Once again, Tux has beat the Borg to the punch with a new innovation. This time, it's the Pepper Pad, an ultra-mobile computer designed primarily for video playback and Internet access under circumstances where most notebook computers would be too heavy, and most PDAs would have too small a viewing screen. If you have seen the Origami media blitz (who hasn't!!) and you want a truly open ultra-mobile computer NOW and don't want to wait for Origami, you probably will like the Linux-powered Pepper Pad.
The Pepper Pad, like Origami, is a mid-point form factor PC that is bigger and more powerful than a PDA, but smaller and less optimized for traditional desktop PC tasks than a notebook computer or a desktop PC. The Pepper Pad is a good buy for people who would like to have a light-weight, dirt-simple, point-and-click open source device for watching videos, listening to music, reading e-books, and doing simple web surfing with a view screen that is actually easy to read. If you want do more than that, you are really better off getting a small Linux notebook, unless you are willing to get under the hood (which you can do with the Pepper Pad!) and start compiling for yourself.
Neither the Pepper Pad, Origami or Sony's Location-Free TV are designed to compete with notebooks. Instead, the ultra mobile class of PCs is going to be optimized more for data consumption than data creation. Sony's Location Free TV, Microsoft's Origami and Pepper Computing's Pepper Pad are all optimized to let you store audio and video files and take them with you for later viewing, in much the same way that cell phones are optimized for voice and text communications, and PDAs are optimized for time management.
Of course, each of these classes of devices overlap the functionality of the classes next to them, but none tend to perform all that well when they stray too far from their optimal niches. Desktop computers are horrible for mobile computing; notebooks have some serious problems with ergonomics and are too expensive to be scaled up for production like desktops; PDAs are miserable for screen viewing and are causing thumb injuries; and likewise for cell phones. Ultramobile PCs are intended to step into the gap between notebooks and PDAs.
I found that the Pepper Pad worked admirably for the functionalities that matter the most for the ultra-mobile class of computers: reading ebooks, viewing digital photos, listening to audio and watching video in a physical form factor that is not too large to carry comfortably, and not too small to view the screen easily. It also was great at finding a wifi signal wherever I went. The Pepper Pad performed adequately well at simple word processing emailing, and web browsing, although these functions are not why you would throw down the $800.00 for the unit. The on-board speakers could be better. It has no onboard calendar function, nor does it let you download or view PDFs locally, both of which I considered to be noticeable flaws. However the lack of a calendar can be worked around with the web browser function, provided that you are someone who is around wifi hot spots a lot, and you rely on Gmail calendar or Yahoo calendars or some similar web service for your calendaring.
