As you may have seen, I’m testing a Nokia N810 right now. Its an amazing bit of hardware and it sits right on the border where Intel, VIA and ARM are patrolling to stop devices entering their respective sectors! I think the uPOP u48S might have just succeeded in crossing the line though. Look at this thing!

The uPOP media player is a 4.8" 800×480 resolution device running WinCE5.0 and overlay software. It has a 30 (or 60GB) hard drive, slider keyboard and sub 400gm weight. There’s no word on processor or battery life but I doubt its x86-based.

These designs are exactly what we’ll be seeing next year from the next-gen low-power X86-based devices. Menlow will enable this form factor and give a huge general processing power advantage that can be levered to enhance the Internet experience but will have the disadvantage of having about half of the battery life [my estimate]. Mobile-ITX will enable even smaller designs which, again, will have a large amount of raw processing power relative to PMPs. The problem will be getting the full range of video media support up to scratch on the x86 devices if Intel and VIA want them to take over the high-end PMP market.  Pocketability will be an issue too. 4.8" on ARM would allow a pocketable device (I believe.) 4.8" on Menlow or Mobile ITX could be just a but too big for the pocket. The price of the x86-based devices will hit the pocket too!

I’ll be keeping an eye out for more info on this one. When this one launches (its delayed for some reason) it will remind me to look up the latest on the uPOP. [Amtek U560 due to launch soon on the Intel McCaslin platform.]

Source: DAPReview/ PMPInside Thanks K.C.Kim and JKK.

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