The "Cool" Factor

The last week or so, Samsung has been running a bunch of ads on TV for a "smartwatch" which is supposed to work with their Galaxy line of Android phones. If you're unfamiliar with these things, they've actually been around for a while going back to the huge Palm OS watch some years ago, but with the advent of smartphones, the reality of a watch that links to them, while the phone hides discretely in your pocket is alluring..... at least conceptually...... which is probably why they have thus far been commercial failures. 

Even the mighty Sony hasn't even gotten it's 2nd version to make so much as a ripple in the market. I'll admit it; I've been sorely tempted by it. As a teacher, I don't have the luxury of grabbing my phone to look, every time it buzzes, to see if it's just another Facebook notification, or that call-back from the doctor's office I've been waiting for all morning! However, I just can't seem to get myself to pull the plug on spending somewhere between $100 and $200 on something that requires me to charge every day or so (just like my cellphone), and is still somewhat glitchy, plus I might not find myself using on a regular basis. 

Of course, some of it might be that I'm kind of a crusty old guy who wears one of these on a daily basis. Yup, my dad's old Omega Constellation, which is a "perpetual", a completely mechanical "self-winding" watch from the late 60's! The other watch that I wear regularly is an older Timex Expedition which is a similar completely analog watch with a plain white face and a simplistic brown resin case. 

Even if I could run out and buy any watch I wanted, it'd be one of these Omega Seamasters. I know what you're thinking. I've loved them long before James Bond started wearing one in the movies, instead of the Rolex Submariner that he wears in the books. Is this a post on watches then? Actually, no; it's a post on "Cool" concepts that don't turn out to be all that useful.

In fact this whole line of thinking started the other day when I realized that I have a really cool device that I virtually never use. Awhile ago, I saw that Iomega had released an external storage solution built on a 1.8" SSD. So, not only was it incredibly small and light, but it's in a really nice embossed metal case. Of course price ranged from $230 (64Gb) to $750 for the 256Gb version! Yikes, that's a lot of money for cool! I decided that I'd do an eBay search anyway and see what the price ends up coming down to when they hit the used market. Then I came up with some ads posted from China (where else), for the cases w/o drives for something like $15 after shipping. As it turns out, I had an unused 64Gb Samsung OEM, 1.8" SSD that came out of my old X300 ThinkPad. After sitting in a drawer for over a year, it needed a job. A 3 week wait ensued after which the package finally arrived via China Post. Indeed, the thing came in the Iomega packaging complete down to the paperwork for the device. I slipped in the drive, and one quick format later, I have this really slick external storage device with the capacity of....... a nice flashdrive...... Yup, after all that, I rarely ever use it, since it doesn't give any more capacity or have any advantages over the 64Gb flashdrive that you can run down to Walmart and buy for $35-40. Kind of a letdown.

Then, there are these guys....Ultrabooks. You might be aware that Intel periodically puts together concepts that they create prototypes of and encourages manufacturers to build. 

Kind of like this '56 Firebird "Concept Car" from GM. Mostly they are really cool ideas that don't turn out to work that well in real life. A few years ago, Intel thought that it'd be a great idea if you put a small LCD screen on the outside of a laptop so you can see when email comes in or what music track it's playing etc. Turns out that nobody wanted to carry around a notebook computer in place of a iPod or Smartphone.... who Knew! Anyway, back to my original thought; the Ultrabook. At the time, it seemed like an idea who's time had come. An ultralight, ultraslim (hence ultraportable), ultracool (ultra-like-the-Apple-MacBook Air), notebook computer. Even ultra-sealed-up (like you know who), so that you can't even change the battery w/o taking it apart. ......and as it turns out, Ultra-not-really-salable either since they've been met in the marketplace with a collective yawn. Conceptually, it seems like a great idea, but I think there are a couple of issues here. 

Mind you, these are my not-too-scientific analysis here, but we can start by it's poor timing of coming to market around the time-frame of the iPad/tablet revolution which has swept all before it. They also tend to be somewhat pricier than the typical consumer market notebook (about double). And while consumers are OK with tablets being dependent on downloaded apps/content, I think they are still somewhat leery of a full-blown PC coming w/o an optical drive. You add to that the rather inept staff of blue-shirted zombies at the big-box stores trying to sell them. I'd say that it all conspires to hold down these things in the marketplace. And remember, this is all coming from an X301 user, which after all is one of the original computers that kicked off that form-factor.....albeit in "super-ultrabook" form given that it does have an optical drive! 

Who, knows; maybe there's life in these products still to be sparked. It's rumored that Apple is going to bring out an "iWatch"(?), as well as M$ and some other industry heavy hitters. I know that I still think that the concept is interesting and that I could see myself using one at some point, but then again: I used the Palm V up until last year!