questions

Posted by | 03/17/2009 | 22 Comments

There has been a lot of excitement surrounding Motion Computing’s announcement of the J3400 Rugged Slate Table PC.   It has been a while since we’ve seen anything new come from Motion, so yesterday’s announcement was our first look at what they’ve working on the past several years. Overall, folks are quite impressed with what they’ve seen so far. However, there are also a lot of questions about why they went a certain way, why they left certain features out, why dual-battery instead of a larger single battery, why a rugged design vs a traditional business focus, etc.

Well, the mic is open and Motion Computing wants to talk with you. We’ll be taking questions through the end of Wednesday and then submitting them to various Execs, Product Managers, and Designers at Motion to get them answered. Look for the Q & A to be published sometime on Friday. Leave your question as a comment to this article.

Fire away!

Tags: , , , , ,

Category: Hardware, Mobile

About the Author (Author Profile)

As the Founding Editor for GottaBeMobile.com, Rob oversaw the growth and overall direction for content, advertising, and management of the site. Keep up with Rob at RobBushway.com Send email to Rob
← Older Comments
  • http://www.ntecaero.com PilotLS800

    Corporate aircraft pilot and still using the LS 800 SSD in the airplane and it is getting dated. Motion sold thousands of LS 800′s until they discontinued them. They had ownership in this market (small form factors with a bright screen for pilots) until they pulled it. When is the 8.4″ or 8.9″ JXXX coming? Do they see a need for a smaller form factor? I’ll pre-order if you can get any answer out of them, especially if it has an onboard GPS, ViewAnywhere, SSD, and last but no where close to least, a cooling fan this time (you could fry an egg on the LS800 without a USB fan).

  • http://frozenatlantic.blogs.ie Joe O’Laughlin

    Why not a landscape tablet mode WITH HANDLE on the side for seated medical patients, instead of walking around medical professionals?

  • C.M.

    I also agree with PilotLS800 about LS800. I am really dissapointed and still puzzled by Motion not updating fantastic line like LS800. The form factor is just amazing for slate. I am still waiting for Motion to update LS800 line. The dream machine will be LS800 with the Boe’s view anywhere screen, Wacom’s capcitive/touch screen, Gobi, GPS, SSD, fan and longer batter life. I think reinventing LS800 will be a very good move for Motion. Please do something!!!

  • C.M.

    Plus, I know I am pushing it, but if OQO can do it I am sure Motion can do it too, OLED screen on LS800 will be totally awesome.

  • Bristolview

    Speaking of OQO… and the new low resolution screens of the J3400. We may have an option to help out on that retro resolution screen.

    OQO has an even lower resolution screen, which is a compromise between enabling readable text size (at it’s physical resolution), and the size of the OQO device itself. To help this issue, OQO ships with a solution to enable virtual resolutions, allowing the OQO display to show interpolated higher resolutions. This approach is NEVER as good as a native higher resolution, but it is very effective for those times you need it. (Yes I have an OQO). Most times, I use the OQO in it’s native physical resolution. At times however, a higher resolution is needed and I can simply hit the convienent UpRes or DownRes buttons and get a virtual resolution display, that is remarkably clear and crisp (yes, the small OQO display helps this). I’m not sure if OQO does this in a customized software display driver, or if they have scaling hardware on the OQO itself. (Many small displays have scaling hardware, for example; they may have a physical resolution of 1024×768 but can display 1280×1050 or something like that scaled to fit). Again, the OQO’s solution is not as good as true native resolution, but it is amazingly effective when needed.

    If Motion could add this feature to the J3400, I’d then be ok with the low resolution screen. As it is, this low res would hinder some workflows and decreasing productivity, I cannot have that. Most tasks would be ok with the lower resolution screen, but not all. For those which would be negatively impacted, this scaling approach would effectively offer a compromise solution, but an acceptable one. How about it Motion? Can you do that for us?

  • Bristolview

    Not a poke at Motion, just a question. I use a tablet 99% of the time, and use the Pen and handwriting recognition, thus no keyboard needed. In this mode of operation, Portrait is much better. It appears that the J3400 is largely setup for Landscape operation (ergonomics, port layout, etc). Why is this? Not poking at the choice, just wondering. It seems like an odd choice for a slate, which tends to often be used like a standard clipboard/paper notebook, etc. For a non-slate convertable TabletPC, I could see this choice making more sense, as it is primarily a standard PC, with Tablet capabilities. A slate is primarily a Tablet, and can function as a standard PC with dock and such.

    The Fujitsu P6012 is a slate as well, but took a different approach. It is clearly optimized for (right handed) portrait use; no ports on the bottom, no ports on the right where your left hand grips it, and a clean layout of ports on the left where it is clear of your hands. This seems like a logical layout for a slate, which is first and foremost a Tablet, and secondarily a normal PC. (No, I’m not doing a Fujitsu is better rant, this is not meant that way.) The port layout and such on the Fujitsu seems to be more logical and well thought out for a Slate machine. I’m not saying this is better or worse, but it seems logical to me, and matches the field use of Slates that I see daily. Motions choice to be primarily landscape optimized (can do portrait, but port location and such is sub-optimal), seems questionable to me. Of anyone to ‘get it’ I would have thought it would be Motion. Again, not saying any is better or worse than another, just what I see in the real world of Slate users, and my own use as one too. I’m just wondering about Motion’s decision here.

  • http://www.gottabemobile.com Rob Bushway

    Motion has answered your questions, which are posted here:

    http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/03/23/motion-computing-answers-your-questions-about-the-j3400-tablet-pc-and-more/

    If you have follow-up questions, feel free to post them there. Motion will do their best to answer your follow-ups.

← Older Comments
«
»