Monday, January 29, 2007

Samsung Q1

So lets take a closer look at the Samsung Q1. There are four models available. The first one that came to market is the Q1. Then came the Q1B and more recently the Q1P. The fourth is the Q1 SSD.

Its interesting the original Q1 was used as the main device for both Hugo Ortega and Kevin Tofel. I say recently because Hugo just received his Q1B and Kevin upgraded to a Q1P after his Q1 died. I mention this because it tells me that these power users obviously found the Q1 to be sufficient enough to meet their needs.

So what did the Q1 have that made it somewhat popular among bloggers. Well, first, as James Kendrick noted, the Q1 was one of the first devices available and most early adapters probably decided not to upgrade until the next generation of devices became available which is starting to happen now. You can check out the specs for yourself at Samsung's site but you can see it was decently loaded with hardware with expandable options. The main drawback that I've read about is the battery life coming in, for most tests, at about 2.5 hours.

The big change with the Q1B is the use of a VIA chip. The advantage here is that the battery life should double but many report the VIA chip is much less powerful than the original Intel chip. For more details about the differences check out this posting by Hugo Ortega.

The Q1P comes with a Pentium processor, hence the P. This is a much more powerful processor. In addition, the battery life is suppose to be close to the Q1Bs battery life. The downside is the extra cost.

Lastly, the Q1 with SSD comes with a hard drive with no moving parts. Helps with battery life as well as the life of the device if dropped. But the downside here is cost and the size of the drive, 32 GB.

To find out more about the Samsung Q1 check out these videos:

Hugo Ortega's Samsung Q1 Story
Kevin Tofel's Samsung Q1 Usage Scenarios
James Kendrick's Q1 SSD In Use
Head to Head Comparison of Q1 and eo i7210 at GottaBeMobile.com
Unbeatable's Is it Any Good?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alex just thought to give you some input on the Q1P. For starters its got great battery life using the 6 cell battery. I get 6.5 hrs with it using the bluetooth on and WiFi sometimes when needed. Another great thing is that you can actually see it out doors along that its very bright. Most of the time you can keep the brightness at half or lower if indoors. Out doors I set the brightness all the way up and looks great to me. Actually it looks better than my PPC-6700 screen outside comparing on what you can see on the screen. Also I have tablet 2005 loaded and also Vista Business loaded which so far I have everything working including the hardware buttons to control brightness, WiFi, etc... Also the U1-U4 buttons are working, and resoulution button working. The volume button is also working, the only two problems I have left to fix is the Bluetooth, and for some reason I don't get sound using windows media player for play back music. I find that this unit is very portable to use on the road and at the job site.

Alex said...

Thanks for the info. Its very useful. One question, how much extra weight does the 6 cell battery add and how about extra width?

Anonymous said...

When using the 6 Cell battery to me I don't really notice any difference. Its suppose to add I believe 7 oz. to the Q1, and adds 1/2 inch to the bottom which is great to me because when I rotate the screen it makes it easier to hold and ink or read email, ebooks, Zino mag's, etc...

HG