May 2000

Netpliance, Inc.
7600-A North Capital of Texas Highway
Austin, TX 78731
P: 800-467-3637
F: 512-493-8399
Web: netpliance.net

Price: $199 (occasional $99 seasonal promotions); monthly Netpliance ISPfee of $21.95 or $26.95; optional Canon inkjet is $99.95

RATINGS (0-5)
Installation: 4.25
Documentation: 3.75
Features: 3.5
Operational Testing: 3
GUI: 3.5
Overall: C+

The form chosen by Netpliance is that of a standard-looking keyboard and mouse plugged into a laptop-like freestanding monitor, with the actual CPU stuffed inside behind the display case. The i-opener features an impressive LCD, basic e-mail attachment support, a 56K/V.90 modem, numerous function keys and shopping links, a USB port, and support for RealAudio and JavaScript (but not Java). The system runs on the QNX real-time operating system with a proprietary Netpliance GUI. Special versions of the i-opener are also available for children and for teenagers.

INSTALLATION
You can buy the i-opener IPAD from the Netpliance Web site or from a retail store ("IPAD" stands for Internet Personal Access Device, but the company does not use that name very often). Set up can be done by a technically competent 10-year-old. There are five main steps: pivot and lock the stand, remove the protective tape, plug in the telephone line, plug in the AC power cord, and press the power button. There's a telephone pass-through connector as well, so you don't need to buy a line splitter. Also, the original units shipped with a control pad built into the keyboard; our beta unit and future units will include a mouse. The device also features speakers, contrast buttons, a volume slider control, and a microphone for use with future voice over IP applications.

Regardless of where you bought the product, you need to call Netpliance's toll-free support number to have them remotely program your i-opener's dial-up settings and to configure your e-mail address. (Unfortunately, the end user cannot do this, which is our first room for improvement issue. Also, it can take several hours for the remote programming to take effect, which is our second room for improvement issue.) However, there are six connection preferences that end users can set, including dialing a 9 before calling the ISP, dropping the connection for incoming calls for use with call waiting, dropping the connection when another extension of the same telephone number is picked up, not trying to connect if another extension of the same telephone number is already in use, hearing the modem dial or not, and the (partial) ability to change the local dial-up numbers. The device is now ready for your desktop, kiosk, or kitchen.

DOCUMENTATION
The i-opener comes with a quick-start diagram, a 20-page "getting started" guide, and online help. The quick-start diagram is very good and is illustrated in full color, although it seems unnecessarily large. The getting started booklet is very explanatory, featuring a two-page spread of the keyboard diagram, a three-page Q&A-style "Learn about the Internet" section (with questions like "What is surfing?" and "What is e-mail?") However, the one thing that is missing from the booklet is any material detailing the i-opener's specific features. The device's online help does a good job of accomplishing this, but we feel that a printed version of this information should also be included.

FEATURES
The first thing you notice about the i-opener is its form factor. Many people will see this product and ask, "Where's the actual CPU?" to which the answer is "Inside the display." From a product design view, this situation is very impressive -- after all, the price difference between a standard PC and an identically equipped laptop PC is about twice the actual cost of the i-opener. A more knowledgeable observer will note that the standard F1-F12 function keys have been replaced with proprietary Netpliance keys. This also holds for some of other standard keyboard buttons like the second CTRL, ALT, etc. There is also room for five additional keys on the keyboard's top right corner, and there is one blank key (with an as-yet unannounced function) where the Windows logo key normally resides.

The included mouse is a two-button model from Logitech, although we can't find any current use for the right button. An even closer inspection notes a removable rear access panel to the memory chip, a PS-2 style Y-connector for the keyboard and mouse, an expansion slot for a second USB port or perhaps a FireWire (IEEE-1394) port, and four Phillips-head screws that attach the display to the stand -- this is important, because it means that a clever do-it-yourselfer can quite easily remove the stand and hang the display on a wall, the side of a cabinet, etc.

When you press the power button, the device runs a brief POST sequence, and dials the default toll-free Netpliance number to download your personal configuration (described in the Installation section above). On subsequent boot-ups, presuming that you haven't unplugged the device since the previous boot, the power button is basically an instant-on feature and dials a local POP. The default screen has nine main options, including e-mail, shopping, weather, finance, entertainment, sports, news, the "Web Guide," and help.

Although it is constantly evolving, the shopping link takes you to a page that resembles the color-coded map/directory kiosks found in most shopping malls. As of this writing, there are 17 sections, an A-Z directory, a product category search, and a section of online shopping tips. The weather sections shows a five-day forecast based on your ZIP code, with links to weather maps and more detailed information, and with a city/ZIP code search option for other locations. The finance, entertainment, sports, and news sections feature simple layouts and search options. Next are the two most important links: the Web guide and e-mail.

"Web Guide" is the browser portion of the i-opener. Its menu features 14 categories, a search button, a RealAudio link, and a browse link. The categories are news, sports, health and fitness, personal finance, automotive, career, home and garden, reference, adventure, entertainment, family, travel, food, and around town. RealNames, Ask Jeeves, and AltaVista power the search option. The browse link allows you to enter any URL, with a small history-like drop-down menu. The URL bar also features auto-complete. Other features of the browser include stop, refresh, favorites, back/forward, print, and a shrink/expand option for the on-screen function links. Other features of the browser are support for JavaScript 1.1, HTML 3.2, HTTP 1.1, SSL 128-bit encryption, and streaming audio/RealAudio.

The main menu for the e-mail screen has five options: write mail, address book, drafts, sent mail, and mailbox. Some of the address book features include print, forward, the address book, a drafts feature, and support for basic attachment like .TXT, .GIF, and .JPG files. The device also supports URL links in e-mail, but actual .HTM and .HTML file attachments did not work as of this writing.

Other features of the i-opener include a "pizza" button on the keyboard that provides a direct link to the Web site of the Papa John's chain, from which you can place a delivery order if a local franchise is near you; a chat keyboard button that is not yet operational; e-mail waiting and phone-in-use LED indicators; a parallel port with software support for the Canon Bubble Jet 2000 color printer; and the option to use Netpliance's ISP service for your PC.

OPERATIONAL TESTING
We tested the i-opener for about a month. At heart, we in TMC Labs are both engineers and reporters, so it seemed appropriate that the very first test should be of the Papa John's pizza delivery, but unfortunately there is not a franchise close enough to our office. So, we moved on to the address book.

The address book is very easy to use. We are impressed with how easy it is to add and delete entries, and the GUI is simple to learn. But we found that it can only hold ten entries per letter, and there is no way to import an existing address book from another source.

Netpliance assigned us the address "[email protected]" as well as multiple dial-up numbers so we could test the product from our laboratory and from our homes. This was convenient; however, the end user cannot change the assigned order that multiple dial-up numbers occur in, so when we took the device to a new location, we had to wait for the first number to time out before the second number would be tried. Netpliance product planners have taken the position that it's better to keep the product simple than to risk having end users break their settings. The intent is respectable, but in our opinion, they have gone too far.

The e-mail client has its own personality conflicts. Like the address book, it is extremely simple to learn and to use, but that simplicity comes at the cost of functionality. There is no "Cc:" feature and no "reply to all" feature. A Netpliance representative told us that the QNX OS does support these features, but that the Netpliance organization made a conscious decision not to implement them. We feel that this is a mistake. We're also told that future versions will support real .HTM and .HTML attachments, as well as .AU attachments. We also found an e-mail file size limitation of one million bytes.

The actual Web browser, of course, is the feature that you've been waiting to read about. Some parts of it are quite good; other parts are mediocre or missing entirely. The color 800 x 600 display lets you view most Web sites without having to use the horizontal scroll, which is an issue on some other Web appliances because of the physical screen size and processor requirements. Support for HTTP 3.2 means that frames and tables display fine, but full Java support is not available. (We researched Java support further, and found that it will be included in some of Netpliance's higher-end competition debuting this fall.) We like that the favorites list can be sorted by site name or by the date that you added the link. Although the drop-down URL bar features a "history" of sorts, it is not stored in memory if the machine is unplugged (or if there is a power failure), and there is no way of manually clearing the list (although unplugging the power has the same net result, for the wrong reasons!)

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
We are looking forward to an improved e-mail client and Web browser in this product. From a feature set point of view, the e-mail client is among the worst we can remember since the days of using Windows 3.1 to Telnet into UNIX mainframes connected by 2,400 Bps modems. The Web browser is better, and except for the missing Java support, our main criticism is its speed: downloading normal pages like CNN.com, Yahoo.com, and (of course) TMCnet.com was a very slow process. There is a progress bar, but it does not appear until the browser successfully connects to the site, so end users are uninformed while the connection is being attempted.

Since the i-opener includes a microphone, we expect future versions to include an Internet telephony application, perhaps something like shortcut key to Dialpad.com or to the Net2Phone service. Because of the RealAudio support, the microphone can also mean some interesting integrated messaging applications may be coming as well. Further, we'd like to see a more traditional printed user's manual, and we would like to see more preferences settings available for the end user to customize without having to first call Netpliance technical support and wait several hours for the upgrade to occur. A choice of more than one kind of printer would be useful, as would a mouse with a scroll wheel for simpler Web browsing. Alternatively, why not make the keyboard and mouse wireless?

CONCLUSION
Of the Web appliances that we in TMC Labs have seen hands-on, this is the first one that has decent Web browsing options, and the system has more promise than some of its competitors. With a promotional price of just $99 plus the service, it appears to be the best value, and that includes the pricing of some competitor's products that we've been alerted to but cannot yet print. We especially like its display, easy setup process, and form factor. However, we feel that this product's e-mail limitations, browsing speed, and lack of end-user control for the preferences all hinder the purchasing decision.

WHAT'S COMING?
As of early 2000, the i-opener and InfoGear's iPhone were the only two Web appliances available to the general U.S. market, and of the two, we feel that the Netpliance i-opener has a small edge. But what will happen this winter, when at least six other companies introduce similar devices, along with Microsoft's and AOL's own branded devices? TMC Labs engineers have been privy to hands-on demonstrations of some of these competitor's products, and so far, about one-third of them make the current Netpliance and InfoGear offerings seem primitive. Some of these holiday launchings come from start-ups that you've never heard of, but others come from the most powerful technology firms in existence. Our hope is that there will be heated competition in this new market, but in the meantime, Netpliance and InfoGear have a one-year head start.