Medion UMPC. New images show dock. Specs show good battery life.

The Medion UMPC could have DOUBLE the battery life of 2006 UMPCs…

But first, the images. These come from the OEM’s website.

That’s a good looking docking station. If the Medion UMPC is shipped with it, it will enable grab-and-go home PC use.

In my quality mock-up (!) I proved that thumbing could be possible.

Note the touchpad on the bottom right of the frame. This is an update to the design. There was a mouse button before.

The specifications have been updated. They now reflect the fact that we’ve seen it promoted as a Windows Vista machine. Note too that it has the LED backlit screen and they quote a battery life of 4-5 hours. That’s believable due to the fact the h/w spec is similar to the Samsung Q1B which has been proven to reach 4 hours battery life. I like the idea of a touch pad rather than a mouse pointer too. This opens up the possibility of little thumb gestures. It might be too small though. We’ll have to see.

A word about the processor. Its the VIA C7-M. I know this doesn’t support Direct-X 9 in hardware so there will be limitations. Gaming will be a problem. I’ve also seen problems in Vista’s media center but this could be due to beta s/w and drivers. On the positive side, the quality of screen-scaling, TV out, audio (I hope there’s a digital audio output on the dock) and, if supported in the drivers, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV9 hardware acceleration will be very good. My guess is that the hardware video acceleration IS supported. Why? Well to support DVB-T MPEG-2 rates on the C7, you need to be doing something in hardware. Having tested it myself, DVB-T on the VIA C7-M based Paceblade Easybook P7 without hardware acceleration support is a jittery experience.

These are OEM specs and could change slightly for the Medion version of this device.

• OS: Microsoft Windows Vista
• CPU: VIA C7-M 770 (5.0W 1.0GHz ULV @400MHz FSB)
• Chipset & GPU: VX700 (UniChrome GPU)
• Memory: 512MB/768MB DDR2
• Storage: 30GB or above PATA 4200rpm
• LCD:6.5″ WVGA (800 X 480 LED B/L)
• Web Cam: 300K for VOIP
• Input Device
  Touch Screen
  Stylus
  Touch Pad
  Keyboard
  4-way buttons
  Enter button
  Mouse select buttons
• Connectivity:
  802.11b/g
  Bluetooth® V2.0
• I/O Port
  VGA out x 1
  USB 2.0 x 2
  Media slot (SD/SD-IO/MMC) x 1
  Headphone jack x 1
  Microphone jack x 1
  DC-In x 1
  Hot Key Buttons
  WiFi on/off
  Bluetooth on/off
  Web Cam on/off
  TV/GPS on/off
  Show or hide windows Mobility Center
  Display enlarge
• Dimension (w/Battery Pack)
  190 x 120.8 x 28.3 mm
• Weight (w/Battery Pack): 720g
• Battery Life: 4 ~ 5 hrs

I liked this device when I first saw it back in Nov and I like it even more now. Engadget dismissed it as a non-starter then (guys, you have to trust my tips!) but I’d like to see what they say now. Personally, I find it much more exciting than the iPhone and want one NOW!

I’ll update the Carrypad datasheet for this later today.

Steve / Chippy