You want a stylish, Ultra-Mobile, notebook with a full suite of wireless and fixed connectivity options? If so, you haven’t got much choice. Its a niche market filled by only two or three Ultra Mobile devices.
The Flybook V33i is one of them (anyone care to guess what other devices I have in mind?) and I’ve just had the privilege of testing one for four days.
Its well engineered from both the physical and software points of view and that’s why its not cheap. Its got a convertible screen, user-swappable hard drive (2.5″) and memory that will take you up to 2GB. An ATI Radeon Mobility GPU and cellular connectivity up to UMTS speeds, TV out, VGA out, FireWire, USB, PCMCIA and a V92 modem.
Its not a full tablet PC but with the keyboard, you might not find that a disadvantage. It also includes possibly the worst man-bag ever seen. Milan, you’ll love it!
The Flybook V33i. Available in Germany through Myflybook.de (thanks to them for the review model) in and other stylish dealers all over Europe. Availability in US is unknown at present but i’m trying to find out if anyone is importing it.
Flybook V33i Review
Flybook V33i Gallery
Flybook V33i Data sheet.
I’ll be away for the next 4 days (with the dual-boot Ubuntu/Windows i7210 of course!) so posting time will be limited to a few hours in the evenings. If there’s anything big going on (Samsung Q1b? ASUS R2H first review? What happened to the Mobits UMPC? Will Nokia release an updated 770 before Christmas? Is the Pepperpad 3 any good?) I’ll try and keep on top of it. In the meantime though, enjoy the review.
Steve / Chippy
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:47 am
Steve;
My understanding is that the Flybook is available in XP pro and XP Tablet Edition. Is that not the case?
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October 2nd, 2006 at 4:21 pm
I don’t think it meets Microsofts’ criteria for XT Tablet Edition. It’s digitizer is passive for one, and the graphics chip is ATI, not Intel GMA.
Looks nice regardless though!
Ed
[Reply (threaded)]
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:22 pm
I don’t think it meets Microsofts’ criteria for XP Tablet Edition. Its digitizer is passive for one, and the graphics chip is ATI, not Intel GMA.
Looks nice regardless though!
Ed
Edited for typos…
[Reply (threaded)]
October 5th, 2006 at 6:11 am
A passive digitiser is no bar against having Tablet Edition; I’m posting this from a UMPC, using the TIP by the way, and this has a resistive touchscreen.
I do find it odd that so many touchscreens (even ones like the Founder Mininote which was built under the UMPC / Origami project specs, and the Sony UX) go with XP Home instead. It just seems like a waste to me.
— Steve
[Reply (threaded)]
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
It is a nice device. If you come from Germany you can have a look at the flybook at the Notebook-Shop
I just tested it there and bought it.
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