Worth Reading?
Can the Raon Digital Vega UMPC claw its way out of the mire of poor reviews we’ve seen it languish in over the past few months? Is there anyone other than the Carrypad UMPC Journal that can even begin to overlook the absence of any wireless connectivity? Is the first-generation of this otherwise cool device destined to be a mere stepping stone to what I’m hoping is a kick-ass replacement? That’s a lot of questions, and I’m looking to my favourite cam-whore Kevin Tofel over at jkontherun to answer at least a couple of them.
So where do we stand? Well, the Vega can’t multi-task, it can’t handle media-heavy applications (like the Zune’s software) and Skype calling was choppy and glitchy thanks to the underpowered CPU. On the flip side, web-based apps like Gmail and Outlook Web Access - where the bulk of processing is done server-side - ran smoothly. So what does this make the Vega? An over-complicated web-tablet or an underperforming UMPC?
Raon Digital Vega review [jkontherun]
Ah leave the poor thing alone Chris. From my review:
Explorer and Outlook express ran well as did many of the other applications. Adobe acrobat is quite slow but acceptable.Other applications I used without problem were Outlook 2003, Winamp, ac3filter, Acrobat reader, Bluesoleil BT stack, Ilium Inscribe, .net frameworks 1.1 and 2.0, Power-DVD, Google toolbar, QuickTime, RealPlayer, Skype, Trillian, LiveWriter and Zoomplayer.
Xvid runs at 2mbps too. Lovely quality.
Its certainly not a performer but 5 hours batt life is just soooo goood!
I’d actually like to see something like Pepper Software on it. I think it would be an even better performer and a simplet device to use. XP is to complex to use on such a small screen. I wonder if street desk would run. mmmmm!
Cheers!
Steve.
Perhaps I am being too harsh, Steve - I think my criticism comes from disappointment. I really want every UMPC to be the best-of-breed, and poor performance (i.e. programs will run, but they run like molasses!) is guaranteed to turn off the average consumer.
However, I shall try to be nicer to the Vega from now on! I’m excited to see what they do with v.2, and I’m definitely keeping an open mind.
Hi Chris! While I’m pretty happy with the general progress of UMPCs so far I do share some of your frustration. We all have our ideal device in our head and when we think something matches, it invariably has an issue! Not quiet enough. Diet UMPC!
I’m still searching for a ‘Carrypad.’ One day. One day!
Regards
Steve.