SmartQ 5 MID is a small sized wireless capable PMP (unbox here).
As it is included wireless, bluetooth and "Midori" browser, most importantly, it is running Linux (Ubuntu) OS, peoples start to focus on this small PMP and thinking of low-price MID alternative.
(Credits: I got no time to hand on SmartQ 5 (Q5) and all the test and video were recorded by SKY.)
Overall impression
Very small, light and compact. 160g is just as light as your mobile phone. Holding on it will not be tired even for a long time.
The device response is slow, every action will not get you a reaction immediately.
You may find the slow reponse of Q5 in the following video.
It is surprised that the Bluetooth is working to bt mouse.
We did not try bt keyboard or stereo handfree, but we think it should be no problem on connecting the devices via bluetooth.
Wireless connection is pretty easy as you are experienced in WinXP.
The security settings is quite mature. WEP, WAP1/2, EAP-TLS....are included.
SKY is using a 802.11 n router, there is no difficulty on connection and the signal is very good (always 100%).
Note: No handwriting or "速成" or "倉頡" Chinese input method!!
Midori Browser
The launching of the default browser is slow. Once started, the response is acceptable.
Web surfing on some picture demanding webpages have no big problem, the caching speed is good.
The midori browser is not supporting youtube or flash script. That would be good for speedy page load but cannot enjoy youtube video.
Multimedia
The speed of the picture viewer, gpicview, is acceptable. The handling of 1024 x 768 pictures is speedy. However, there is no mouse gesture support on gpicview. That means you can't switch to the next picture by using the touch screen. It is a little bit disappointing. Wasting the touch functionality.
Audocious is the music player. Simple user interface, speaker is loud enough but quality is bad.
No luck to those expecting Q5 as a video player. The most common video types, rmvb and mp4, did not play well in Q5. You may say rmvb is totally incompatable even it can be loaded. Although SKY did not tell me the bitrate and resolution of those video, I don't think Q5 can handle video well using Samsung 667MHz ARM11 processor. Mepg 1, mepy 2 or dat file format may do well instead.
USB Edge Modem
You may know that SmartQ 5 can connect to a EDGE modem. SKY has the modem on hand but trying different method to connect it (as the dialup service is different from mainland China). Although we are still cannot connect it so far, we find there is other interest function when we connet it to a normal Windows XP computer. It will give MID likes Viliv S5 and aigo MID an interesting function.
I am contacting SKY to send the modem to me for a further testing. I hope you will find interesting too.
Conclusion
I think SmartQ 5 is still a very pioneer ARM-based MID product.
Although it is running Linux (Ubuntu) OS, we are still testing on how to install Ubuntu program on it. Hence, the program support may not be extensive so far.
Moreover, Samsung 667MHz processor is not powerful enough to be a good MID or even a PMP. Hardware decording is necessary. I hope SmartQ 5 is just a prototyping device and the sucessors would be Qualcomm Snapdragon or Nvidia Tegra powered!
SmartQ 5 Specification：
Processor: Samsung 667MHz ARM11
OS: Linux
Connectivity: 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, miniUSB
RAM/ROM: 1G
Reader: SD card
Screen: 4.3" WVGA (800 x 480), touch screen
Dimension: 120 x 74 x 14 mm
Weigth: 160g
Battery: 2000 mAh
