The Q1's screen is clearly the better of the two devices. It's bigger by a fair margin, and more importantly it runs in full colour. The Newton's screen is interesting, sure -- but it only displays 256 shades of grey, so it's solely useful for checking out pictures of a stockbroker's sock drawer. If you want to bask in the glory of 16.7 million colours while browsing still images and watching movies, grab yourself a Q1.
Don't just take my word for it -- look at the specs. The screen runs at a native resolution of 800x480 pixels, which gives you enough screen space to browse the Web and edit Word documents, spreadsheets or digital photos. Better still, its widescreen aspect ratio is great for viewing a couple of documents side by side (if you're prepared to squint a bit), or for watching widescreen movies.
It would be easy to dismiss the Newton's greyscale screen as inferior to the Q1's full-colour display, but Apple's choice of a greyscale LCD is one of the reasons the Newton enjoys over 30 hours of continuous battery life, compared to the Q1's 2.5 hours. Not only does the Newton's greyscale LCD use significantly less power than a full-colour display, it's also ideal for document editing. Most of the tasks a UMPC is most suited to -- writing, editing a diary, checking email -- do not significantly benefit from a colour display.
The Newton's display resolution is 480x320, a step down from the Q1's 800x480 pixels. But the Newton uses a 100dpi display, which is comparable to modern monitors and produces smooth graphics.
Like the Q1, the Newton can switch screen orientations on the fly. The Newton can display the desktop in landscape or portrait mode. The display is rotated in 90 degree steps by tapping on the rotate icon with the Newton's stylus.
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