still hanging onto those british claims to fail

Why is it we brits feel the need to try and sabotage our every attempt at success?

Surely they could have come up with a better name for both the device (hardly rolls off the tongue, it's like we're back in the 80's/90's for naming conventions!) and their company name hardly inspires confidence.. POS Ltd... Piece Of Shit Limited?

Pay a bit of good money on a marketing dept... please, I'd so love to see a resurgence in the UK hardware space for British genius to shake up electronics markets once again!

*puts on his jacket with "Psion could have been a UK Sony" emblazoned on the back*

Nearly there

I hope they go back to their roots and launch an ARM/Linux version soon - lots more battery life and a £300 price tag?

Wifi?

Is there any wifi?

eh ?

"nothing on the market today" ? What about the N900 from Nokia ?

In a box of this size

In a box of this size I do not want or need an Intel CPU and I do not want or need a Windows OS (even if they have had the good sense to use XP rather than CE or Win7).

I need an ARM CPU for battery life and a non-WIndows OS for battery life and stability.

It might have been interesting for the article author to ask the chaps whether any such plans could be disclosed.

Also: does it/could it do Bluetooth, and does it/could it have a SIM socket (if you get my drift)? Or does that require all kinds of messy approvals from the cellphone network operators?

I wish the chaps the best of luck anyway, but I for one am not a potential customer until they get rid of the Wintel Inside.

(Former owner of HP95, Psion 3, Jornada 720 handheld PCs. Note: no Intel, and not much Windows)

"it's open for hacking"

It also sez here that there are "3G options" on connectivity so, how long before someone writes a phone app for it and reminds us all of what killed these things off in the first place?

The laws of irony demand it.

Oh how I yearn for an updated Series 5mx

Nothing has come close since. Superb hardware. Superb software. I mourn the passing of the Series 5mx. All it needs now is bluetooth, wi-fi and a decent screen.

Want!

I want one, for nostalgia value if nothing else, but I think I'd better spend the money on a Mac Mini :-(

I mourn the '5...

...but unless this thing can last >2 days without recharging and costs <£200 it will never take off.

Given them some credit

OK, Paul's an old friend of mine (old = haven't seen him in over a decade), but I do think you should cut them some slack here.

This is a small outfit who have just proven that you don't need a gazillion budget facility to turn out something interesting. I like the idea, but I do agree it's a crowded market they're entering and they have only just started up, I suspect there will be more coming.

I for one will be watching this - this is at least someone with the balls to follow their own ideas to completion, this is also how the original company came to be. Slagging off is easier than making things happen, believe me..

If you diddnt know

If you diddnt know anything about Psion, and looked at the two designs you think the "Popper Psion" in the pic was the new one!!! (colour/windows aside)

Anything netbook or smaller is all about usability as afar as I can see, specs and os are only a small part of that. Mobiles are getting BIGGER, miniaturization is dead, long live usability.

Instant on/Instant off

My Lenovo s10e has instant on instant off while running debian linux. There is absolutely no problem for most other netbooks to have it either. The only thing that takes more than 3 seconds at present is for it to get its bearings onto the right network. The laptop itself is actually nicely up and usable straight away. If I replace the SATA with a SSD it will need even less - around a second or so.

This Psion-like thing is dead on arrival - same as the numerous XP embedded "pseudonetbooks".

agenda

the great thing about the revo that my wife still uses daily (besides the instant on, great battery life, weight, touch screen, design) is the software - well written and still yet to be improved upon. the week view on the agenda/diary is just excellent - what else compares with it?

such a shame that psion died before they were able to release a colour, wifi, bluetooth version of the revo. the nokia n900 is the only device that has caught my eye since the revo. mind you, i haven't got my hands on one to try yet - i may be disappointed!

Interface problems

That interface with those controls? That's going to be a disaster and you know it.

£500!!

I mean, well done and all, but £500!!!!

Old Psions

Well,

I used psions from the psion '11' , through to the 3mx,

never go t into the 5 series, the 3 did all I wanted it to do.

Number 1, was reliability. Don't think I ever had to re boot the thing,

Number 2, battery life. A month or two normal use,

Number 3, connectivity, connected to the PC fantasticaly easily

Number 4, instant on. Open , press button and use.

It just worked, always there for me when I wanted it, had all sorts of information on it , stored and sorted as needed. Spread sheets and note pads as needed.

Perfect.

Then they went and tried to get into the mobile market and blew it.

And this new thing only seems to tick the connected button, the rest it seems to fall over on big time.

If they could make a Psion 3 or 5 that connected to the PC, I'd get one.

Wasn't the shape-changey lady in Space 1999 a Psion?

As a Samsung Q1 PC owner, to me this is the same thing but smaller and with an actual keyboard attached, and more RAM, and an SSD to hibernate to. Which is all quite nice. And I am looking for a new touchscreen PC / video player - I have a keyboard disability so I only use that for necessary maintenance. Missing here possibly is XP speech recognition, which the Q1 Tablet Edition includes, as well as Vista and I think Windows 7. Otherwise I don't know if it can be added on, there is an SDK and redistributable pack but that's only licensed for development... and speech rec. is liable to be slow anyway, unless there's an amount of RAM that makes it fly that I haven't been blessed with yet. Currently I use the pretty nifty Fitaly stylus keyboard software.

Spookily...

...is it just me, or does the Psion 5 look more futuristic than that unpronounceable thing?

How to fake resolution

Oh, the Samsung Q1 also has a mode where an 800x600 virtual screen is scrunched onto its own 800x480 display - landscape only - so that's one way that the display could look kind of how it is in the picture. And you can fiddle font size. You have to do something, because many applications have dialog boxes larger in either or both dimensions than your whole display. Having said that, the device's reflection in the desk top is suspiciously neat.

What I have my eye on currently is Fizzbook Spin (UK Classmate). I may give myself that for Christmas instead of this. It's a bit under-resourced compared to Gigabyte M912 but that seems to be discontinued (I had one briefly, it got run over) whereas Argos has the Fizzbook at £349 and with a UK keyboard (I used AutoHotkey utility to get | and \ on the M912). But are grownups allowed to have it?

Hey, wait

BACKLIT keyboard?

Even though keyboards are not for me, that is cool.

Piy it's £500.

Gut feeling that price will kill this before it's soiled it's first nappy. That, for this kinda machine is regrettable.

Oh, and WindowsXP? Daft. Like putting a V6 engine in a Fiat 500. Plus 800x480 resolution - fair enuf, but 32Mb display memory...WTF???? Must be a typo. if not, bye bye battery life.

I'd snap one up at €200, with Linux. Bought my missus' Asus 701 - still going strong - at €150, albeit with a €10/month, all-you-can-eat 3G modem. (2 year contract, but - so what? I use it when I travel, and with port-forwarding to the wireless modem, it's good enough at home)

I look forward to an El Reg test, when this machine actually ships.

As to the 'badge-engineered' comment above - obvious - why else would it come with TD-SCDMA (Chinese-only standard IIRC), but 3G is noted as an option? Finnish keyboard? Chinese? Nah. Yank only, it seems.

In short, this machine doesn't make sense to me. Sorry, guys.