Posted on by Jonathan Greene

Do MIDs make sense?

Joanna Stern from Laptop Magazine makes many good points on why MIDs make no sense.

Still not sure what MIDs are? MIDs are meant to be different from smart phones in that they intended to have specific connected purposes. Intel told us that some MIDs will focus on navigation, others on multimedia (watching movies and listening to music), and a large selection on productivity (checking e-mail and reviewing PowerPoint slides, for example). But the driving force behind them all is Internet connectivity.

Do consumers really want to carry around different devices for different tasks? Unless you’re big on parachute pants, it’s not the most convenient solution. And can’t you do all those things with a $199 smart phone? Applications like Google Maps and TeleNav turn your phone into a GPS navigator, and people are ditching their point-and-shoot cameras for phones like the Samsung Memoir, which sports an 8-megapixel camera. Devices that can do it all make a lot more sense than ones that do a specific task really well. Isn’t this why iPhones and Blackberrys get more popular every day? [Laptop]

MIDs as they currently stand, are ‘tweener devices and that’s a hard sell. If someone could make a smaller MID-like device with the power to get through a day of use I’d be sold. Current devices seem to offer around 3 hours of battery life for $1000 which just does not cut it and none really fit in your pocket. I want a computer in my pocket but MIDs are the only thing trying to push these limits.

And by computer I don’t mean something that offers background processing through “push notificiations” or pseudo-multitasking because email can arrive when I’m listening to music. I mean the real thing. I want killer browsing, intelligent memory and task management, unified communications with presence and access to applications. I’d also like the power to both create and consume media on the go as well while we’re at it. Is that too much to ask for?

I’m not sure I’ll be a one-piece mobile device user anytime soon, but if a single device offered what I’m suggesting it would make quite the consideration …

5 Replies to “Do MIDs make sense?”

  1. MIDs are too close to larger smartphones for a lot of uses; and they aren't yet dockable enough to replace larger PCs for other uses.

    There's a market for them though; especially if they can be kitchen-top/travel-top media type devices.

    I do think that MIDs, UMPCs, Internet Tablets, etc. will eventally just become mobiles in term alone though. These other terms don't fit where they are going.

  3. No. The peek is a single purpose device and is low end. Like a more modern version of the pager though designed for email.

  5. No. The peek is a single purpose device and is low end. Like a more modern version of the pager though designed for email.

Comments are closed.