I have to admit that I have a taste for portable devices: first it’s PDA, now it’s UMPC. Despite lukewarm reviews everywhere, Q1 comes quite close as my dream machine. In particular, it addressed many inadequates of PDA. Here are the pros:
1. Size: Q1 has the size of an average package book; with a weight of less than 800g its very portable.
2. Screen: At 7″ physically it is much bigger than anything one could find on a PDA.
3. Touch-Sensitivity: I really like touch-screen–mouse-pad and pointer drive me mad. Touch-screen also allows me to work one-handed, something I really need when I am standing. I actually find entering through Dialkeys, a virtual keyboard bundled with all UMPC, somewhat enjoyable…
4. Windows XP: Since Q1 runs XP Tablet, anything that works on a desktop theoretically works in it to. This is an unbeatable advantage over PDA’s, which need specialized softwares. Just yesterday I demonstrated the concurrent running of World of Warcraft and a program I wrote to a research colleague.
5. CF-slot: This is how Q1 wins my heart over Asus R2H, another UMPC. I need CF-slot to load photos from my DSLR and R2H only has a SD-slot.
6. Spec: Nothing spectacular here–actually Q1 is arguably underpowered–but as a PC it’s still way better than any PDA. I could barely open jpeg’s from my EOS-300D on my X50v, not to mention RAW.
7. Connectors: 2 USB ports and VGA out, things that are not on my PDA, is really all I need.
6. Price: I was originally look for ultra-portable laptops but those are expensive. At ~$1000 Q1 costs at most 2/3 of many popular ultra-portables.

There are quite some cons too:
1. Underpowered: Equipped only with a Celeron M 900Mhz processor, 512MB RAM and 40GB hard disk, it’s not a fast computer in any sense. Q1’s 7″ touch screen is almost triple that of my x51v in size, yet at a native resolution of 800×480 it hardly offers any advantage in resolution.
2. No microphone jack: The built-in microphone works great, but it would still be great to have the option to plug in an external one.
3. No videocam and GPS: Not something I would use often, but Asus’ R2H has both.
4. Mediocre Battery life: This is by far the biggest drawback–battery cannot hold much longer than two hours.
5. Price: I did mention it cost a thousand bucks…well.

In the end I am happy: Q1 is the solution to my need; neither PDA nor laptop could address my need as well as the Q1 does. And while many condemned Q1 to its demise, I do see there are others holding the same opinion as I do. Sometimes you just have to leave aside the zillions of reviews and make your own choice.