Here are some enhanced images an a video of one of the Intel McCaslin based UMPC that is likely to be one of the four new UMPCS announced on the 18th April. The device is basaed on a prototype that has been seen before and includes a twist screen feature.
The thumboard has a nice feel to it and because the thumboard width is thinner than the screen, you get a combination of relatively wide screen but useable width thumboard. It much easier to use than the Samsung Q1 Ultra. The mouse button and keys appear at the bottom of the keyboard but when the keyboard is rotated away, the mouse button protrudes from the side.
You’ll see stereo speakers and a rotating cam, a surprising number of buttons and the pen silo underneath the mousepad area. There’s also a docking port.
Of the three devices I played with, this was my favorite. I wasn’t a fan of the twist design before but having played with it now I think it makes a better two-handed UMPC than the Q1 Ultra. It also has a real mouse button rather than the silly sliding one on the Q1 Ultra.
In the Intel Mobility conference, the device was shown running Windows XP with Yahoo Go software on top. Its not known if this will be released as a Vista or XP based device but if its using the same architecture as the Samsung Q1 Ultra, there should be no reason why it doesn’t ship with Vista.
High quallity (1mbps WMV9) version available here or watch the YouTube version below.
More info on the new McCaslin-based UMPCs here.. The information from the Intel Mobile Press Conference is here.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:20 am
This looks almost exactly like a umpc i designed on that asus/intel dream pc site! would be nice if something like this actually made it through to production, but intel’s concepts rarely do.