One of the toys I picked up while in the US recently is a Samsung Q1P that has been provided for evaluation.
Physically the Q1P is looks pretty much identical to the Q1 and the Q1B. The shiny black finish gives the unit a smart, sophisticated look and the Q1P will look right at home your lounge. Here's a quick tour of the exterior.
Across the top you of the unit you will find...
A) The power switch
B) The Windows Security button (a recessed button that sends Ctrl-Alt-Delete - you need to use the stylus to press it)
C) A Compact Flash Slot covered by a dust flap, rather than a removable insert
D) RJ-45 network port. This is also covered by an attached dust cover.
On the left side there is a mini AV output, a USB port headphone jack, volume control and a lock switch. The lock switch disables the touch screen and the hardware buttons so you can't do anything by accident.
On the right side of the unit there power input, a second USB port and a VGA connector under a dist cover.
On the front left below the screen there are four indicator lights. Left to right they are drive activity, network, charge indicator and power indicator. There are also two microphones on the front bezel.
There are hardware buttons and controls on the front of the unit on both the left and right of the screen.
On the left there is a directional control and a resolution zooming button.
The directional control basically emulates the directional keys on a standard keyboard. Pressing the zooming button toggles between the native resolution (800x480), emulated 800x600 and emulated 1024x600. When zooming to a resolution higher than the native resolution, there is naturally some loss of fidelity in the image, but it is handy for dialogs that don't fit into a screen 480 pixels high.
On the Right there is a control that looks like a D-pad, but is actually four programmable buttons. These are called the User Buttons and Samsung provides a utility to create and switch between profiles that assigns different actions to each of the buttons.
Below the User Buttons are an Enter button and a button that brings up the menu utility provided by Samsung.
One of the fantastic design features of the Samsung UMPCs is the integrated stands. When not in use these sit flush with the back of the unit.
The larger of the two stands props the unit upright.
The smaller stand props the unit up at quite a shallow angle, for better on table viewing.
The initial impression is that the Q1P is a little heavier than it looks like it should weigh, but there is a lot in the package to account for that. The petit size belies the power in the package. The Q1P boasts a 60GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and a 1GHz Intel Pentium M processor. That is more than enough to run Windows Vista, and in fact that is just what I am doing.
More on using the Q1P and the general Vista-gami experience coming soon.