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The same goes for the built in stand that flips out from the back of the casing so you can prop the Q1 up on a table. Sure, you can use this at two different angles – 80 degrees and 20 degrees, but you can only do it with the screen in its wide format and not its tall one.

Overall, it seems the Q1 is indeed ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’. It works, in that when you switch it on, there’s a Windows XP Tablet PC edition device in front of you with a passive screen which is easy to prod with a finger. But it isn’t always easy to use and it doesn’t meet my Comfort Computing criteria.

Is it a new kind of computer? I think not. It can be likened to any of the following:

• A slate style Tablet PC
• A small format convertible Tablet PC. Yes, they are heavier and larger, but you get a keyboard built in which you can hide away if you don’t want to use it.
• Sony’s rather nice Vaio VGN-U70P handheld PC. (A nicely designed screen only machine that comes with a stand and a keyboard).
• The OQO. Ultra small in fact no bigger than many PDAs but with a QWERTY keyboard that Riyad swears he can use effectively. There are two versions. The original OQO model 01 runs Windows XP Professional and the more recent OQO 01+ runs Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
• Nokia’s 770 - an ultra small Linux driven device that’s less about productivity computing and more about wireless access. It has no SIM card.
• A whole barrage of PDAs from Palm’s 4GB LifeDrive to Orange’s 3G mini Tablet PC style SPV M5000 and plenty of others.

Some of these can accomplish all that the Q1 can, others not. Some cost less than it, others cost more. But after the full hands on experience, I still don’t see the Q1 as opening any fundamentally new doors.

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