Does Windows 7 Release Candidate work on the Samsung Q1EX? In short, not quite, not yet.
With reports that W7RC is installing well on other tablets and convertible PCs, I gave it a try on my new Samsung Q1EX. Having installed it on several other computers including a Fujistu P1610 (worked great), the look of Windows XP is starting to look pretty dated.
Backed up my SSD on the Samsung Q1EX as an image on a USB HDD using Acronis. Then did a clean install of W7RC from the DVD I had created (using a USB DVD player and keyboard. Installed without errors, but does not install a WLAN driver or touchscreen drivers. After some experimenting (and reloading W7RC after snafus), I found that the Win XP driver for WLAN (the one for Marvel) gives you the WLAN. Only partial success with the touchscreen. The only touchscreen driver that seems to give you any functionality is the XP “TSP” driver that loads the eGalaxTouch utility. The other drivers marked as touchscreen or tablet (either XP or Vista versions) do not seem to work alone or in combination with the TSP driver. The issue may be that the touchscreen is a PS-2 hardware item. W7RC does not recognize the tablet function, and does not provide the tablet/pen settings in control panel. To even log on you need a USB keyboard to enter the password. No access to a tablet-style keyboard.
I contacted Samsung asking about the status of Windows 7 drivers. They are no help based on this response:
Samsung does not provide any support or drivers for altering the Operating System on the Q1 line of Ultra Mobile PCs. We do not provide any drivers for Windows 7 at this time for any of our mobile computing products.
So much for customer service from Samsung. Looks like I’ll be sticking with XP for awhile on the Q1EX until Microsoft or Samsung provides driver support.
i wanted to know have you open the unit yet to see if there’s a sim slut and a extra pci slut for a 3g card i’ve order the Q1EX and wanted to know should i order the 3G before it gets here
I opened the Q1EX to replace the HDD with a SSD, so didn’t look for extra slots (small device, so very tight fit for the HDD). Samsung has not been very helpful with driver info for Windows 7 so I would not expect them to be helpful with info or drivers for hardware options that are not factory installed.
i see that under the battery the sim card slot is cover did you happen to see if that was there when you opened it
Does it preform better with the SSD drive
Regarding the SSD you replaced on your machine. I’ve been looking for the specs of the HDD on the Q1EX 71G – would you mind sharing the make of the SSD you replaced the original harddrive with?
Cheers,
Sure. It’s been several months since I did the research, looking at several brands of SSD. I ended up going with the following: MTRON MOBI 1.8″ 32GB PATA ZIF SLC SSD. The SSD market continues to evolve, so you may find a other and larger capacity choices. Good Luck!
Yet another stellar article! I shared this one on Facebook – you must add a “like” button to your posts.
We installed Windows 7 with our EFB software on the Samsung Q1 and a (ZIF Socket) SSD (Compact Flash). It works very well. The buttons do not have drivers. Other than the missing button controls it works very well and very quickly with Win7 Pro.
We did initial testing on the Fujitsu 220, P1610 and Q1 and now install on the Lenovo S10 and CTL toGoPad