Archive for June, 2006

[img]http://www.origamiportal.com/origami/images/samsung_Q1_review.jpg[/img]

Kevin Tofel from JKontherun just posted an article listing the [url=http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/06/10_things_i_don.html]10 things he doesn’t like about the Samsung Q1[/url].

Good list and I’ve heard some of the complaints before.

His main points
1. Resuming from Standby turns the WiFi radio back on.
2. Resuming from Standby turns the brightness up or down based on the status of the AC adapter.
3. No docking potential.
4. Choice of slots.
5. Memory capacity.
6. The Analog stick is not effective.
7. Screen resolution thoughts.
8. Screen rotation is not stable.
9. Keyboard.
10. Last and perhaps most important to me: the stylus.

His full post is available
[url=http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/06/10_things_i_don.html]here[/url] and you can see what issues he has with each item on his list. Great Read. (more…)

After a short break from UMPC news and journaling, Carrypad is back with a round-up of the UMPC news from the last week.

Eo faulty UMPC update.
Some of the Faulty Tablet Kiosk Eo’s that were sent back have now been received by their owners. The indications are that the power problem has been fixed and that the Eo’s are running as expected at around 2 hours with wifi. The C3 state problem still exists though. The Amtek variants can not fully utilise the VIA C7 yet. which is dissapointing considering this is a problem that has been known about for at least two months now. Unfortunately I don’t have the design skill to know exactly who’s fault it is other wise i’d be pointing a fat finger at them right now!

Xscale sold.
Intel sold off Xscale! I find this interesting. The chips cover smartphone and PDA devices. Do they want to pull out of RISC-based architecture altogether and concentrate on x86? Its exactly what AMD did a few weeks ago.

ARM, the developer of the ARM architectures that Xscale used, haven’t suffered too much on share price (a few % less than the FTSE-100 over the last days) so I guess the show will go on on for people like Samsung, ATMEL, Ti and the others that have paid for ARM licenses.

We wrote up a short article about x86 and RISC processors not so long ago which will give you more info if you need it.

Sodiff UMPC.
Interesting. If you haven’t seen the news, check out the info at MobileMag. This is the forth slide-screen UMPC that we’ve seen so far. The OQO, Averatec and Sony UX being the other three. All have very small screens (around 5 inches) and at this screen size, the keyboard can be used with the thumbs. The design wouldn’t really work for 6 or 7 inch screens which is a shame because it’s a nice space-efficient bit of engineering.

As for the specs, I guess its a WinCE-based device that is just a small step up from a personal media player but it would be interesting to see how much of the Sony UX50 functionality it has and to work out the price premium for the additional features!

Dell UMPC rumor.
Ultranauts reported that Dell would be producing a UMPC. Its no suprise really. They have already talked about stopping work on PocketPC’s and the X51v is such an advanced PocketPC that if you put it in a new casing with a bigger screen, you could call it an Ultra Mobile PC with no problem. A $500 price point would make it very attractive and a major problem for Nokia.
One other thought on that one though. Isn’t it HTC that are the ODM (Original Designer/Manufacturer) for the Dell PocketPC’s? HTC are the sister company to VIA and are in a very good position to be able to produce a UMPC. We speculated on HTC and UMPC’s before.

Tablet Kiosk rumor.
More rumors via Ultranauts. They appear to have contacts! This time about new Tablet Kiosk devices. There’s no detail at all about what they might be. We’re only told that 6-8 weeks is the timescale until the announcement. Could we be looking at the first devices with LED backlights? Keyboards? Could they be distributing the 5.6″ Mo-Bits device we talked about recently? We’ll have to wait and see.

Interesting conversations.
During my time off over the last 6 days, I had some great conversations with a guy who has nothing to do with UMPC’s but has a very clear head when it comes to analysing a new idea. We talked at length about why UMPC’s are needed and why we don’t just wait for smartphones to evolve with fold-out screens and fold-out keyboards. Its an interesting point. How long have we got until paper/foldable/rollable screens are available? My guess is 5-7 years before we can integrate touch, lighting and get to efficient production costs. When that happens, we might see the death of the UMPC, just like we’re seeing it with the PDA.

Sony UMPC flash drive option - Speed or space.
I like the way that Sony have introduced the flash drive option on the UX. With minimal aditional cost and lower storage space, the user gets faster response and better battery life. It’s a trade-off I think i’d make myself. Most of my storage is moving to a centralised model so why do I need a 60GB disk? For the last 12 months i’ve been streaming my MP3’s to my devices and with products like the Slingbox, who needs to take videos with them? 8Gb seems about the right balance to me.

Regards
Steve / Chippy.

[img]http://www.origamiportal.com/origami/images/sony%20umpc/sony_umpc_ux_small.jpg[/img]

According to [url=http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/sony_vgn-ux90ps_and_vgn-ux90s_umpc.html]MobileWhack.com[/url] Sony has announced that it will be releasing a flash drive based verison of its VGN-UX90PS and VGN-UX90S.

The new released version will have a 16GB hard drive which though is a bit smaller than the 30GB hard drive included in the old version is quite a bit slower.

According to the specs on [url=http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200606/06-0627/]Sony.jp[/url] opening Microsoft Outlook on the hard drive system takes about 1.5 seconds while opening it on the internal HDD UX micro PC takes about 9 seconds. Windows also boots up in 5.6 seconds versus a regular 17 seconds.

Ho Doggy flash drive systems are fast.

According to Sony the systems will also be the same price so there is a comparable choice for what you need, speed or space. (more…)

Sodiff announced last week that it would be releasing a new WiBro enabled handheld PC.

According to [url=http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/333/C8415/#]MobileMag.com[/url] the device will feature a 4.3″ LCD screen that will slide over a qwerty keyboard like the Sony UX.

The device also has an SD memory card slot, audio/video playback, a built-in FM tuner, IPTV, and a 2 megapixel camera. there is also a Windows button on the device so it will likely be runing some sort of Windows OS.

The device will likely be released in November for people in Korea to enjoy. Everywhere else can just hear about it on tech websites.

(more…)

[img align=right]http://www.origamiportal.com/umpc/images/handango.gif[/img]
Rob at gottabemobile.com [url=http://www.gottabemobile.com/AttentionDevelopersHandangoUMPCTabletPCContestUnderway.aspx]posted a story[/url] about a contest [url=http://www.handango.com]Handango.com[/url] is running a development contest with one of 3 UMPC devices as the prize.

According to the newsletter Rob had posted:

Handango is looking for fresh and premier Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobile PC content.are you up for the challenge? By converting your existing mobile applications or creating an entirely new title for Tablet PC and UMPC, you’ll be eligible to win one of three Ultra-Mobile PCs! Personal Productivity, Travel, Fitness, Medical, Multimedia, and Entertainment titles are all great fits for our catalog. The contest runs from now until August 31st..start coding!

More info below… (more…)

[update March 8th 2007: The Q2 appears to be real now: Samsung Q2 information here.]

A German news site has just reported about new UMPC’s that will be launched later this year. It looks like a copy of information thats already been available apart from one line - ‘Das Modell Q2 von Samsung wird knapp unter 1000 Dollar landen’.
Translated - ‘The Model Q2 from Samsung will land at just under $1000.’

There’s no other info available anywhere. Does anyone know anything about this? Is this the VIA or AMD-based device that was rumored?

Steve.

Ctitanic has been keeping us well updated on the recall of his Tablet Kiosk eo. We’re waiting to see what difference its going to make after they admitted there was a battery life problem and promised to fix devices that were sent back. Is it going to be better that the battery life we saw on the Paceblade Easybook P7 we tested?

He’s just reported that his eo is on it’s way back to him so keep an eye on his blog because I know he’ll be one of the first to report on it.

Regards
Steve / Chippy.

Wait, isn’t that a picture of a device thats already been released? No apparently its another company releasing an AMtek created UMPC.

According to a report on [url=http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;1921807887;fp;2;fpid;1]http://www.arnnet.com.au[/url] a company called
[url=http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/info.asp?c1=3&c2=108&id=1739]Pioneer Computers[/url] recently announced that they have a new UMPC called the DreamBook Ultra Moblie PC 700 coming to market.

Nothing overly exciting about this release over the other Amtek device (eo, it’s Mobile, SmartCaddie) but at least it has a cute name.

(more…)

Stephen Manes of PCWorld.com wants more keyboards.

Many people have written about it and I too, strongly believe that UMPC’s need keyboards. Take the Psion 5 and Sharp S-CL3200 designs as examples.

However, unlike Stephen Manes, Stephen Paine wants keyboards, touch-screen input, speech input, configurable buttons and a mouse pointer on his UMPC. A device that allows freedom from a desk, should also allow freedom of choice for input mechanisms.

Regards
Steve / Chippy

I’ve just read the ChannelInsider article about the ’second-chance’ that Microsoft is giving its UMPC’s. I was going to call it a headline-grabbing article but thats maybe a bit too heavy. Since when is a ’second wave’ a ’second chance’ though?

‘Second chance’ would imply that a first-attempt has been, gone and failed. I’m not the biggest Microsoft fan but come on guys, give them a break.

The Origami project team completed its first deliverable - a standard for the partner manufacturers to work to - and since then it’s been up to the manufacturers to make devices and market them as they want within this specification. We’ve only seen two Origami UMPC devices hit the market so far but we’re only 3 months on from the launch and we’ve known for a while that there are already other things in the pipeline. Anyway, its no wonder thats there’s been a pause in the product releases, the mainstream press gave the project such a knock-down that it would make any product manager postpone a launch and double-check the marketing plan.

One other point that continues to crop up is that people believe that ‘Haiku’ is a new project. Its not. Its the name given by Otto Berks, the Origami project manager, to an early concept. This concept was (and probably still is) the main target of the Origami project. I’m not sure of the current status of the Origami project team but if they are still together, one of their tasks will be to continue to promote the Haiku concept to the partners.

So, in summary, it seems to be business as usual with project Origami and its UMPC’s.

Article found through GottabeMobile

Regards
Steve / Chippy

Here’s the reason I haven’t posted much this week. Its the buyers guide that I’ve been working on. There’s too much confusion about what is and what isn’t a UMPC and what a UMPC can and can’t do. For that reason, I’ve put together as much info as I can in order to help those that are new into the UMPC market, those that might be looking at the devices for the first time and those that might be considering one for purchase. Maybe a few mainstream journalist might want to take a look too! (Maybe not, they’ll moan at all my grammatical errors!)

Its not deeply technical (you can read some of the other articles for the really technical stuff) and its a long article, but as I mentioned in it, if you’re looking to buy a UMPC, you’ll probably want to understand as much as you can of the UMPC category. For those that don’t already have a mobile PC, its available as a PDF version to printout and read on the bus!

Anyway, to all the readers that know exactly what a UMPC is, I invite you to take a look and comment if you’ve got the time. To all those discovering this post while on your google learning journey through the zillions of UMPC-related web-pages, I hope it helps you make the right decision and if you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to email me at info@carrypad.com. If I can get through the spam that that email address is now going to attract having published it on a web page, i’ll answer all your queries as quickly and as well as I can.

One extra point, the Wikipedia definition of Ultra Mobile PC is Microsoft focused and could do with a re-write (in my opinion.) If I get enough positive feedback, i’ll re-format some of the article for Wikipedia.

Regards
Steve /Chippy.

A brief rundown of important UMPC market news this for this week.

HTC own brand
We commented on the strength of HTC earlier this week in our Via OnDemand report. It seems that HTC are now moving into distributing their devices under their own brand. This is a good indication of the strength and direction of the company. If they do move into the UMPC market as predicted, we expect to see some strong marketing and high quailty industrial designs. HTC re-iterated their commitement to mobile carriers so maybe the UMPC’s could be sold both direct and through carriers with subsidies.
VIA, being a closely related company, stands to do well out of this if it happens.

Averatec AHI. late Q3 launch
We got in touch with Averatec this week regarding the AHI to see if there was any new news. All they could tell us is that they plan to formally announce the AHI at the end of Q3 and begin shipping ’shortly thereafter.’ We’ll keep hounding them for new information.

Another Amtek T700 product.
The Amtek T700 original design has been used by at least 4 resellers now. SmartCaddie, Easybook, Eo, It’s and now the Dreambook. Its sold by Pioneer Computers in Australia. Info via GottaBeMobile

UMPC definition.
Following a few posts this week about the real definition of the acronym ‘UMPC’, no-one seems to have challenged my final comment. I’m assuming that other people feel the same. If not, let me know! If Samsung put an AMD processor in the Q1 case, would it still be a UMPC?
[update: Craig Pringle has now replied in his blog here.]
Following up on that theme though, i’ve decided to write a Buyers Guide to UMPC’s which i’ll post on the main portal very soon. I hope this helps people that are taking a first-look at UMPCs understand exactly what Ultra-Mobile PC’s are.

Mobits availability Sept. 7″ only for now.
We got some more info back from Mobits about the ‘X15′. Although they didn’t answer our specific questions about product name, screen res and reseller, they did say that the production line for the 7″ version is being prepared and they expect the first run in September. I’m trying to find out exactly who is going to resell this device.

UMPC Linux.
Speaking to Sasch Pallenberg, founder and MD of Epios, the company that produces via-optimised Linux distributions, he said that he’s considering developing a UMPC version of the distribution. When asked about touch screen and hardware specifics he told us that it should be no problem. They’ve already produced and demonstrated an embedded version for touch panels so I guess he knows whats what! We’ve agreed to stay closely in touch on the issue of Linux on UMPC’s as its something both Carrypad and Epios feel positive about.

Apple Rumors.
And finally, what week wouldn’t be complete without an Apple rumor? This time it’s the re-surfacing of the Apple UMPC rumor. Timescale: Jan 2007. We’ll report on it when we hear concrete details.

Have a nice weekend everyone.
Steve / Chippy.

[img]http://www.origamiportal.com/origami/images/sony%20umpc/sony_umpc_ux_small.jpg[/img]

According to [url=http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/06/sony_ux180p_ava.html]JKontherun.com[/url] the U.S. Verison of the Sony VGN-UX50 (the UX180P) is now [url=http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=BROWSE&product_code=337635&Pn=VAIO_UX180P_Notebook]listed on CompUSA[/url] for preorder.

It can also be [url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FTLOR4/sr=8-1/qid=1150331738]purchased at Amazon[/url]

According to CompUSA.com the expected ship date is July 10th so it’s right around the corner.

The US version of the UX features:
* Intel Core Solo Processor U1400 (1.20 GHz)
* 512 MB RAM and 30 GB (5400 rpm) hard drive
* 4.5″ Wide SVGA LCD, Touch Screen
* Integrated WLAN, WWAN, and Bluetooth technology
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional (more…)

What an apt situation for post number 101. Being teased into responding and giving my comments on what UMPC means! Craig Pringle responded with his version of the definition of ‘UMPC.’ Its the very confusing microsoft product definition previously known as ‘Origami.’

Don’t think about Microsoft’s definition Craig, think for a minute about how a potential customer will try to understand the term ‘UMPC’. The first thing they will hear is that its an acronym for Ultra-Mobile PC. If you then try to create two definitions of the same term just because one Ultra Mobile PC doesnt have touch-pack software then the customer will end up confused, will buy a notebook and we’ve all failed to push the mobile PC sector forward. Clarity for Microsoft UMPC product managers and partners is one thing. Clarity for customers in another thing altogether.

Regards
Steve / Chippy.

[update: Craig's response. My response. Craigs latest response. ]

I just read Craig Pringle’ latest post. In it, he says the that Motion Computing LS800 is not a UMPC. I think it is!

Craig is a Microsoft ‘Most Valuable Profesional’ (MVP) so I can see why he might say that but I don’t think its going to be good for anyone in the ‘Ultra Mobile PC’ market, customers or resellers, that we draw a line between the Origami-derived UMPC’s and other UMPC’s

Here’s a question. If Samsung put an AMD processor in the Q1 casing, should it be called a UMPC? I think for the customers sake, if it performs the same tasks and looks the same as an Ultra Mobile PC, its a UMPC.

Here’s my first attempt at the definition of an UMPC.

A highly portable computing device with 5-10″ screen, wired and wireless connectivity that is able to load and run common internet, office, media and pim applications operated through a graphical user interface.

And thats why our UMPC product database contains more than just Origami-derived UMPC’s. What do you think?

Regards
Steve / Chippy.