Firstly, thanks to everyone that dropped by for the live Q&A on the Medion UMPC last Friday night. It went on longer than I expected but I think we were all happy with the findings. I’ve finished taking the photos [Gallery here] and here’s a hands-on report. Remember its based on the production sample that I have but there shouldn’t be any major differences to the final production version.
Firstly, and very importantly, VIA appear to have done a good job with the new VX700 / UniChrome video drivers. Windows Media player and Origami experience worked well. The best we’ve seen on a ‘Vista on VIA’ device yet. This bodes well for the OQO and T770 and I guess all future VIA devices. Media Center was about the only thing that didn’t perform and to be honest, I’m not surprised. Media Center is a real heavyweight program. After installing a few drivers, Xvid at 2mbps was perfect through the Windows Media Player – more than enough quality for the 6.5″ screen.
As a device, its generally thumbs up. Its certainly better than 2006 UMPC devices. Screen brightness is impressive for example, although its a little washed out. Tweaking the contrast and brightness on the VIA driver applications fixes that to a certain extent but its not as good as the screen on the standard Q1. Battery life is good. ‘Up to 5 hours’ is no lie but expect 3 hours busy surfing time. Not bad at all. Video playback will bring you 2-2.5 hours life which again, is good.
And what about the keyboard? Better than I found it at CeBIT but still not fantastic. It could be much better to be honest. I will run some tests but I guess its about the same speed as the Sony UX. I will have to do some more work with the keyboard to see how it improves with time and practice. The thumbpad takes some getting used to too. Personally I would have preferred a mouse button but that’s probably because I’ve been using them for years and need to get used to the pad.
It doesn’t get hot and there’s no fan noise to speak of. (There is a fan but its quiet) The sound quality is acceptable (Mono but reasonable.)
From a style point of view its not that exciting. Quite square! Q1 looks nicer. It feels solid though and the plastics are nicely lacquered. I didn’t like the look of the keys.
Webcam quality is OK although I haven’t tried Skype or any sort of streaming yet. The Keyboard isn’t back-lit. No scroll up/down keys although pen/finger flicks seem to work OK. Resolution change is quick although you have to cycle the resolutions to get to the one you want which slows it down somewhat. Screen clarity on higher resolutions is really good. 1024×600 is useable. It will even give you 1024×768 if you choose but the quality there is a little iffy.
Touchscreen is light but requires a little more pressure than the Q1. There are huge vectoring issues. That’s not unsurprising with this light touch screen and to be honest probably not an issue. Its small enough to be able to rest a palm and finger on the frame sides and access all areas of the screen without having to worry about touching the screen with your palm.
SD card speed was good. No problems there. This could make a great partner device for photo and mobloggers that use SD cards.
VGA port is for the docking station and for connecting a projector. Quite unusable thought if you plan to use this in a dual-screen mode without a docking station. There’s a USB port next to the VGA port. A second USB port is available on the left side. There’s a useful ‘hold’ button which disables touch and buttons and there’s a rocker switch for volume.
Standby/return time is a very good 5/5 seconds. Hibernate speed is average. Boot from cold is, again, average.
Build quality is difficult to comment on considering the sample I have is pre-production. You’ll see that in some of the images too – part of the Medion sticker fell off. (Sorry Medion!)
In general I was more impressed with it than when I toyed with it at CeBIT and for the average user this appears to be a well balanced general use device both physically and in terms of electronic engineering. As with all of the Vista-based UMPCs I’ve used so far, optimisations are necessary. Hopefully these will be completed by Medion in the final version.
I’m still a little sad that Medion chose not to ship the docking station with it. I was hoping that this would be the first sub-$1000 grab-an-go UMPC but it wasn’t to be. $1000 is probably the right entry price for this device but I expect that before the end of the year its going to sound a little expensive. Medion will offer the docking station along with a range of other accessories at a later, unannounced date.
The Medion UMPC is available to order now (German order page here) although there’s a backlog of orders as the first shipment goes out to pre-order customers. If you’re that’s you, I think you’ll be happy with your purchase. Many thanks / Vielen Dank to Medion Deutschland for the loan of the RIM 1000.
I will probably be doing a video overview and more detailed review over the next week (just got to clear that with Medion) but in the meantime if you have questions, drop them in this forum thread. Full specs and gallery are also available along with the usual list of links out to other sites reviews, impressions and news.
