Zoomer vs Omnigo 100

William M. Miller (wmm@user1.channel1.com)
Wed, 25 Oct 1995 14:21:50 -0400 (EDT)

As an exercise, I decided to do a comparison between the Zoomer (which
I have used for a year and a half) and what has been posted about the
Omnigo 100. It proved interesting to me -- in contrast to some of the
negative statements from current Zoomer owners, I think the Omnigo is
quite competitive (albeit with some significant drawbacks, any of which
might disqualify it for some people). Particularly in view of the fact
that the Omnigo is starting out at half the price of the original Zoomer
cost, I think it's quite attractive, and if my Zoomer decides to go
belly-up sometime soon, I might very well replace it with an Omnigo.

The comparison below is based on built-in or free software, not on
purchased software (hence I give the nod to the Omnigo for Grafitti,
which costs extra for the Zoomer, but not for Book Reader, which is
freely downloadable) and includes some measure of speculation on some
categories.

Zoomer advantages Omnigo advantages

Screen size Keyboard
Form calculator Jotter
Dictionaries Grafitti
Games (Pyramid, Uki) Size
Battery life (note 1) Database
I/R link Spreadsheet
Flash RAM capable HP fin calc emu
AOL Pen (note 2)
Support/popularity (note 3)
Speed (note 4)

Notes:

1) No one has said anything about battery life in the Omnigo. Admittedly
an argument from silence isn't very convincing, but if the battery life
were anything like the remarkable Zoomer I imagine HP would make a big
deal out of it. I'm guessing that either it's nothing remarkable, so
HP thinks it's not worth mentioning, or it's poor, so they want to hide
it.

2) The pen in the photos looks more substantial and comfortable than
the barely-usable implement supplied with the Zoomer, but photos can be
misleading.

3) I'm guessing that the relatively low price and the HP name will lead
to a substantially broader base of users and suppliers than the Zoomer,
which is unarguably disappointing in this regard.

4) The execute-in-place and faster CPU should give the Omnigo a significant
advantage here -- but only hands-on will tell.

Anybody want to elaborate on this list?

-- 
William M. Miller, wmm@setech.com, wmm@world.std.com, wmm@user1.channel1.com
			wmmx3j16@aol.com, 72105.1744@compuserve.com
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