CTitanic: “UMPC Makers Don’t Reinvent the Wheel”

Frank “Ctitanic” Garcia is making a heartfelt plea to Ultra-Mobile PC makers when it comes to designing form factors, especially those with keyboards. Wait a second, I think they just about all have keyboards these days. In any regard he’s taking a look at the Fujitsu U810 and he’s comparing it to the HP Jornada 720. (I believe he could compare it to several others as well.)

His beef? In the rush to stifle the hew and cry about UMPCs not having a keyboard, UMPC OEMs have created a bevy of different keyboard solutions. Most of them not really ideal for touch typing, and some even pretty lousy for thumbing. We’re starting to hear a growing chorus in the blogosphere about keyboards on these devices and that chorus usually adds the word “useless” in front of the word keyboard. So, I would agree that Frank has a point on this.

He’s also railing against the uselessness of stylus designs that we see these days. (When was the last time you heard or read a blogger compliment a mobile device stylus?) But then I’m not surprised by the inefficient and woeful concepts that we see there. After all, what do you really need a stylus for on a touch device that isn’t made for Inking? Isn’t the UI well suited to operate everything with our fingers? Oh, wait a second…