This time next week I’ll be celebrating (German) Christmas day and in 2 weeks I’ll be drinking in the new year. So here’s the last Sunday post of 2006. How sad.
Ctitanic has put up a repost of his Compact Flash article. If you’re a Samsung Q1 owner and you’re looking for something to stick in that slot (!) Look no further. Uncle Frank has the answers.
Thoughtfix has got hold of an eo 7110 (Ago7, Easybook P7, Amtek T700) bumpcase and the the 6-cell battery. It looks OK but I think we need to see more pics!
Slash Gear and Judies Gear Diary got a look at the Samsung SPH-P9000. There’s a video available but I can’t make up my mind about the design. I don’t think you’d be able to use it in two-handed mode.
The Observer have published a report saying that Google and Orange are looking at a joint venture that will produce a Google branded HTC phone. This sounds exactly like the X-series from Three in the UK where they offer unlimited mobile Internet surfing at 1/8th of the price of a normal flat rate tariff. The trouble is, on a small screen with browsing.email only, you get exactly that. 1/8th of the Internet.
The Yahoo Go project sounds much more interesting. We’ve already seen that they want to put it on a UMPC and my guess is that they will show it at CES as a subsidised product that will be available through a number of cellular providers. Its a good way for the carriers to offer what looks like an unlimited Internet access service that is actually a browsing/email service channeled through an ad partner.
Finally, I wanted to say that I’m testing out a point upgrade and bug-fix version of the Pepperpad 3 software. They’ve put MPlayer 1.0rc1 on it and my golly gosh, it flies as a Video player. a 2Mbps DivX ticks over at 35% CPU util. I’m going to try out some higher bit rates to see what I can get out of it! Oh yes, and they’ve fixed bugs and added some new functionality. Well done Pepper Computer.
Steve.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:26 am
Hi Steve
According to the latest comercial newspaper’s report, HTC will launch a UMPC with VIA solution on the 4th quarter next year.
The paper also mentioned that this new product will have some features:
1.HSDPAï¼WCDMAï¼EDGE
2.GPS,BT,802.11B/G Wifi
3.Camera with 2~3 million pixels len
But in my opinion, I thought Intel will not sit and watch HTC & VIA happily, especially when HTC’s product uses Intel’s CPU.
So let’s wait and see!
BRs,
December 18th, 2006 at 11:37 am
This sounds about right. I expect them to use the John pc-on-a-chip solution unless they can get something together with DX9 support next year.
As for Intel, I don’t think either of them need to worry much. The market for UMPCs is splitting. At the lower end its VIA and AMD for Windows XP-based devices, smaller screens, possibly subsidised. At the high end its 8-11″ UMPCs (The 7″ was really the wrong size!) with Windows Vista, keyboards at twice the cost. HTC will have to battle with Nokia, not Intel.
Thanks for the feedback.
Steve.