With twice the battery life, half the weight and half the price of UMPCs of 2006, the advances in UMPC technology have been amazing. Here’s a video summary of what’s happened in the last 3 years.
Just imagine what’s possible with Intel’s Morestown platform and ARM-based platforms from Ti, Qualcom and Nvidia. In 2010 we’ll be seeing devices hit 250gm with slimmer designs and true, all-day on battery life.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:19 am
UMPCs from 2006 – 2009. Video overview of the impressive advances that have been made. http://cli.gs/2ezE5P
April 24th, 2009 at 11:29 am
One small correction:
I said ‘all areas that smartphones cant reach due to productivity issues’
meant to say ‘all areas that smartphones cant reach due to physical issues’
Chippy
April 24th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
If you’re talking about consumption type devices then maybe we have progressed. If you’re talking about productive, useful devices then no, we’ve taken huge steps backwards. Who, apart from OQO, can produce a device with a decent thumb-keyboard and mouse thingy and a screen that can be used for text input?
April 24th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
but downgrade in GPU of z series atom cpu (even surprising the driver does not support 256 old games like diablo 1 in xp). Too bad except it can run hq vedios. Intel should do something, I suppose.
Oss Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/03/umid-m1-plays-games-and-movies-on-video
April 24th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
yeah , umpc’s have come a long long way. there was a time i would go to the computer store and ask them if they had any umpcs in stock and they would say no..now however … things have changed … big time.. they have plenty of umpcsstock , they cant give em away… yay umpc . go. umpc.. they have thier own umpc section.. with cheer leaders . not
April 24th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Hmmm, maybe the video was too soon (as a new screen might round out the story)… as per http://www.pixelqi.com/blog1/ – the sample units are ready to go out end of May/early June. Jkk and/or UMPCportal, should get one of these sample screens…As then we could get a side by side testing of any power saving… as it looks like a MOD of 10 inch netbook is possible so a simple swap test can be done easily.
Pixel Qi blog quote:
“We are starting with a 10.1″ screen that can fit into a standard netbook laptop, and is driven in the same way. It’s plug, form, fit compatible – meaning one can unplug the existing screen in a 10″ netbook and plug our new screen right in”.
Would love to see this screen tested by JKK, or UMPCportal, and add touchscreen too.
http://www.pixelqi.com/contact_us
April 24th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
perhaps this is of interest to you: http://www.gizmag.com/lithium-ion-battery-breakthrough-mit/11244/
April 24th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Sold all your old stuff except two, Chippy? :O
April 24th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Hi question. Why are all UMPC comparison/evolution article’s ignorant of what OQO or Vaio provide? I don’t understand how the qualities and capabilties of these devices are not mentioned, since they do meet all the criteria. The only issue I see if price.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Is there a hatred for OQO or Sony Vaio?
April 24th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
because OQO/UX were both out before the Origami vision was put into place by MS. plus both the OQO/UX were considered “UMPC Pro” type devices with their high price tags & non-standard specs.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Thanks for the clarification. But They are still UMPC, and they meet all the requirements this website has been posting for. I still do not understand why they seem to be ignored as the current high mark for UMPC design. Minus the high price tag, why are we still chasing what a perfect UMPC is, when the OQO and Vaio have all the elements we are looking for? UMPC pro? Pro sounds even better then. I see the only challenge is the price. So what if it’s out before orgami. Is there a restriction to creating posts only about orgami devices? Actually this particular video discusses ecactly devices that do not have orgami, yet it excludes (For some strange reason) the existance and evolution of OQO which is still the best UMPC design 3 years ago AND now. I think the price is actually JUSTIFIED becuase it is still the most capable UMPC in existance. (If there is a better/more capable better designed UMPC please give an example)
drebin Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
i thnk the video is intended to show how umpcs have changed and become smaller. since the oqo and sony vaio were small to begin with , they would not be good material to illustrate this point.
another factor is that the the choice of umpcs used in the videos is limited to those devices the videomaker actually owns.
i thnk the third point is that what the video shows is the advances in the ntel chipset since that is the primary chipset that most umpcs andmids will be using.
oqo may be a great umpc and just because it isnt mentned in this video does not mean it is being ignored .
April 25th, 2009 at 12:50 am
3G,what should MS,Google,Linux do?
3G, we do not use phone surfing, we use MID/UMPC. we need about 5″ and touch display.
Microsoft should do:
combine Windows and Windows mobile to one OS
Google/Linux should do:
an OS can run Windows program
April 25th, 2009 at 8:50 am
this viliv brand is amazing s5 is basically the ultimate umps up to date really small and light nicely powerful and a really great battery life!! all in your pocket and the s7 is the ultimate net book(you could do the same video about the so called netbooks) it is like the ultimate asus 701 you could imagine liter and smaller more comfortable(the touch pad and being thumable)and really powerful and an awesome battery life again actually i can think of a way to make it even better with large ssd which shouldnt be that hard more info on this brand would be appreciated keep up the good work chippy
April 25th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
When I think of the future of UMPC’s… As an owner of a Q1UP and Archos5, to me the real dichotomy is the screen size. For a true mobile computing experience how big does the screen need to be?
For web browsing 5″ is tolerable. The real “working size” blending some light computing with ideal web experience seems to be 7″. Just my opinion.
Nice video and topic!
April 25th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I just seen the video and i say is not fair!
Of course 5 inch model is lighter than 7 inch not because the year
but for other obvious reason:the size of the screen.
Raon Everun is an strange mising,im shure chippy stil has it,but it will spoil the whole picture,isn`t he?
Oqo2 and htc shift are another great missing devices.
In the end the tehnology (INTEL)got us back in pentium 3 era in order to create ,again,the need for more powerful machines like p4
And of curse to waste,again,useless,a lot of consumers money.
Gerry Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I too wonder about the lack of mention of the original Everun. its’ specifications are nearly identical to today’s latest-and-greatest. Yet, the Everun had these features when it was introduced 2 years ago.
April 26th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Excellent video by Chippy showing the strides that the UMPC sector has made over the last few years: http://is.gd/uJqW #UMPC
April 26th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Great vid Chippy… it seems an apt piece since the original Origami Project Site is coming down…. and I know you were pretty active there too…
As a non-iphone owner the one thing that the phone has definitely done is improve the awareness of touch and prove to OEMs that touch is not a niche (sic anorak) product. In some strange way I hope MS are thankful for the Apple leg up.
On the piece itself, I’m happy with the lower weights (its now possible to hold the device in your hand for an extended period, and the increased battery life. As a fan of slates, I’m glad to see that it has made a fight back and that the first three come in all three flavours (slider/slate/clamshell).
Couple of things I don’t like:
1. Proprietary cabling. I thought we had gotten past this but the return of the strange looking cable that only fits a single device is not a move forward.
2. 5″ screen. I’m trying not to damage my eyesight by squinting at these incredible resolutions now offered but things are getting smaller. I liked the 7″ screen even though it was not precisely “pocketable” – for me only the phone goes in the pocket and everything else goes in a bag.
3. Charge times. 6hrs / 8hrs – keeping your UMPC fully charged is now an overnight activity. Battery performance is still something that needs the user to fully deplete the battery to get the best.
Other than that… its a brave new world.