15 years ago, I changed the build-in 1.8inch 40pin ZIF PATA Hard-drive of the OQO model 02 to a Sandisk Extreme IV CF card, it was sure something new at the time, and time flies to 2023, flash storage sure has greatly improved (so is everything, other than human beings)

This time, I opt to go for a 40pin ZIF converter to mSATA SSD, to be precise, a 128GB Samsung PM871 mSATA SSD.

By specs, it sure is a waste for such mSATA SSD to be use with PATA in the OQO 02 (400MB/s read for the SSD limited by the 133MB/s over PATA) , but I choose this path as ZIF SSD are getting hard to come across, and I still believe a SSD controller would do better wear compare to a CF, most importantly, I obtain the SSDs by lot at US$12each (I recall seeing the invoice of that Sandisk Extreme IV 8GB CF some years ago when I clean the invoice pile up, it was around US$175 back in 2008)

Now the OQO02 is working well even with Windows 7 SP1 installed.

Side note, due to how the BIOS on the OQO02 was designed (at the time installing OS from USB was still something new), it is not possible to install Windows 7 by USB Thumb drive, it will hang and fail to install, DVD has to be burnt and install directly from a USB DVD ROM.

Links
My own post on CF over ZIF on a OQO02 back in 2008 https://theopoon.rinnovative.com/2008/02/27/oqo-model-02cf/
Samsung PM871 mSATA 128GB benchmark
https://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=SAMSUNG%20SSD%20PM871%20mSATA%20128GB&id=12703

I was chatting with mate C over a dinner meet up mentioning I am recently back to retro UMPC for fun, he asked did I used to have a OQO? that trigger me to do some dig on the thrift market, and to my surprise, I ran into some new old stock someone left in a warehouse somewhere for all these years.

So, hell yes, let’s go back in the memory lane, and let’s have some fun with this piece of history again, after these 16 years!

Some great user aka trf got Leopard working on his OQO02, from the video clip I think it looks real enough……

From what he post:
WIFI/BT/Sound/Power works, the only problem he has now was the display which was stuck at 800×480 due to lack of drivers (VIA), and from the video he post with full boot process, it took about 2~2.5 mins to boot…

Too bad “Embedding disabled by request”
Head to youtube and watch yourself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSJM4r4PVuY

Introduction
I was very happy with my OQO 02, but there are a few point I would like it to improve.
As the very size of the OQO02, 1.8 inch 4200rpm Hitachi HDD in PATA ZIF connector was used, this is very common on UMPC now-a-days, but the trade off is it is slow, on the original settings, the HDD runs at approximate 17~18MB/seconds, have a look on the below benchtest results:

Hitachi HTC426060G8CE00



Compare to a normal 2.5 inch 7200rpm SATA HDD used in normal notebooks, well, it is really really slow…… Read more

Just got my extended battery for OQO Model 02, of coz, a photo before opening it up!


Back side of the packing, as the design of the OQO 02, black!


Yeah, opening!!!


Hum…. getting there!!


Yummy 9000MAH Li-ion battery!!!


A more closer look, see the descriptions.


Why is it now made in China? the standard battery is made in Taiwan!!!


A comparison on the top view.


Extended battery is really 200% in size of the Standard battery, but think of the extra juice….hum………….I think is worth it!

Ok, enough photos, lets goes back to the battery….

As I did read the kb from OQO at the knowledgebase, I remember a newly shipped battery from OQO is in something called sleep mode, took me about 60 seconds to understand what it means from New double-capacity battery does not appear to power unit. Got the battery running in no time!

The battery actually came 65% charged when I first kick started it, a funny point here is in the Vista Power Icon, it only first show 1.6 hours left when the standard battery is replaced by the extended battery, and few minutes later, it goes back to appox. 2.6 hours, thinks it is the OS getting new information from the newly plugged in battery.

As I have only got the battery for 3 hours by the time of writing, didn’t have any report yet, if you would like to know more on the battery, drop me a line in the comments and I will try reply them.

Gear I brought to Singapore, from the left:
Samsung SGH-i600, Dopod 586W, NDS Lite, OQO02.


Logmein from www.logmein.com, I use this to remote the server at home and work.


Dopod 586W, with a local SingTel SIM card, stays connected.


Iced coffee I had for breakfast.


Won ton Noddle, hum……….. yum!


Went to Orchard Road for “Tum Cha” Lunch with families.



OQO02 in the Singapore Changi Airport.


OQO02 at the middle of South China Sea! I was viewing and editing the photos I took in the trip.

I mainly use the OQO02 with WiFi in Singapore for Email checking, remote accessing the server at home/work, viewing, editing/cropping the photos I took, and sending them right away.

I also did some GPS logging with a BT GPS device with OQO02 and a software call GPS Communicator from www.panazzolo.com, a handy tool for your UMPC to work with a GPS, too bad I didn’t took any photo as I was in a car so photo taking was a bit hard…

For some reason, currently when a user who is not in US trying to access their website at http://www.oqo.com, user will be redirected to http://www.oqo.com/intl/ which shows their international resellers.

For this reason, user cannot access the knowledge base support page anymore. (We was able to visit the site before)

Some user suggest us to use a US base proxy to bypass the redirect, which I think it is too much trouble, thanks to bookmarks, I am able to access the page by http://support.oqo.com/cgi-bin/oqo.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php, the URL still exist, OQO just redirect the main index and products page to /intl/.

If you need more info, help, details on OQOs, pay a visit, the knowledge base is very informative.

I was trying to reinstall the OS on my OQO the other day, and I found this option in BIOS by surprise.


Looking at the “Boot Method”, Boot Sector, which make sense for Windows.


Booting by Windows CE??

Looking at the HTC Shift UMPC, which dual-boot Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Windows Vista, I wonder what this option is for? XP Emb? Windows CE.NET? Windows Mobile?

Do you know more about this?

Click to enlarge
Bejeweled from Astraware on OQO02.. makes me remember good old days with PalmTC…

🙂

Link
Astraware – Bejeweled