Archive for May, 2008

Update: We’ve tested this device now. It’s got some great features. Check out a video and some notes here.

Looking good with some potentially unique features for the netbook market and further blurring the lines between UMPC and netbook is th M912 convertible touchscreen netbook. Or should we call it a convertible tabetPC?

Gigabyte previously told me that this one wasn’t to be released but it looks like they changed their mind as its on their website.

Intel CPU 1.6GHz with 1GB RAM
Chipset Intel ® 945GSE
8.9”LCD panel/WXGA 1280×768, w/Touch screen, LED Backlight
HDD 2.5” ,9.5mm S-ATA HDD 120/160/250GB
USB X 3,Mic in/Earphone out/D-SUB RJ45 /SD card
Wifi and BlueTooth 2.0 built-in
1.3M pixel CMOS camera
Battery Li-ion 4400mAh, Battery life 4 hrs
Dimensions: 235 x 180 x 28~42mm
Weight 1.2kg
OS: XP or Linux

All the details are now in the database here. Information will be added as it becomes available.

This will go into the database as soon as i get to a desk. Right now im sitting in a bus. Gotta love UMPCs! Via Jkkmobile

Yes, its true, we have no lives. If you’re in the same boat, or just a bit curious, join us at any point over the next 3 or 4 hours to ask questions, look at devices or just poke fun at us!

We’ll be in the chat session and running live video and audio from about 2100 GMT+2. (About 30 minutes from now.)

UMPCPortal Live.

‘Desirable’ is the word and I base that thought purely on the looks on the MSI Wind, just as a large percentage of netbook buyers are going to do. I’m almost trying to convince myself that I need one after watching this video. More momentum to MSI’s marketing efforts as the rocky waters of Computex approach.

Oh the power of a decent Internet video!

Click through to the Crave video. More info on the MSI Wind available on its product page where you can also check out the alternatives.

Two posts in a row that pick out errors in other peoples reports. I’m starting to sound like a CrankyGeek! I will be more positive. I will be more positive. I will….

Fudzilla briefly tested the 1.6Hz Diamondville version of the Atom processor and don’t appear to be too impressed.

“… the CPU doesn’t really do well in multi-media applications. It doesn’t even render that well, as Cinebench was incredibly slow, slower than we’ve seen in years.”

But then they say this:

the CPU is great for surfing, typing, instant messaging and listening to music. It even plays videos just fine

Which is exactly what it’s meant to do! The features are in the size, power-efficiency and mainly, cost, not in the performance figures.

With this new CPU running 60% faster than the previous generation it gives marketing teams a nice little advantage but when real-life performance doesn’t get anywhere near what’s expected of a 1.6Ghz CPU, managing expectation becomes a bit of a problem. I don’t think it’s Fudzilla’s fault that they’ve focused on performance first.

Related: Don’t expect miracles from Netbooks.

Source: Fudzilla review.

The MSI Wind seems to be doing the UK rounds at the moment and I’ve just been looking at the VR-Zone review. Its nice to see the internals (really!) and I’m really impressed with the silky black version. However, their power drain testing is somewhat strange. They’ve measured the power drain at the mains outlet and then used that to calculate what the device will draw when on battery.

What they should have done is measured the current and voltage after the AC adaptor because those little blighters usually add 30% to the power requirement. If they’d done that, they probably would have seen a minimum power drain closer to 7W rather than 9.8W. Based on other devices I’ve tested, that would return an average 10W drain in normal use. Given an average capacity netbook battery , that would give a usable 3 hours of battery life but there’s a little surprise on the Wind battery. MSI are using a relatively small 3-cell battery with just 24wh of power which is 25% less capacity than the smallest Eee PC battery. Expect no more than 2.5 hours out of the Wind in normal wifi-on use and close to 2hrs if you’re pushing it. Oh well, at least’s it’s better than the 1hr 15mins that VR-Zone predicted.

VR-Zone review

It certainly looks like the MSI Wind is taking point in the mininote race right now. Everyone seems to love the design that’s slightly bigger and heavier than the Eee PC 900. The price, style and specifications seem to be spot on. There’s a tough 2 weeks ahead for all mininote product managers but with reports like this one from Crave being published, MSI’s product managers can be happy that they have the right momentum at exactly the right time.

…it could take the throne from the Asus Eee PC as the best mini laptop on the planet.

Crave mention a few ‘tricks’ too, like the TurboDrive button and a keyboard that is ‘miles miles’ better than the Eee PC 900. We’ll have to see about that but it’s not often you hear the Brits getting over-excited about something so maybe, just maybe, this is the one!

More images and notes over at Crave.cnet.co.uk

I’m a big fan of using UMPCs as desktops. In my normal daily work there’s nothing that I can’t do on my UMPC and with the future looking good for more powerful devices, even normal desktop users should be able to run their daily work on a UMPC but it doesn’t work if you keep having to plug cables in and out all over the place. A simple, single cable or docking port solution is what’s needed. The i7210, OQO and M704 all have nice docking stations but many other UMPCs, including my current Q1 Ultra, don’t.

A recent article by Jenn over at Pocketables made me give the universal USB docking station idea a second thought and this review of the Toshiba Dynadock now has me hovering over the order button. It supports multi-view via ‘DisplayLink’ technology, there’s a DVI-out version, ethernet, USB ports, headphone and mic ports a digital audio out port and even a serial port and the only thing you have to plug into the UMPC is a single USB cable.

An analogue, TV-out port would have been better than a serial port but for desktop operations and even in ’set-top-box’ situations, the Dynadock looks perfect. Some video limitations mean that you won’t be able to run HD720 videos smoothly but for most people with UMPCs, that wouldn’t have been an expectation anyway.

Pricing for the DVI version runs to $180 but the analogue, VGA version is $150 but the street price (e.g. Amazon.com - right) is down to a very reasonable $107 for some models as I write this.

Check out the review at Trusted Reviews.

Via Engadget.

Latest information and new links are being added to the Aspire ONE product page.

Hot on the heals of the Dell Mininote leak are these images which just dropped into our forum. This posts are titled ‘Aspire One.’

It’s got the same touchpad as seen on the HP 2133 and what appears to be an 8.9″ screen. Images show a, probably linux-based, user interface. Anyone recognize that UI?

Thanks ‘Liza’ whoever you are. We’ll be looking out for this at Computex and as soon as we have enough info, we’ll add it to the database.

Update#1: From 3Fire. (Source Mobile 01)

According to his information in that pag, Acer’s Mini-Note is called “Aspire One”, running Windows XP SP3 on the 8.9 screen with resolution of 1024 X 768. The ODM partner is Quanta, the main notebook ODM partner of HP, DELL and Apple. The source thinks “Aspire One” is better looking than Asus’ EEE PC, however, no photo release yet.

Looks like it’s an Atom/Diamondville-based device. Digitimes mentions a 299 Euro price which is 100 Euro cheaper than the Eee PC 900!

Update#2: Now tracking the details in the database.

Update. Launch details, official specs and images here now.

Update2. Hands-on video.

This should be music to the ears of many a pro-mobile fan. The Isaiah CPU from VIA, the CPU expected to return 2-4 times performance over the C7 CPU and said to be a pin-for-pin replacement, will launch with a ‘U’ version that will go right down to 1.0Ghz. The TDP at 5W is increased over the 3.5W of the 1.0Ghz C7 but presumably it will make up for that requiring less clock cycles than the C7. There is also a new C6 power-saver mode that will help idle power-drain.

The name of the CPU has changed to ‘Nano’ and VIA has published a press release and launched some new web pages that give some interesting facts and figures. In VIA’s comparison tests with the C7, the Nano is returning between 2x and 4x performance. Memory bandwidth is also increased 2x. This aligns well with our own ‘leaked’ test results.

The press release says that devices based on Nano will appear in Q3 (July-Sept)

[More details below]

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Firefox is my recommendation for any device running a ‘low-end’ platform due to its speed and reduced memory footprint and I encourage everyone reading this website to make sure they test out the release candidate ASAP and download the final  version when its  available. If the fact that it’s fast isn’t enough for you, how about being a part of a world record attempt?

Mozilla wants as many people as possible to try and download it in the first 24 hours of it being available.

Via The Register, who point out that there is no current record holder for this new category.  Hmmmm!

Update. New Pics and a few lines of confirmation in a Dell blog

Spotted by Gizmodo at the ‘D’ conference, Mr Dell and his mini notebook.

Very little information was given by Michael Dell to Gizmodo when they, apparently, bumped into him at the All Things Digital conference. Apparently it’s for developing countries but it looks a bit too shiny for that.

The smart money is on an 8.9″ screen, Atom and the usual set of mininote specs. Modified image below shows the screen frame and web cam. Battery design looks like a 4-cell job. I guess we’ll hear more about this very soon. All images and story from Gizmodo

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Yesterday, I completed the final part of a series of upgrades that have been done to my Q1 Ultra to bring it up to what is close to my ideal all-round UMPC device. In this article I’ll outline what I’ve done and give you some detail about my most recent upgrade, swapping the 60GB hard drive out for an 8GB flash drive. The difference is quite remarkable. Not only do test results show up to 4x the read speed and 2x write speed but boot-times are quicker and the overall responsiveness of the system is improved dramatically. If you need convincing that SSD’s are fast before you take the jump, check out the video at the end of the (long and media-rich) post. Note that much of this applies to other devices that use 1.8" drives. The Sony UX, Fujitsu U810, HTC Shift and others.

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There’s no proof that this is the same browser as on the iPhone but it’s an interesting one to note. The Samsung L870, an S60-based device, will feature Apples Safari Browser. The phone itself is also quite interesting in a UMPC-partner kind of way. An N82 killer?

Does this mean that Apple could release the browser for other mobile operating systems? Windows Mobile? How will it implement zoom on non-multitouch devices? Will it be as fast and complete as on the iPhone?

Source: Phonearena

News just breaking from the Google IO keynote is that Google have completed a very impressive demo of Android on an unknown mobile device. Engadget thinks its the ‘Dream’ but i’m not sure where they got that info from.

Check out some great images at Android Community

At the moment its looking like an iPhone-class device but remember, Android would easily scale to bigger devices and different CPU architechtures. The HTC MID could be pretty interesting but will it be Android or Moblin based? I still think that Intel could push Moblin in as the core OS for Android on X86 devices.

Among the many interesting things expected to surface next week at Computex, the Eee PC 1000 is probably one that will get a huge amount of attention. While the 1000 isn’t a device I personally find that interesting for ultra mobile usage, its clear to see where ASUSTEK are going with the Eee brand. High-value devices for the masses.

Its not clear if it will launch with Atom, how much bigger it will be and how customers will choose between the 8.9 and 10" models.

Image via Akihabaranews.com

News via Liliputing. Source: Digitimes.