Portable Fight: Old Apple Beats New Wintel

I've never used an Apple Newton, so I'm not one of its rabid longtime fans. And I realize that CNet UK's comparison between a 1997 Apple Newton and the brand new Samsung Q1 (via Slashdot) is more of a troll-baiting puff piece than a real review.

But I still think it's interesting that, even in a tongue-in-cheek and fairly dorky story like this, they can come to the conclusion that the ancient relic from Apple actually beats the shiny new Wintel portable. (To illustrate how long ago 1997 was in Computer Land, the top of the line PCs that year were sporting 233MHz Pentium IIs.)

I think the pro-Newton guy sums up the moral of the story in "round 6", while talking about reliability and viruses.

Though it's easy to argue the Newton has security through obscurity, you do have to question whether it was wise to bring all the overheads of Windows to a small portable device like the Q1. An operating system designed for a desktop computer will rarely shoehorn well into a portable device, yet that is exactly what Samsung has tried to do with the Q1. Very little consideration has been given to the differing priorities of desktop and small-form computer users. Windows is a one-size-fits-all solution, whereas the Newton OS is very specifically built for the efficient use of a small screen and stylus.