Archive for July, 2008

Last week I posted some tips on how to squeeze 3 hrs browsing time out of the Kohjinsha SC3. The method was a bit of a trick as it utilised a mobile phone data connection over Bluetooth but it was the only way to achieve 3 hours on the 20wh battery. It equates to an average 7W drain which is, even in UMPC terms, very efficient but it’s not as good as I hoped from a Z-series Atom-based system.

The reason why it’s not as good as I expected (and the reason why i’m not using the SC3 to write this post in my tent while the rain beats down outside) is that the Samsung Q1 Ultra (with SSD mod) is just as efficient with the previous generation Intel platform. As I write this post, perfom (try it, start->run->perfmon. Its fun to watch the battery drain) is telling me that the average drain is 6.9 watts. Meebo is running in the background, Friendfeed is updating, CPU utilisation is averaging 20%, brightness is set at 25% and I’ve got a LED lamp attached to the USB port to give me some light. With the standard battery, thats over 4 hours of online time. I’ve got the extended battery here which is showing 5.5 hrs @ 61%  battery. (9hrs total)

With a refresh to a 1.33Ghz Atom processor and some tweaks to the motherboard, I’m sure Samsung could shave 20% off that drain figure and produce a 5-6 hr, 600gm device. They’ve proved themselves as one of the best at electronic design with their Q1 products and it excites me to think about what they might come up with next - as long as it has a lighted keyboard!

Jenn, now a Willcom D4 owner as well as an SC3 owner, has her first impressions up. As expected, the battery life isn’t good at all with the tiny standard battery returning 1.5 hours of use. Its efficient of course, but that’s not really enough is it. I really don’t understand how any OEM could convince themselves that it’s acceptable to expect people to buy a second battery.

Apart from that, the device seems to be performing well enough with Vista on the 1.33Ghz CPU.

The Willcom D4 never felt right to me from the word go and this review doesn’t change my opinion.

Review at Pocketables. Specifications and more links on the D4 information page.

Meet the Vye S41 (Portal page for full specs). This is a mini-tablet / UMPC touting a 7” screen. Some of you may notice that it looks an awful lot like the Kohjinsha SR8. You would be correct in that observation; the S41 and SR8 are actually the same computer, Vye has adapted the S41 to be sold outside of Japan. The S41’s most unique feature is its built in DVD burner. It is very surprising to see the drive in such a small computer. Though the question has to be asked: Do you really need a DVD drive in a computer that is designed to be highly mobile? Find the answer to that and a whole lot more in the full S41 review below. (continue reading…)

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I’m going camping over the next four days. Here’s the kit that’s going to keep me productive.

[The Wife and little-one have planned a last-minute camping trip together and I was due to stay home and work but I've decided to go along and make a working holiday of it. Dads - this is the beauty of Ultra Mobile PC's!!!]

That’s a Samsung Q1 Ultra being charged from a Tablet Kiosk MP3400 which will be charged using a Sunlinq 25W solar panel. Also included are the Nokia N82 and a battery charging set. More details here.

Check out Solar-UMPC for some more mobile and solar-computing posts over the next few days.

Many of us have been anxiously waiting for news about the VIA Nano (formerly Isaiah) processor from VIA. Previous leaked info indicated a 2-4x improvement in processing power for a similar power drain over the older VIA C7 processors and with the Atom processors barely improving on the previous platform in terms of processing power, pro-mobile users were looking for something to fill the high-end gap.

Eeepcnews.de have been testing, (yes, they had one in their hands!) a 1.8Ghz version of the Nano CPU which isn’t the CPU we’d be looking for in UMPCs but the results give us some new data points. Firstly, here’s the model range. (test results after the image…)

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Check this out. Engadget received a photo of an ASUS presentation slide showing 23 Eee models.

Note the ‘Touch’ and ‘Slim and Light’ expressions. Also note that the ASUS R50 and R70 aren’t part of the range. Looks like they still see tablets as niche devices that don’t fit into the EEE profile.

New models to look out for are the S101, S91, T101. I wonder if we’ll finally see a version of the T83. (image left.)It was a popular device on the portal last year but probably needs an update now.

Thanks to source: Engadget.

Yesterday was fantastic. I had no idea that so many people would support the IDF effort. I feel honoured! We’ve raised over $700 so far. I can hardly believe it. It gets me almost to San Fransisco….but not back ;-(

I’ve doubled my efforts in order to support all those that have sent money. I want to make sure we reach the target and don’t disappoint you so this morning I’ve sent out a request to all my business contacts with a small advertising offer. Hopefully we’ll secure the rest of the funding and reach the target. I’m hoping now that we’ll go over the target and be able to bring you on-the-spot news from IFA, one week later. (It’s in Berlin. Only a 6-hour train journey from here.)

Thanks to everyone that has donated so far. I feel confident that we’ll be there and will be able to bring you all the latest. In depth. Ultra-Mobile focused.

As JKK says, this could mean that the device is moving towards availability in the U.S.

I haven’t heard anything from ASUS in Germany yet but I’ve sent them a message to see if we can have a status update. Remember that the R50 is the smaller of the two tablets that ASUS will be launching and it will run on the Silverthorne processor with SSD and 3G included. I wonder if we’ll see any Eee-influenced change of branding or pricing? I doubt it.

See the specifications and previous news pages for the R70 and R50 by clicking on the images below.

R70 and R50 from ASUS.

A clear message to UMPC OEM’s

If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. [If the results are not showing, make your vote and you'll see them.]

While some people will accept 3-hours battery life for an Ultra Mobile PC, 85% of people want 4 or more hours. 50% of people here see 5 hours as minimum battery life for a UMPC.

In the Gigabyte M912X unboxing last week, the second thing I mentioned was the washed-out screen. The following morning, in my tests,  it was clear that the screen was taking too much power. Ding! Of course, it was a CCFL-backlit screen.

I sent an email to Gigabyte who have confirmed that the (production) 1280×768 screen is CCFL backlit. They also told me that the 1024×600 screened version is LED-backlit. The 1024×600 screen will be installed in the M912M version.

For those not familiar with the terms, CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) is the old, power-hungry and often low-brightness backlighting method. LED (Light Emitting Diode) is the newer, much more power efficient and higher-brightness (mostly) method. In this case, it means that if you take a lower resolution screen, you get more battery life (it could be a significant amount, taking the standard 4-cell battery up to 3.5hrs browsing time) and, potentially a much brighter screen. All the LED 1024×600 screens I’ve seen so far have had great colour balance too.

I’ll happily drop that 1280×768 screen to 1024×600 to get the extra brightness and longer battery life offered by a LED-backlit model but there’s a catch if you’re thinking the same way. The 1024×600 screen is only in the M912M model. For that you have to sacrifice the Bluetooth (not a big deal) take Windows XP (which is likely to be faster and run better in 1GB) take an 80Gb hard drive instead of 160GB and wait 2 weeks longer until the end of September for delivery. Personally, I think it’s worth it and I don’t think anything else is going to come along that has the same features for the same price.

In summary then, there are now two models. The high-end version and the low-end version. The high-end version is available with XP and Vista. (M912X, M912V) The low-end version only with XP (M912M) There will be no Linux version.

Read the highlights and lowlights and watch the live Q&A session here. See the unboxing here.

Side-by-side specification comparison here.

It seems like half a year since I added the HSDPA-capable CMXP version of the Q1 Ultra to the database. Oh, it was!

Samsung have finally announced it in the US but unfortunately the price seems to have risen to $1449 which I find a little but over the top for a year-old, $1000 device that many people have already retro-fitted with a $150 HSDPA card.

It’s almost the same story with the Q1 Ultra premium. It’s been available for months with XP but only now have Samsung decided to announce it. Maybe Kevin Tofel’s reports convinced them.

Now seems a good time to mention that the Q1 Ultra with XP is a good performer, has excellent battery life and can be upgraded a home-built SSD drive. I’m still using mine although I am missing the keyboard that I’ve had on the M704 and SC3 recently.

Via Engadget.

Just like the Kohjinsha SC3, the Fujitsu U2010 is a mini, no, tiny notebook PC running on the new Intel Menlow platform. JKKMobile and UMPCFever have reported the specifications (now in the database) and I’ve been looking over them.

Firstly, the screen is an amazing 1280×800 which is the same pixel density as a Sony UX UMPC. It’s high, but useful. You can always bump the font sizes up if you need to.

Secondly, the battery life is quoted as 3.5hrs under Bapco MobileMark 2007 Productivity. As far as I can tell, that means Wifi-off, low screen brightness and some office application work. 3.5 hours isn’t bad. Probably 30 minutes more than the Kohjinsha SC3 under those conditions. If the Wifi module is good, that means 3hrs browsing time which is much more than the SC3 will achieve.

Update: Looks like I was spot on with the battery life. See this report.

It looks tempting with it’s very light weight (610gm) fingerprint reader and dual memory card slots Local street price in Hong Kong is said to be $1350 though which is a lot more than the SC3. Willcom D4 vs Fuji U2010 vs SC3 fight anyone?

Thoughtfix brings us the news (from The Register) that Moblin will be moving to a Fedora-based distribution. Thats quite a core change in architecture that is bound to upset Canonical and Xandros who have been working on Atom-optimised distributions and have also committed to make a Moblin-based version for netbooks. I suspect that Moblin will run the two builds side-by-side for a while. Dirk Hondel told The Register that "there was no falling out with Ubuntu, but the move to Fedora was a technical decision based on the desire to adopt RPM for package management."

Here’s a list of some of the current distributions running on Atom netbooks.

• Suse on MSI Wind and HP Mininote - RPM based
• Xandros on Eee PC - DEB based.
• Canonical base system (Ubuntu Mobile) for MID development - DEB based
• Linpus Lite on the Acer Aspire - RPM Fedora Based (Acer)
• Asianux / MIDinux base system for MID development - RPM based

Only Ubuntu Mobile and Asianux are running the Moblin core so far but I’m sure we’ll hear news at IDF next month. I wonder if SuSE will make an announcement.

If support moves towards Moblin, what happens to the VIA and AMD-based devices? Can VIA and AMD contribute drivers for inclusion? Apparently Moblin supports non-Intel platforms so I guess that’s a possibility and seeing as some of VIA’s linux drivers are already open, there’s nothing stopping a Moblin distributor from dropping them in.

Update: It’s the I1 (i1) not the L1. My mistake. Sorry Wibrain!
Detailed specifications and links are now in the database.

This, just in from Wibrain.

We had news from UMPCfever that Wibrain were working on an Atom-based UMPC and I can now bring you some details in English. The L1 i1 will be based on the B1 design, will have an updated casing design and will include variants of the Silverthorne Atom processor and an HSDPA module.

It’s planned to be launched running on Menlow (Silverthorne/Poulsbo) in two versions, one with a 1.1Ghz CPU and one with a 1.3Ghz version. The usual 30Gb or 60Gb drive options are available and you’ll also have SSD options up to, wait for it, 64GB! It is planned to be built with Windows XP or Linux (version unknown.) Target weight and dimensions are as per the B1 model. 500gm. One specification that many will be happy to see is an SD card slot. Simple but very useful and missing from the previous, B1 model.

As for battery life, we have a document here that says 6-hours browsing. I’m not sure if that’s with the 30Wh battery or the double-capacity battery. Were checking. It is possible that, with an SSD and the 1.1Ghz CPU that they can reach this figure with the standard battery and a low-level backlight but it’s going to be tough. We know that already! (Update: Wibrain tell us it’s 6-hours with the standard battery - Wow. Even if it’s 5, i’m interested!) Availability is planned for October through global channels. (Yes, U.S. is included in the target territory list.)

For those that haven’t read much about the Wibrain UMPCs, they’re good value and easy to use. The touchpad works exceptionally well and the split keyboard is one of the quickest for URL and password entry. If Wibrain reach 6-hour browsing time on the standard battery I’m sure it will sell extremely well. Links and information about the B1, here. I’ll add the i1 to the database ASAP.

Source: Wibrain.

For the last two years I’ve been trying to find a way to get UMPCPortal to Intel’s Developer Forum. It’s Intel’s premier event and comprises conferences, speeches and training sessions. It also includes product demonstrations and a chance to ask questions and get hands on. For our beloved UMPC’s and MIDs its a hotbed of activity with a lot of focus recently on Menlow and Moorestown. The next one is in about 4 weeks and I am desperately trying to get UMPCPortal over there to cover it and bring you all the new and detailed info right from the horses mouth. Unfortunately, its not a free event and for a small Euro-concern like UMPCPortal, its just not achievable without sponsorship.

Intel have been very responsive to my pleas though and last week they offered us a full press pass and free entry for the event. I’m honoured and now doing everything I can to raise the money to get over there. I’ve secured free accommodation with a friend who lives in San Francisco but now I need to raise the money for the flight and other expenses. For the first time ever I’m laying a cap down in front of UMPCPortal. Can you help with a donation?

What you get

I’ll personally attend as much of the conference as possible to bring you 100% high quality UMPC and MID focused news, analysis, hands-on reports, photos and, I’m sure, a few bits of insider info. I’ll attend the mobile-focused keynotes and as many of the sessions and give you the latest on subjects like “Extending Battery Life of Mobile PCs Using Intel’s Solid State Drive Solutions”, “User Perception of Mobile PC Battery Life”, “The Real Story About NAND Flash and Solid-State Drive Reliability” and a large number of MID and Moblin sessions. also attend the open ‘Chalk Talk’ session on Mobile Internet devices to give feedback and I might even have something to say in the Open Mike session. At the end of the day, your donation will help to improve the quality of UMPCPortal both now and in the future.

All donators will get a linked thank-you on a front-page article. It’s Page Rank 6 for anyone that needs a bit of link love

If you donate, $5 or more you’ll also get:

• Special, unpublished IDF overview Report and photo pack by email after the event.
• Email alerts about important news as they are published on the portal.
• Have your say. Send me an email on your thoughts about the UMPC and MID sector and i’ll personally hand them over to one of the senior members of the Ultra Mobile Group. I’ll try and pick out a few important ones to present in the open sessions.
• 2007-2008 report pack. I’ll send you PDF copies of the reports from 2007 and 2008. This includes articles on battery, technology, CPU reports and the 2007 buyers guide.

Anyone that donates $50 or more gets all the above plus the next 12 months reports emailed as PDF, 1-week before general availability. (estimated 5-10 reports including the 3rd edition of the UMPC Buyers Guide which is due to be published in September.)

Donations of $150 or more get all the above plus a 120×120 ad button on the news section for August and September. Expect 250,000 people’s eyes over this period!

If you want to sponsor the whole event, I’ll be happy to work out an advertising package. Contact me for details as soon as possible.

If we don’t raise enough money to get to the IDF, i’ll put what we raised it in a holding area to support a project to attend the next event. If we raise more than needed, I’ll also put the extra in a holding area to support the next event.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Notes:

• As a guest of Intel, I may be shown or told things under a non-disclosure agreement.
• The conference is three days long and runs in many ‘tracks.’ It will be impossible to bring you news from all sessions.
• Donators details will be kept private by default. If you wish to have a ‘thank you’ link or button, please say so in your donation comments.
• Your email address will only be used to send IDF-related information in 2008 and 2009 and will not be passed on to third parties.