ABI surveyed 1000 people about netbooks. According to their results, only 79% see them as a secondary computer. 11% see them as a primary computer proving that there is a significant overlap an direct impact on notebook sales. No surprise really. The results are not good news for laptop and netbook manufacturers in general, despite the 79% that are buying a netbooks as a second device. Here are some thoughts [...]

Jon Stokes, one of my favourite mobility-focused journalists, wrote in ARS Technica about battery life on the Palm Pre a few days ago and brings up one of my favourite topics. Battery life. It’s a real issue for smartphones now as the platforms reach levels where they can be considered capable of returning an acceptable web experience but when used in such a scenario, the battery life is too short. [...]

Over at UMPCPortal I’m tracking the various versions of the Compal MID, their specifications and where you can buy them. Following an interesting forum thread over there I’ve written a short article that talks about the variants of the device and where you can buy them. Check the article out here: MID IDOL di Tim. Hands-on from Italy | UMPCPortal – The Mobile Internet and Computing Reference Site.

Yesterday I asked for input on the French SFR-version of the Compal MID. It turns out (thanks, everyone, for the feeback) that it’s provider locked but there’s no contract commitment. For the French, it’s a deal! The Italians have their own option in the IDOL that is offered through TIM, one of the local mobile Telco’s. There’s a nice thread in the forum where IDOL users are getting together to [...]

The sun is shining out in Pocketables land. I can almost see Jenn’s smile radiating from here, 7500 miles away on the other side of the planet. She’s got the Vaio P and the unboxing and testing has already started. Unboxing photos’s here. It looks like the usual stack of Sony apps and try-me-ware is installed so Jenn will probably have some cleaning-up to do before the first impressions come [...]

Well I guess it wouldn’t have made any difference if the ClarionMiND (yes, one-word due to legalities) had turned up for my 5-country day-trip; there’s no flippin Euro maps on it! Despite that, I’ve quite enjoyed familiarising myself with it because in terms of finger-friendly user interface, it’s a real gem. Carrousel style menu system and a UI that appears to run through the whole system. Only some sub-menus within [...]

This is more a call for help from the French readers than anything else. It seems to me that my French neighbors can pick up an SFR-branded Compal MID with 3G for 349 Euros without a contract commitment. The only thing I’m not sure about is the 3G. Is it locked to SFR? I’d appreciate any help on this so if you can read French or have already investigated this, [...]

The Palm Pre will probably be the most powerful smartphone ever when it launches and browsing is likely to be significantly faster than any other smartphone before it. The browser is built on Webkit so there’s likely to be a good degree of accuracy and the connectivity options look good too so in many respects, this is going to be a great mobile Internet device.

This is an unconfirmed rumor but if it’s true, we might have another smartphone ‘MID’ on our hands here. 3G, 854×480 screen, GPS, Qwerty keyboard, slick design. No info on processor at the moment. I’ve never tried a sidekick as they’ve always looked like toys to me but I know some people that swear by them and rate the keyboard very highly indeed. The 3.2inch screen would be difficult to [...]

I had a bit of fun with followers on FriendFeed this evening and unboxed the ClarionMiND live with photos going to Flickr. Flickr photos are here. Follow me on Friendfeed or Twitter to get notifications of other silly events like this. I’ll be doing an intro video and posting soon though so stay tuned here too! Transcript of the Friendfeed session: Images going up into my flickr stream (will appear [...]

The final day for myself on the road for this iteration of the Mid Moves tour. I’ve left myself one classical element to explore (Earth) and for the fourth mode of transport I’m turning to the Underground, specifically the Glasgow Underground.

The final day of my part of the Mid Moves tour, and I headed into central Glasgow on their Underground (with the final element being Earth I think the reason is obvious).

One of the big differences between the Compal MID and the BenQ S6 devices is what they expect the primary input mechanism to be. While both of them have touch screens, the design of the user interface shows one clear difference.

Yesterday’s news that Moblin V2 for MIDs is now delayed until 2010 has me thinking long and hard about what’s going to happen now. Have Intel put their MID plans to one side? Are they confident that Moblin V1 is enough for the current crop of devices? What will the OEMs think? Are they happy to refocus onto netbooks or are they simply waiting for Moorestown? Should I put UMPCPortal on ice and take a year’s holiday?

Whe I tested the Gigabyte M528 sample version of the Compal (codename, JAX10) MID back in July last year, I was looking at an extremely basic software stack. When I tested the Aigo MID version a few months ago, the situation was better but not impressive… The Aigo P8860 MID is a slightly unpolished, slightly locked-down, slightly thin-app, early-adopters Mobile Internet device. Almost everything in the application suite is underwhelming [...]

Scottish Citylink run a regular service between Edinburgh and Glasgow (and other cities) and one of their attractions is that the buses are Wi-Fi enabled to let you carry on working while nipping across the central belt of Scotland. And it’s free for anyone taking the bus – congratulations to Citylink for not trying to get another few pounds out of their customers!

I’ve been having a look (or should that be listen) to the music capabilities of the BenQ S6 MID device. With a stereo headphone socket and a music player as part of the built in software, the device can be used as a portable music player. But is it any good?