First Look: Chumby
August 9, 2007 | By Jared Howard | 6,325 Views
So in my possession is one of the first (1 of 50 actually) retail production Chumbys currently out in the wild. This is a gadget that caught my eye when I first heard about it almost a year ago. After going through both hardware and software revisions/upgrades from the initial batch of 500 beta units that were dispersed when the product was first annouced, Chumby is finally almost ready to be let loose. Check out the unboxing video after the jump.
My initial impressions? I’m going to have a lot of fun with this little guy. Performance was very snappy, the screen was crystal clear and sound performance was excellent. The real draw to a gadget like this is its software, or widgets in Chumby’s case. The fact that Chumby has an open HDK and SDK available, based on Flash Lite 3, ensures that excellent, useful widgets will continue to be released as long as enough of these get into developers hands. Be sure to check out my full review in the next week or so.
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August 10th, 2007 at 12:29 am
How Cute. Like bags. Wow you got one of the first 50. Very nice. Looks like it would be nice to carry. Nice tutorial. Wi-fi - oh my this is great. OK needs dull pointy tool to use touch pad. I could really enjoy this toy.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:24 am
I don’t know that I’d actually use it. Cool “Gee Whiz” factor, but that’s about it.
August 10th, 2007 at 3:58 am
Thing looks neat
August 10th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Ohhhhh Yea! Cool Wifi wakeup geek tool! Why am I so excited!
Nice to look at in the morning than having to get up a boot the desktop.
Love it!
Chumby on my pillow! Chumby by the bathtub!
Chumby while cooking inside or Bar-b-queing outside!
Chumby everywhere the laptop or desktop is inconvenient to take!
Must have Chumby! : D
August 11th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
That looks cute and fun.
August 12th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
nice
August 12th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
I think it’s cool, but why isn’t it battery-operated? It’s not always convenient to plug in.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Very interesting, but not sure it would fill a need here.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Nice gadget but my Pocket PC does all of that………
August 15th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
It is battery powered as well right? If so, no user-replaceable battery?
August 15th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
No, actually it is AC powered only… I’m finding that is one of the things I don’t like about it so far. Even though you will probably have it plugged in most of the time, it would be nice if it could be battery powered when you were moving it from room to room or wanted to use it outside for a couple of hours and didn’t have an outlet available.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
No kidding, that blows! It’s actually something I was kind of counting on, I saw on engadget or gizmodo someone had it on their lap and it definitely looked cordless.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
As I was referring to here: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/05/hands-on-with-the-chumby/
8th picture down.
Darn you chumby for making me want to squeeze your cute cuddly body and then robbing my joy of sweet sweet portability!!
August 17th, 2007 at 3:21 am
This is cute for geek factor but for functional usability, I think I’ll stick with my pda.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Well, I guess this is going up next or are you keeping it since it is soooooo cool?
August 20th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
so is this a pda sort of?
a laptop sort of?
something in between?
I’m at work and can’t really look at the video.