World of Warcraft on UMPC?

July 20, 2009 8:56 AM

Does anyone have experience playing World of Warcraft on an ultra mobile PC like the Samsung Q1, OQO or Sony Vaio UX series? I know it's technically possible to run by watching the demos on YouTube but I'd like to get some feedback about whether it's actually a playable experience long term or more of a novelty.

The Sony device seems to have been discontinued so if you have other recommendations for an ultra mobile form factor I'm all ears. More importantly if you've actually tried playing WoW in a mobile environment what are the major issues to watch out for in terms of these UMPCs?

posted by jeffhoward to technology (7 comments total)

I've got a Fujitsu Lifebook u820, which probably fits in that class Atom processor and board graphics-wise. A week ago I decided to put WoW on it, with the sole intent of using it to run a second account set to 'follow' my main (since multiboxing crashes my main comp).

It WILL run (even though at install it claims to not meet install requirements, since there's only 1MB of RAM), but the WotLK login screen crushes the onboard video. It typically takes multiple attempts to successfully get past it and log in completely -- though once logged in, the game actually runs a bit better. I expected horrid but playable, and it's more horrid but usable for auction and tradeskill stuff only. Combat's hopeless, and disconnects are common (though some of that may be related to Blizzard having trouble with non-battle.net accounts recently). I finally gave up on it this weekend, because it wasn't worth the grief.

As a note: I've also tried WoW on my Lenovo x61 tablet, which has supposedly better hardware (and definitely more memory). It wasn't that much better at all, so I judged it useless for combat-play as well.
posted by Pufferish at 9:33 AM on July 20

I can run WoW on my Asus 900HA (with 2GB RAM). I installed it mainly as a proof-of-concept and then realized that I'd been playing for two hours... graphics dialed down of course but on a small screen it looks great. A little hard on the eyes in the long run but very playable.
posted by Billegible at 9:49 AM on July 20

Newegg's Ultra Moble PC section looks pretty sparse. They only have four fujitsus with 5.6 inch screens. You can get an Asus N10 with 2gb of ram and a 1.6ghz Atom chip (seems to be the fastest 'netbook') out there and that has a 10 inch screen. They also have A Sony with 2gb of ram and a 1.6ghz atom chip with just an 8 inch screen.

So I guess the question is how big of a screen you're willing to put up with. If you're willing to go up to 11.1 inches you could get this tablet PC with 1gb of ram and a core2 duo chip. And newegg has tons of laptops with 12 inch screens and plenty of CPU power.
posted by delmoi at 9:56 AM on July 20

(oh the Asus and Sony they classify as "netbooks", as opposed to "ultra mobile PCs")
posted by delmoi at 9:57 AM on July 20

In terms of screen size, the Samsung Q1 I mentioned had a 7" screen and the other two devices were 4.5" and 5" screens. They're all slate or slider form factors. Larger than that range seem to stop qualifying as mobile. Even in the "netbook" range I feel like I'd need to set it down to play rather than using it handheld. Is that a fair assumption?
posted by jeffhoward at 10:14 AM on July 20

I've got an Asus Eee 1000HE I've played WoW on. The video setting have to be just about as low as they go, and I get about 1 FPS in Dalaran. If you're in old-world Azeroth though, it's not terrible. Definitely enough for an auction house toon or possibly even some lowbie levelling. Stay the heck out of Northrend, instances, and BGs though.
posted by BiffSlamkovich at 11:02 AM on July 20

The Viliv S7 is supposedly going to eventually come in a 2ghz proc. flavor which is faster than the typical netbook right now.

Incidentally, the slower model features really impressive battery life, although the faster proc. will probably cut that down to size.

Don't know poorly the graphics will fare or how well you'll do with the touch control and/or tiny keyboard though.
posted by juv3nal at 11:22 AM on July 20