Archive for October, 2006

Matt Propst has posted a review of the Samsung Q1b, VIA-based UMPC. There are some nice stats too.

Minimum 3 hours battery life. That is really fantastic. Most UMPC device have a minimum battery life of around 1:30-1:45.

Average battery life: 3.5 hours. No indications of max battery life but in the real world, you don’t need them.

There are some images which show that it only has a mono speaker and that the U.S. version does not have the cellular radio slot.

Like most UMPC owners/reviewers have found, Matt mentions the kitchen and sofa as surfing spots. Matt obviously had fun doing the review too. That looks like raspberry beer!

I’m so pleased for VIA. It proves that the C7-M is the way to go for UMPC solutions for battery life. I’m pleased for me too. I made some predictions on the C7-M and I was a bit confused when the v7110 turned up with just 2 hours battery life.

I think we’ll be seeing more devices with the C7-M and I can’t wait to see what’s happened to those Mobits X-15 devices.

Steve / Chippy

Dapreview has news about the Maxian PMP. Its got the same form factor as the Raon Digital Vega.

However, I think its more of an advanced PMP like the I-Station Netforce. Its probably not an x86 (PC) device.  It runs Windows CE and has Wifi, DMB and an SD slot. Strangely enough it has no hard disk. Maybe they are expecting 16GB SD cards to come down in price a lot. Its only available in Korea so its a possibility.

Again, we’re seeing devices being drawn up the chain towards UMPC territory. Be it smartphones or PMP’s, the 800×480 4.3″ screen is becoming in interesting focal point as it enables the browser experience. Once you’ve got a rich browser built in you’ve got access to the best killer app there is. The Internet.

I have a feeling that Carrypad might be covering advanced PMPs in 2007!

More specs at DapReview

Steve / Chippy

From Akihabara News this morning comes a rather cool dictionary.

Hold on. I’ll start that again…..

From Akihabara News this morning comes a rather cool electronic device.

What its running is not important to me but look at the design. Here’s another pic. There’s more at Akihabara News.

Just like the Sharp Zaurus its a mini-convertible. I really think that if you could push the screen right out to the edges on this style of device you could have a useable 800×480 screen size. Its a wonderful form factor, it has the important customer-comforting keyboard and as its small enough to fit in one hand (500g = one handed. 1000g = two handed is a good rule of, er, thumb.) you don’t need a mouse pointer on the frame. With HSDPA built-in, you could sell it through mobile carriers and it would bridge the top-end of the smartphone market and the UMPC market.

The HTC Universal is also a similar device but again, with 640×480 you’re going to get nowhere with your browsing. Look at all that wasted screen space. HTC must have something new under development. It would be so easy for them.

The Carrypad concept UMPC is based around this sort of form-factor and still hasn’t been realised. I still believe its a one of the sweet spots in the market today.  With or without dictionary.

Steve /Chippy.

A car mounting solution is being talked about at UMPCBuzz, Origamiproject, UltraMobile PC Tips and at the local bring-a-bun coffee morning today.

 
more images at ToDoUMPC

Its a rather tidy homemade car mounting solution actually and has got me thinking. Could the very sturdy metal stand in the i7210 be used with my universal PDA mount?  It looks like there’s a Dremel project coming up!

Steve /Chippy

The positively pornographic Proportable people have emailed me to say that they finally have stock on the R2H having just filled all their back orders.

Proportable are shipping worldwide apparently so this post also applies to my reader in Azerbaijan!

Engadget were rather nasty about the R2H the other day weren’t they? They recommended that if you want better battery life you might look at the Dell D420. Er. Hold on. The R2H is 50% the size! An R2H with enough spare battery for 12 hours life is still smaller and lighter. 

Image via Sizeeasy.com

Regards

Steve /Chippy.

A quick McBlog with coffee and the i7210 while I wait for someone…

Hugo ‘Ubertablet’ Ortega has received one of the first R2Hs in Australia.

News here

Hugo has a nice technical understanding of the issues that are important to the customer and so I’m looking forward to hearing more.

A couple of questions though Hugo. Does it feel slow and overloaded with software? This is something I’ve seen reported a number of times now.

Steve.

McSurfing tip: Use Bluetooth over your mobile data plan where possible. Quicker to set up (same config every time,) saves 15% power on a 2006 UMPC and its more secure. Its even cheaper for me as T-Mobile seems to own and charge for all he hotspots around here.

RSS feed sources are changing. New site-wide Feed:

[updated: Watchlist link now works!]

I’ve removed unconfirmed and rumored UMPC devices from the product portal now (along with end-of-life devices) and now made a Watchlist page here.

There’s nothing in there that I haven’t already reported on but its good as a reference (and a nice reminder for me to keep hassling the product managers for information.)

I’ve refrained from putting yet another RSS feed up for the watchlist but what I have done is cleaned the RSS feeds up. It was getting a bit messy so I’ve installed Reblog which does the job of taking the multiple feeds and making a single feed containing the journal, the reports from the main portal, selected product related links (from the product links database) and gallery updates.

Unfortunately it means theres a new feed address so if you feed-read, I advise you all to switch your feed readers to the shiny new feed here to get the full Carrypad picture.

The old feeds will be phased out pretty soon although the product link feed (a reviewed link list I keep for UMPC products.) will keep going as a separate feed.

Enjoy the feed bro.

Steve / Chippy.

Every few weeks we seem to get a flurry of blogs about keyboards. Despite UMPCs being touch-capable devices with handwriting recognition, dialkeys, on screen keyboard and speech input, you still need a keyboard. We all need a keyboard.

Ideally you’ll get a UMPC which has a packaged keyboard (ASUS R2H for example) but if not (and if you haven’t fallen for the very practical convertible notebook design) you need to decide on a solution. Here’s some info from previous posts and a few new ones that have been floating about over the last week.

Mini Keyboards

Brando workshop make a small keyboard and Thoughtfix went out and bought one…for $25! A bargain.

It’s the perfect size to fit in a UMPC gadget bag.

If you’re in Europe, its sold under the Keysonic brand as the ACK-3400U for 20,- Euro.

Thanks Thoughtfix.

Jezlyn at “Late to the Party” found another option.

Details here.

jkOnTheRun found another! Info here.

Wireless Keyboards.

Here’s a couple of folding Bluetooth solutions that look like great partners for a UMPC. Firstly, here’s the Level One BLK-2000 folding Bluetooth keyboard. I ordered one of these.

You might note that the English web page for the device shows compatibility for Palm/ WinCE/ Symbian. Under the compatibility list though, it shows that its also compatible with XP. Its perfect for the Raon Digital Vega that I have. The German web page gives more stats (they love those stats!) which include 90 hour operating time, 160hr standby, uses 2x AAA batteries and has an on/off button. I did an unboxing and first-impressions post but since then I’ve been talking to Level One about the problems I’m having with it. It has a high failure rate (keypresses not registering.) Level One think its a hardware fault so I’ll send it back soon for a replacement.

The other option was the new Bluetooth version of the iGo Stowaway keyboard. I read about it on jkOnTheRun

Its a smaller design when folded and it only uses one AAA battery for the same claimed usage life but at something like Euro100 I think I’d rather spend the extra 40 on something else.

There’s another review if it at ExperienceMobility.

There’s the Brando mini mini ultra mini folding keyboard that was shown on Gizmodo last week.

$56 is a good price but it looks like its got silicon keys. I don’t fancy that myself.

Finally on the wireless keyboard front, there’s a Nokia BT Keyboard.Its the SU-8W and it looks like its $149 in the U.S.

Fabric keyboards

Girlsgonemad have reviewed the G-Tech fabric keyboard which uses the Eleksen technology that I posted about yesterday. They seemed to get on ok with it.

Here’s the Eleksen pouch/keyboard solution this is not in production yet.

Anyone got any more to add to the list?

Steve / Chippy.

Apparently, you’re doing the best job of promoting UMPCs - according to all 59 of my readers!

I’m surprised at the number of votes for Samsung and the lack of votes for Motion Computing. The LS800 was around (with DialKeys if I’m not mistakenIt was the P1510 that had dialkeys. Thanks Rob.) before the Origami UMPC.

More interesting though was the conversation that kicked off on the journal comments. Here are a select few.

Who’s promoting UMPCs the best? The blogosphere….

It seems as if all of the current influential promotion has come from the blogosphere!

..advertising in trade and consumer magazines, going out and speaking to IT people (roadshow for example.) These traditional seeding methods are things we just can’t do very easily from our keyboards.

…there is very little marketing going on other than what is being promoted by blogs, and consequently being picked up by larger pubs, mainstream media

Wow Chippy, it looks like you hit a raw nerve…

… I just wish that TK was also interested in getting their units into retail outlets and the hands of the general consumer

I think we’re all doing a great job and deserve UMPCs in our Christmas stockings.

Steve /Chippy.

The VIA-sponsored UMPC site - UltraMobileLife has another of the lovely UMPC concepts shown by Cre8 Inc at the VTF 2006.

This one is the ‘Butler.’ A super slim Ultra Mobile device with touch, printing and Voip capabilities. Estimated battery life on an x86 UMPC that slim. Mmmm, about 3.5 minutes?

There are more images over at Ultramobilelife.

These very cool Eleksen fabric keyboard concepts were talked about back at Origami launch time. Unfortunately there’s still no-one that’s taken the concept and put it into production.

Glyn Evans of PocketPC-Solutions in the UK has one for testing and seems happy with it so why are we still waiting? You could easily make one that works with all UMPC devices. I’d buy one if it was in a messenger bag style as shown below because If it works well, its solve the problem of case/keyboard in one go. If it was branded by, say, Freitag and had the keyboard and a electro-luminous display strip on the outside then you’d have a fashion winner on your hands if you ask me. Better still, how about one with a cam window and a display unit that says “Smile, press Enter, then enter phone number.”

[Images from the Freitag website. Cool bags.]

Thanks to PocketPC-Solutions for the images. More images in the gallery.

Steve /Chippy.

Pepper computer have just let me know that the Pepperpad 3 is now shipping and is currently available for $649 at ecost. (33 hours left on the offer price as I write this.)

If you’ve been thinking about the Pepperpad, now could be a good time to buy.

I will be getting back to playing around with mine again soon as the Wife has just finished watching the 24 episodes of Desperate housewives series 2!

The first thing I want to look at is some Fedora applications and to have a chat with some of the much more knowledgeable people in the Pepper forums.

I will also be writing up a full review but in the meantime, take a look at the mini-review I posted.

The specifications, gallery and news links are available, as always, through the datasheet.

Steve / Chippy.

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.

Which UMPC makes a good carputer?

My immediate thought is the ASUS R2H. Its got the built-in GPS and is the most likely to get a good set of in-car accessories for it due to the way its being sold. However, its got a heavy-touch screen that might not be the best for in-car use. I prefer the lightweight touch of the i7200 series for in-car use.

A 7″ screen may not be the best choice for some smaller cars though. In my car I have found the 4.2″ Vega to be the best choice. For Internet access I need to have the Bluetooth module plugged in but it’s not a major issue considering I have an audio cable trailing across the dashboard. The only problem with the Vega is that it hasn’t got DirectX support so software like Streetdeck doesn’t work. I use ‘In Car Terminal’ with it.

2 devices that are in the pipeline and ones that I’m watching out for are the Mobits X-15 with a 5.6″ screen and the UREN V1 dedicated carputer. The Uren is particularly interesting as its effectively a UMPC built to perform as a Carputer. Its a Korean product though so it may not appear outside that region.

A device I haven’t looked at as a carputer until very recently is the Nokia 770 Tablet. Nokia are making a Navigation package available for the device. There’s no pricing and at the moment its for Europe only but it looks like a nice way to convert the 770 into a navigation device. Its very low-end as far as  carputers are concerned though.

Carputer Software

There’s one software package that is moving ahead very quickly. Streetdeck. It was born out of the MP3car website and has apparently received funding. Its also had some very nice promotional slots with Intel. There’s even a case study on the Intel website now.

As GottaBeMobile pointed out earlier today, the software has a lot of functionality although the navigational aspect is currently aimed at the North American market. A European version is in beta.

It’s not cheap. You’re paying $200 for software that still under heavy development but it still appears to be a well finished product and shows the way forward.

Interesting reads related to Streetdeck:

• Terry Gold Blog (He’s using the product shown above. Over $2000 worth!)
• Navigadget covers it in detail.
• MP3Car.com

One, slightly simpler, software package is In Car Terminal. This is one that I used on the Vega. You get the software for about $70 which gives you a nice interface for controlling audio and video. You get a basic GPS speedometer and a few bits of other information. Navigation is only available by using back-end software. The same is true of the mobile phone integration so there’s some extra costs to be taken into consideration.

If you don’t need some of the advanced features of Streetdeck, its worth looking at. I’ll probably be doing a deeper review of it in December.

In Car Terminal (ICT) is sold through CarTFT.com.

A project being run at Origamicar.com is worth looking at. Richard Morton has been developing an overlay package for UMPCs and although the project is quiet at the moment, I hear that he’s just got a new UMPC and he’ll be re-starting work very soon.

Other software :

Centrafuse from Flux Media - Frontend software. In beta at the moment.

RoadRunner - Frontend software. Similar to ICT

Microsoft Streets and Trips / Autoroute is supposed to have some UMPC/touch enhancements in it.

Accessories.

What we’re really missing for UMPCs at the moment is mounting solutions. ProClip USA are my focus of attention at the moment but I’d like to see others coming out with solutions. Especially the UMPC vendors. Streetdeck have a prototype R2H cup holder which is shown on Ricardos blog. It looks like a good idea - if you have a cup holder - but there needs to be other solutions.

A Bluetooth A2DP receiver is a tidy way to get audio into your Car hifi.  Like this one from Nokia or this Bluetooth cassette adaptor (which looks a bit cheap and doesn’t seem to be available any more.) An FM transmitter is possible but I don’t recommend it due to the poor sound quality. If you’re going to enable digital sound and video in your car go for a wired or digital wireless connection if possible. (Not the Bluetooth headset profile. Its very low quality.)

For a tidier solution, there are some Bluetooth-enabled head-ends for you car. Pioneer do one. I like this idea. Expensive though! Parrot also make one and there are others in development.

Links.

Someone has already done a great job of providing links for carputers here at Letscommunicate.co.uk

MP3car.com is the biggest forum although Digital-Car.co.uk is also busy.

For Carputer related products, take a look at CarTFT.com

Thoughtfix often writes about UMPCs and carputers and Eeaston is also doing similar things on his blog.

There are one or two threads at Origamiproject.com worth reading. This one talks about a car mount for a Q1.

And that’s about it for the Carputer day at Carrypad. I’ve learnt a lot while researching the posts today and I hope you have too. There’s plenty more to learn but the best way to do that is learning by doing. If you have any carputer/UMPC related links or information, drop me a line as I’d love to know about them.

Its Beer O’Clock here in Germany now, so until the next post, Prost!

Steve / Chippy

As I write Part 3 of the Carputer Day on Carrypad series, JKK has posted info on Origamiproject.com about a very interesting device.

Its got exchangeable screens.

This is a concept that would be great if applied to ultra mobile PCs.

Imagine a core processing unit about the size of a DualCor or Vega that plugs into a 5″ screen, an ultra-thin notebook casing and that also docks into a full-size screen, a car screen kit, an amplifier, fridge, wall-mount etc etc etc.

Oh wait…someone has already done it. Anyone know anything about MCC? I seem to recall seeing it on Engadget at some point.

If we could somehow agree on a set of standard interfaces (preferably wireless) then we could apply this concept across different devices.

Chances of happening? Minimal methinks.

Steve / Chippy.

A short intermission from the Carputer day at Carrypad.

Hugo has posted a nice ’surgery’ video. He repairs a smashed tablet PC screen.

I was just about to ‘move on’ when something happened. You know how people always say ‘must have’ in reviews on the Internet? Well this is a ‘must watch.’ Even if its the three seconds starting at 6:50. I’ve watched it 10 times already. Apologies in advance to Hugo but thanks for making me laugh on a Friday night. You’re a star!

Check the video out here.

Its all looking good. Everything is going smoothly…

Then the tablet slips… 

unbelievable leopard-like reactions…

Its saved. But wait, I’m on camera…..

Pretend nothing happened and smile…. 

almost! “Ah shit! I’ll leave it in. Someone is bound to laugh.”

Steve / Chippy