The HTC Shift. A fantastic design that failed due to overly heavy operating system, a short battery life, low screen resolution and limited Windows Mobile implementation.

Over a year of rumors and false-starts the HTC Shift became the most viewed device on UMPCPortal by a long shot. Videos of it were always popular and even after it launched, communities grew quickly and great things were done with the device. The short battery life and high cost killed it in the end through and as smartphones took off and even due to Intel moving towards the MID, it lost ground quickly.

Still, it’s an amazing bit of engineering and there might even be a few use case left for it. Certainly a 30 minute session in the coffee shop could be worth a lot of fun and a few discussions!

At $199 it’s worth a but of fun and maybe worth trying some Ubuntu, ChromeOS or other lightweight OS. Unfortunately this isn’t the 3G version. Anyone up for it? Or maybe you’re waiting for the updated version?!

It’s up for another 8 hours at 1saleaday.com

Via Brad Linder

Last year I ran a series of articles about mobile video editing. I covered smartphone, netbook and ultrathin solutions before settling on a low-cost , low weight set-up.. The Samsung NP350 worked well with its 2.2Ghz Core i3 but by moving up a notch in performance and efficiency, lowering the weight and, yes, increasing the cost by well over 100%, I’ve found a solution that’s quite stunning. I’m not just talking about looks!

The Toshiba Z830 Ultrabook weighs less than most netbooks but packs a 1.7Ghz Core i5 that can Turbo boost to 2.7Ghz. It’s got 6Gb of RAM and a great 128GB SSD that, although it isn’t the fastest at sequential speeds, knocks the socks of a hard drive solution and works perfectly with Cyberlink PowerDirector 10. The difference between the NP350 and Z830 solutions is huge!

I demonstrated the solution at VideoCamp Germany in Düsseldorf a few weeks ago and learnt a few things too so after a few days thought, I put together a tutorial article and behind the scenes video that shows exactly how I get those product launch videos up in record time.  10 minutes from camera-on to YouTube-ready!

The article is over at Ultrabooknews.com and it shows the hardware, software, method and results.

Are you doing mobile, quick-shot video work? A video journalist perhaps? Let us know your process and hardware in the comments below.

The Kupa X11 is a relatively niche Windows tablet PC based on what is the lowest-energy Windows-capable platform there is – Intel Oaktrail, the Z670 CPU and GMA600 GPU. With it’s 1366×768 screen, SSD storage, 2Gb of RAM, fingerprint reader, active digitiser layer and fanless design, it stands alone in the market with, as far as I know, no comparison. The model we have here, the Kupa X11 Pro, even comes with 3G. To add to the list of positives, the Kupa X11 also has a huge internal battery that can run it for 10hrs. Just what sort of customer is the Kupa X11 aimed at and how does it perform? Let’s take a closer look.

The First 5 Minutes

In the Kupa X11 unboxing video, we took you round the device and showed you the packaging and ports. The Kupa X11 itself doesn’t win any style awards as you unwrap it and it’s rather dense, despite only weighing 1KG. It’s nowhere near as thin as other 10” tablets but in comparison to other Windows tablets, it’s on par. Build materials seem strong and there’s no creaking or cracking. The Kupa X11 has a sold look and a solid feel – good for the audience that we think will be interested in it. Top marks to Kupa for some high quality packaging and presentation.

Specifications

Full specifications and details are available here but here are the main points of interest.

• CPU type: Intel Atom Z670
• CPU speed: 1500 Mhz
• Graphics: Intel GMA 600
• OS: Windows 7 Professional
• Display Size: 10.1″ 1366 X 768
• RAM:2048 MB
• Flash: 64 GB
• Battery capacity: 52 (Wh)
• Weight: 1019gm / 35.9 oz.
• Ports: mini HDMI, 2x USB2.0, SIM card slot, headset port.
• Other: Fingerprint reader. Stereo Speakers

Size and Weight

At 1.019Kg (measured) the the Kupa X11 feels dense. It this was an 11.6” tablet it would feel lighter but the eye tells the head to expect a little less for this size device. 1KG isn’t ideal for any sort of long-term one-handed use (as is common with a tablet with a digitizer or capacitive input) so for those using it for more than 10-15 minutes in this mode we would recommend a case with a hand-strap across the back.  In comparison with ‘consumer’ tablets it’s rather heavy. In comparison with other Windows tablets, it’s not bad at all, especially when you consider the battery life. More about that below.

Ports

With only 64GB on board (128GB model available) it’s very surprising that there isn’t a removable storage slot. This is going to be a show-stopper for some as Windows 7 (and we assume Windows disk usage will grow quickly. Maybe this reflects the target user. We discuss that below.

You’ve got 2 USB 2.0 ports which are useful for keyboard/mouse and an HDMI port for presentations and screens. A combo headset port isn’t perfect for the Skype headset scenario but acceptable considering the size of the Kupa X11. There’s no docking port.

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Screen

A 1366×768 10” screen is a real advantage on Windows. While fonts may appear small to some, they can be boosted across the board and for others, you have the advantage of being able to get lots of text, or a few windows, on the screen for multitasking. The brightness is impressive and the vertical viewing angles (in landscape mode) not bad at all. Horizontal viewing angles are not as good. This isn’t a wide-viewing-angle display but it’s better than some. The screen is glossy but matt display covers/filters are available and one was shipped with our review device. We didn’t have time to test it.

Touchscreen / Pen

Finger-driven Windows has never been the easiest of experiences. Kupa realise this and have increased the size of some of the windows elements to make it easier on the finger but there are still some issues. Closing a tab on Chrome was difficult, for example. Using the digitiser pen is a solution to this but not easy with one hand holding a 1KG tablet. We understand there are some use cases out there for digitisers but although a 10” tablet does increase the portability, it really reduces it’s usefulness for digitiser use cases and with the limited amount of CPU power on offer here, there’s again a mismatch. We are struggling to think of any users that would want such a low-power device with a pen when there are bigger (yet, more expensive) solutions out there. Pen responsiveness, fluidity and accuracy in handwriting mode (tested under Windows was impressive for this left-handed writer.

Performance

Before reading the rest of the review we suggest you check out this article where the Kupa X11 is used as a desktop office PC.

The Kupa X11 is a low-power device in both senses of the expression. It uses little energy and can last for 8+ hours for basic usage but it’s also running one of the least powerful Windows-capable processors available. It means some things take longer. Some things take significantly longer! On the other hand, the Kupa X11 does a good job of some basic tasks.

Disk – Speed, Size

The 64GB SSD is not a screamer (or perhaps the platform is the bottleneck) but it does a reasonable job. Raw performance tests gave a max 138MB/s read speeds and 46MB/s write speed with small-block read/writes speeds (the important ones) at 9MB/s and 1.2MB/s respectively. This is echoed by good application start-up times when the device is idle. When the Kupa X11 starts getting busy, processes can get really laggy. We wouldn’t like to see a version of this with a spinning hard drive. Kupa have made a good decision to go with a relatively fast SSD.

Boot time, thanks to the SSD, is fairly quick. Return from standby is a typical 5 seconds.

Audio

Audio from the built in speakers is not high-quality and although the max volume seemed OK in our quiet testing environment, it’s not loud. If you’re thinking of puttinh the Kupa X11 in a noisy environment, and need audio, you may have an issue. We can not confirm that audio is passed through the HDMI port as this was only tested in Windows 8 Beta where we had audio issues.  As video output is working in Windows 7, we assume audio is also working from the HDMI port. The audio through the headphone port was clean.

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Back at IDF September, Intel and Google finally announced that they’d be working together to get Android up and running on x86 devices. While there were a number of Android-running x86 tablets and a smartphone prototype or two floating around IDF, it wasn’t immediately apparent what the major advantage of Android 0n x86 devices would be for your everyday consumer. In fact, it wasn’t even apparent exactly why any of the existing Android manufactures would want to create x86 Android devices, given that up until now, pretty much all of their R&D has been focused on ARM devices. However, Intel may actually be perfectly positioned to be able to stimulate the growth of an upcoming segment of Android device — one which truly converges mobile and desktop functionality into one device. Chippy has coined such hybrid functionality: ‘High Dynamic Range Computing’ (HDRC), and the time might just be right for Intel to ignite this segment and find their own place in the Android market.

Before moving on, you might want to visit this link to see Chippy’s look at HDRC from last year.

Any consumer-available Android device that you can get your hands on today uses ARM architecture which is fundamentally incompatible with the x86 architecture that Intel products are based on. Android was originally built to run exclusively on ARM (though being open-source, some community projects were able to do some porting to x86). It wasn’t until several years after Android was on the scene that Intel and Google finally got together to work on full hardware-level Android on x86 support. That work is still ongoing. We’ve had our hands on Android devices running with Intel’s x86 architecture, but it is clear that there is still much optimization to be done. Once everything is complete though, won’t a device running Android on ARM be, for the user, indistinguishable from a device running Android on Intel’s x86?

If ARM has battery life, Intel has power. It’s an interesting dichotomy — we’ve watched as ARM-based devices have continuously scaled up to meet performance demands as the Android device market has grown. Intel has the opposite problem; they’ve got power, but have been constantly trying to scale it down to work with mobile at the tablet/smartphone level. Intel’s Atom series is a notable effort in the last several years to scale things back far enough that users could get reasonable performance and reasonable battery life out of a netbook. Once Intel can achieve the same thing at the smartphone and tablet level (and they’ve been working on this for years), they’ve got the expertise to push the processing end of things far beyond what we currently see from ARM — not to mention that the same x86 architecture that will be found in Intel-based phones and tablets is capable of booting full-fledged desktop operating systems.

If Intel plays their cards right, they could do very well in the Android market by stimulating the HDRC segment. HDRC isn’t really a mainstream thing at this point — most people have their desktop computer and they’ve got a smartphone and maybe a tablet. They view these two devices as fundamentally different. The promise of HDRC is creating a device that scales so well that it can converge these two categories of devices, which are viewed as different, into a single unit. This is a serious challenge because essentially it asks for a single device that is instant-on and has phone-like (all day) battery life, but, when plugged in, can be as powerful as one would expect from a laptop or desktop. Intel has the expertise for the high-end of the HDRC spectrum, we see this daily from the desktop computers that we work on. If they can combine this with phone/tablet-like low-power functionality, they could blow ARM out of the water and define the HDRC space that mobile technology has been steadily moving toward for the last 5 years.

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Last spring, I launched into a rant on my personal blog (due to some minor profanity, the linked-to article is labeled as not safe for work) over the way the tech media was labeling a lot of the activity that was going on in the tablet market. You see, back then, circa May 2011, the pockets of resistance against the iPad were beginning to fade, and people were starting to get it that this tablet thing was more than just a passing fad…. A lot of the media took the route of not simply articulating the iPad’s strengths, but had to declare it great by putting down previously launched products, most notably the TabletPC. While I recognize that I may be in the minority, I will continue to say that these journalists made and continue to make a big whiff when they cite the presence or use of a stylus as a sign of automatic failure — as Steve Jobs asserted during the launch of the first iPhone. I respect Jobs, but his penchant for making binary statements, such as the one he made about what the presence of a stylus indicates, was never something that I agreed with. Ditto for anyone else who follows that philosophy.

Today, I am ecstatic to see companies finally having the spine to challenge that myopic perspective. One of the dynamics that I have always been wary of is the fact that most reviews and tech opinions on devices do not come from people who are like a lot of common Joes. Content creation and journalism is far and away from engineering, finance, and manufacturing. So when things are said like, “tablets are devices that are only suited for media consumption and not productivity”, I note that this is a perspective from people who spend most of their days doing content creation. Not sitting in one board meeting after another, or out maintaining equipment in the field. For me, a tablet is indispensable as a portable means of taking notes and recalling data. Add that I do not want to be ‘that guy’ in a board meeting tacking away on a keyboard, especially when you are not the senior person in the meeting; a sentiment that I see being taken on by more and more workers and students. It is a also lot easier to take notes with digital ink and remain engaged in a conversation. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m not particularly engaged in a conversation when I am hacking away on a keyboard.

We start to learn to write with devices that are analogous to a stylus from a very early age. Crayons. Pencils. Chalk. Markers. Pens. And while children are now exposed to a keyboard at a much earlier age, I still do not buy that typing on a keyboard is a more intuitive thinking experience than writing. If it honestly was, then there would be far less paper these days. And for all the discussion from the technoratti insisting on the value of a keyboard over a stylus and writing, I still see most journalists at meetings and press events scribbling into a moleskin notebook or equivalent rather than walking around with a laptop and typing standing up.

One thing to note in the remainder of this discussion is that I have mentioned before the bifurcation of the digital ink community over natural handwriting versus handwriting recognition. Again, I have never understood the declaration of handwriting recognition as a minimum requirement in a digital inking platform, so the recommendations below are based on just writing. I know that some people want handwriting recognition so that their notes are searchable, but it is not a feature that has ever been a requirement for me personally.

So, how do you get your digital ink groove on and replace all those sticky notes littering your apartment, desk, and office in the year 2012? It is not easy, and without a handy guide to give you some shortcuts, it can be a demoralizing, painful experience. Because I have endured some of this pain (and the expense associated with it), I thought I would jot down a few nuggets I have discovered in my search for the best fit digital inking experience.

What options were there? Any of these options might be a good fit for you. I have used some of these devices, and many have only been temporary fits. That does not inherently mean that they were insufficient. Review them all, pick what is best for you, and if you have more questions, please ask in the comments.

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As Intel continue to craft Atom into the phone and tablet market it makes sense that they explore all avenues for the core. The ‘netbook’ wave is over but that doesn’t mean there aren’t spaces for Atom to be fitting into. Low cost and low power computing is one of them. Open-source computing is another and it looks like Intel is heading in all of these directions with the Balboa Pier platform and the Valley View Atom/HD graphics SoC inside it.

The Verge have pulled together some good information sources on the new platform.

Being a 22nm SoC, it’s going to be small. There are going to be 1-4 core variants and it 4x the graphics performance that looks like it’s going to be based around Ivy Bridge.

You can track through all the links at The Verge for more information but I wouldn’t get too excited about this appearing in laptops just yet. The main source here is an industrial module manufacturer so we could be talking about an embedded solution. It’s a Q1 2013 solution too. It would, however, make some sense to offer a low-cost PC platform with open-source graphics drivers, something that the Ivy Bridge in-house graphics would enable. That would open up the platform to Chrome OS and other Linux-based PC solutions. It might also help Android open-source solutions on X86. Netbooks for the emerging markets could be a target too.

Without a TDP figure it’s difficult to work out if this could go into Windows 8 tablets and where it sits against Clover Trail W but considering Sandy Bridge has already worked its way into the Samsung XE700, why not. 4-cores are needed in the tablet sector just for the marketing teams!

I’ve done some tests on the Kupa X11 and just like they say, it’s possible to use it for up to 10 hours on battery. It’s impressive but what about getting things done on the Kupa X11? You can have all the battery life in the world but if you can’t use the device, it’s worth nothing.

To test the real-world value of the Kupa X11 in terms of ‘getting things done’ I’ve swapped out my Ultrabook-desktop for the Kupa X11 today and as you can see in the image, I’ve connected an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

The Kupa X11 runs a single-core 1.5Ghz Intel Atom CPU. It’s about as slow as it gets from Intel but you have to remember we’re talking about a CPU that can go in a phone here! Under Windows 7, the architecture required (USB, PCI, ACPI, display and more) means that you don’t quote get smartphone-like battery life but it’s quite impressive. You also get the advantages of being able to hit the ground running with a very flexible and productive operating system.

Average power usage as I type this, with Chrome (3 tabs), LiveWriter, Live Gallery and perfmon windows running, is 6.3W which is 6-7hrs of usage. I’m using ‘high performance mode’ but the CPU is still down-stepping to try and save power where it can. The Kupa X11 is silent.

This is not a desktop experience I’d like to have every day but I’m getting stuff done and Windows is providing me with all the facilities I need to get to work. Apart from a failed Bluetooth file transfer from a mobile phone, everything has worked smoothly. From plugging in the monitor to connecting a phone via USB to editing this article in the WordPress web interface.

The Kupa as a standalone tablet PC

Unplugging the monitor and working on the Kupa as a standalone PC is a slightly different experience. The 1366×768 resolution helps but font sizes need to be pushed up a bit and that reduces the advantage of the high resolution but here I am, with exactly the same applications running, an average power drain of 5.7W and a touchscreen in front of me that, given the right operating system (I’m talking about Windows could be quite compelling, mobile and productive. Typing away with a few web apps running I’m seeing over 7hrs of battery life.

The question is, could this be better?

1.5Ghz Atom, even when coupled with 2GB of RAM and an SSD, isn’t a fluid experience in Windows 7 and it’s not going to be better in Windows 8 desktop.  For my basic Web and typing requirements here it works well once all the apps are up and running but it’s not going to be good enough for, say, a lengthy session of image editing, a 500MB unzip, or some heavy spreadsheet work. Is it going to be good enough for Windows 8 metro though? If it is, the Kupa can then be used in far more scenarios. I suggest it needs to lose 20% of its weight and tidy itself up a bit to become competitive in a mainstream market but as it stands, this 10” tablet is going to be a pretty flexible device for pro-mobile types and that’s exactly where Kupa are aiming this. With 3G and a fingerprint reader, it really does embody the requirements of a pro UMPC. Flexible, mobile, productive.

Now that I’ve done some testing with Windows 7, it’s time to load-up Windows 8. Stay tuned.

(The Kupa X11 has been silent through this hour of testing. Screen brightness was set to half.)

I’m looking back on UMPCPortal to see how long it’s been since we’ve had hands-on with a 1KG, ≤ 10”  PC…..In Sept 2011 we covered the MSI Windpad 120W which didn’t make it to market. There was also the Fujitsu TH40/D which also doesn’t seem to have made it to the market. I also had some hands-on with the new Gigabyte S1081 Windows tablet at CES (which I forgot to post here, sorry – here’s the video.)  I know I’ve missed a few in between (for example the Viewsonic Viewpad 10 Pro) but you can’t deny that times are tough for the Windows road-warrior.

How stimulating it is to have the Kupa X11 [details] here for testing!

In terms of specs the Kupa X11 looks good. Yes, there’s a 1.5Ghz Atom inside which won’t impress anyone looking for CPU specifications but it’s turning in 1800ms on Sunspider and has been coupled with a PowerVR SGX 535, 64GB SSD and 2GB of RAM so it’s not exactly lagging in the current tablet space.

There’s a dual-mode screen (capacitive and digitiser) and a huge battery which I’ll mention again below. The screen is a good, 1366×768 resolution which is enough for Windows 8 Metro usage. You won’t find many Tablet PC’s with a 10” screen and this resolution today although in 6 months, it could be a different story. In this ‘Pro’ version, there’s a 3G module too. You don’t get a VGA port, USB3 port, docking port or stand though.

Obviously the Kupa X11, at 1KG in weight, is focused towards the pro-mobile user but the packaging is very much consumer-oriented. The build quality matches the packaging too with good plastics and metal and a solid feel. It’s a little dense for a 10” tablet but that’s mainly because the ARM-based tablets I’ve used recently are around 30% lighter. For a Windows tablet, it’s not bad; especially when you see the battery size. 52Wh is huge, and it shows in battery life. In a 2hr browsing test this evening (low light) I was seeing a consistent 10hr battery life. I’m confident of 8hrs productivity at this stage.

4.6W average drain for a 10” device is excellent. It’s class-leading and showing that the screen and WiFi components are well matched. This test was done with Windows 7 though, I’m expecting an improvement on that with Windows 8 and I’ll be testing that later this week.

Notes:

• It appears to be fan-less. At least during my 2hr test in a silent room I didn’t hear any noise. There was minimal heat too which is a really good sign.
• Pressure sensitive digitiser not tested yet.
• Matt screen cover was included. (I believe this is an optional extra.)
• 720p YouTube works OK. 720p local H.264 playback tested OK. 1080p not tested yet although I’m expecting it to work OK through the GMA600 GPU.
• The Windows 7 build was pre-optimized for touch. (Scroll-bars enlarged etc.)
• Application startup time seems reasonable for a 1.5Ghz Atom-based device.
• Resume from standby is about 5 seconds. (I will be testing to see how long standby works – Kupa are quoting 30 days standby although this could be in hibernation mode.)
• Frame buttons help with navigation and include a secondary brightness function although the buttons are hard to press.
• In the video below I mention a micro-SD slot. It isn’t a micro-SD slot, it’s a SIM card slot. There’s no removable SD storage on the Kupa X11
• I haven’t found a way to lock the auto-rotation yet.
• Capacitive touch is 2-point multi-touch.
• 2.0Mp front and 3.0MP rear cam not tested yet.
• Fingerprint reader not tested yet.
• SSD speed not tested yet.

Here’s the unboxing and overview video. As it’s effectively a first boot on this video (I had booted it briefly once before but for no more than 5 minutes) Windows 7 was doing a lot of work in the background during this demo so the applications don’t look that good but subsequent tests were much quicker.

Check back for more information coming later this week. If Windows 8 testing goes well I’ll arrange a live session for you too.

It was last August that I wrote about the Kupa X11 tablet. I highlighted the battery capacity as the key feature because it’s not often you see such a high capacity battery in an X86-based device under 1KG. What I didn’t know then was that Windows 8 would require 1366×768 to run the full range of Metro apps and features so the Kupa is now one of only a handful of tablets you can buy today that are Windows 8 ready. At the top-end you have the Samsung XE700 based on Core i5 technology. Fighting it out in the lower-end are the ExoPC (and variants) and the Kupa X11. There’s the Motion Computing CL900 to consider too. What’s interesting about the Kupa though is that it runs Oaktrail, which is going to give it a a very long runtime, coupled with a fast SSD, 2GB of RAM and 3G, this could be just what some people have been looking for.

Thanks to Kupa I now have the Kupa X11 Pro here for testing. Full Kupa X11 specifications, gallery and links are available on our information page. Here’s a selection of the important specs.

• 10.1” 1366×768 hi-resolution screen
• 2GB RAM
• Dual-layer touch (finger / digitizer pen)
• 2GB RAM
• 64GB SSD
• 3G (HSDPA including telephony)
• 52Wh battery (equivalent to a 6-cell netbook battery)
• Fingerprint Reader
• Dual cameras (2.0 / 3.0MP)
• Mini HDMI
• Windows 7 Pro

The Kupa X11 was available in Q4 2011 so there may be some of you out there that own it already but as Windows 8 gets nearer, it’s an imprtant device to be testing. Expect an unboxing and first impressions video very soon.

Full details of the Kupa X11 in our database.

Back during CES, Sony was showing off a hybrid tablet with Windows 8. This was a sliding design that could function as a tablet with the screen down, or the screen could slide up screen up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard.

Image credit: Engadget

We’ve seen a similar approach from Samsung, but despite an official press release about the product, it never made it to market (perhaps they were waiting for Windows 8?). Asus launched the Eee Pad Slider last year using the same concept but with the Android and ARM platform instead of Windows. The Asus Slider was highly anticipated, but didn’t seem to make a major splash within the Android market.

Sony’s concept hybrid device was decidedly a prototype as shown off at CES, but a purportedly leaked advertisement,  spotted by Pocket Now, shows a very similar device that looks much closer to a retail launch. The ad also places the hybrid tablet under the U-series, which Sony has always reserved for it’s most portable computers. Cousin of the U-series is the UX-series under which Sony offered it venerable UX UMPC.

In the ad you can see a USB port on the right side of the device, a front facing camera at the top right of the bezel, a home button of sorts on the left side of the bezel, mouse buttons in front of the keyboard (with the middle key likely for scrolling), and a nub-mouse in the center of the keyboard.

Prior to Windows 8 I would have been less enthusiastic about a hybrid device from Sony, but now that Windows 8 has a chance of providing a good tablet experience, the hybrid design is much more appealing. Hopefully we’ll hear more about this device as Windows 8 gets closer to retail launch.

Nokia may be working on a Windows 8 tablet, due out by the end of the year, according to some sources. We’ve long wished that Nokia would jump into the tablet game as their hardware design has rarely managed to disappoint. However, with Nokia’s commitment to Windows Phone 7 last year, the company was put into an awkward position.

Microsoft built Windows Phone 7 from the ground up as a phone operating system. Even though I’d love to see the beautiful and smooth Windows Phone 7 operating system on a 7″ or 10″ tablet, Microsoft doesn’t intend for the operating system to be used that way. Thus, Nokia at the time couldn’t rely on Microsoft for a sufficiently touch-friendly operating system.

Nokia had been involved for a long time with the open-source operating system, Maemo, which ran on their ‘internet tablet’ series of devices, but Maemo failed to achieve anything close to mainstream success. Since then, Maemo was merged with Moblin (and Intel project) to form Meego. As you may know, Nokia formerly abandoned Meego in favor of Windows Phone 7.

So what’s Nokia to do? Well, for a long time, they did nothing in the tablet realm. But now, with Microsoft offering Windows 8, which is half-dedicated to touchscreen computing, there might be hope for a Nokia tablet indeed.

Digitimes, which has a so-so record of truth in rumors, claims that Nokia may be launching a tablet that will arrive in Q4 of 2012. Interestingly, Digitimes also claims that Nokia’s tablet will be a 10″ device and use the ARM platform. Windows 8 on ARM will only be compatible with applications specifically designed for it, so you won’t be able to run any existing x86 or x64 desktop applications.

I’m a bit worried about the divide between Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 when put in the context of a user who wants to buy into an ecosystem. Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 share similar looking interfaces, but deep down they are significantly different and do not have apps that work between the two operating systems. It’s possible that Microsoft is working on Windows Phone 8 which will bring the two in line with one another in terms of app compatibility, but currently it doesn’t appear that Microsoft wants to do that.

This will create a big problem for your average consumer who, given the way that Android, iOS, and even WebOS, work, has every right to think, ‘I’ve got a Windows phone and a Windows tablet, I’ll be able to use all the great apps from one on the other, and vice versa, right?”

via: Phone Arena

I’ve read a lot of negative press about the Windows 8 user experience recently which seems to focus on a ‘problem’ created by having two user interfaces that will confuse users. I just don’t see that issue. Sure, there will be some new things to learn, every new system has a learning curve, but I don’t see huge barriers in Windows 8.

Today I’m working on a Windows 8 Tablet. I’m working, which means I’ve got a keyboard, a mouse and a large screen in front of me.

Windows booted quickly on this Atom-based tablet PC (ExoPC) and because I just wanted to do some Chrome work and write this post I went straight to the desktop by clicking ‘Desktop.’ It works like any laptop or desktop.

I’ve been in ‘desktop’ all the time I’ve had my bum on my seat (apart from taking a few images) and as you would expect, Metro is not causing me any problems. I can switch to it very easily by dragging the mouse to the top left, bottom left corner or pressing the Windows key, Alt-Tab and other methods that didn’t take me too long to work out. If you want to use Windows 8 like you used Windows 7 there’s no issue.

If you end up in Metro through inquisitiveness or accident you can either hit the ESC or Windows key to toggle to the last application, Alt-Tab to see a list of running programs, use the programs list accessed from pointing to the top-left corner of the screen or I can hit that big icon in front of me that says ‘Desktop.’

On my keyboard I even have an Alt-Tab button that looks like a set of Windows, a media button that starts Media Player (in the Desktop) or I can even just start typing “desktop” and I’ll be shown the shortcut to hit. If in doubt, press the Windows key and start typing. Word, Desktop, Mail, Photo, Music, Help. You can even type the name of a file or a setting. They all work! If you don’t have a keyboard, swipe from right and press the search button.

How simple do people actually need this to be to be convinced that if you want the Desktop it’s there and if you want to do stuff when you don’t have a keyboard, there’s a new interface that can really help. You can get going on day 1, and start discovering after you’ve read your email!

Windows 8 is not a Fischer Price toy or a gaming console, it’s a rich operating system that can help you get things done like few other operating systems can, either with keyboard and mouse or with a finger. Some people may take a few minutes to understand this idea but isn’t that just normal, and worth the time, for a rich operating system?

As I tool a look at the MSI booth at CeBIT yesterday I couldn’t stop myself from getting a little hands-on with the Windpad 110W. AMD Fusion-based and equiped with a nice optical mouse pointer and full SD card slot it’s a tablet design that could rally benefit from the next-gen OS and platforms.

The MSI rep nods and smiles and I talk about 1366×768 and Windows 8, as we discuss the reason for having a mouse pointer in a 1KG tablet and how Windows 8 + Clover Trail W with a fast SSD could really bring usable low-cost productive tablets to end-users.

MSI won’t say anything about new products but they’re clearly thinking about this. In tact, I got the impression that they’re more interested in Windows tablets than in Ultrabooks which they tell me are not going to be broguth to the market until they have taken a longer term look at the Ultrabook market.

It’s a blast from 2011 to play with the Windpad again but I think that we’re going to see more of this later this year. Tablets, convertibles and, my favorite, the detachable Atom-powered Win8/Android screen and Intel Core-driven keyboard base station, all in under 1.5KG!

I’m in Hannover, Germany, for CeBit and as I start this article, Sascha Pallenberg of Netbooknews.com is sitting on the other side of our ‘blog apartment’ watching the Windows 8 consumer preview keynote from Mobile World Congress last week. A few evenings ago I was testing Windows 8 on an Atom-based tablet and while all that has been happening I’ve been thinking about Cover Trail W,  the ultra-mobile platform that Intel have built to run Windows 8.  In dual-core 1.8Ghz build with an SSD and 2GB of RAM I think we’ll have a winner on our hands when it comes to a platform. We can only hope that manufacturers see the potential for new form factors with this platform and operating system combo.

While the ARM-based platforms are approaching the same processing power band as we see on the high-end Atom platforms (Qualcomm’s Snapdragon is looking particularly impressive in terms of dual-core performance) they won’t contain the full goodness of Windows from day one. By that I mean you won’t be able to pick up an ARM-based Windows 8 platform and be able to download and install your favorite desktop apps. Clover Trail "W, on the other hand, is a full X86 PC platform and will act like an Ultrabook or a desktop PC and I believe that Windows 8 will be able to pull some impressive low-power usage figures out of the platform. From what I’ve seen in my testing and listening between the lines to what Intel has to say about Windows 8, it will definitely be ‘Clover Trail aware.’

In my testing of Windows 8 Beta this week I was getting those old UMPC and modular computing feelings back again. Windows 8 is likely to be the first usable ‘smartbook’ operating system on the market. Android always looks great in demos on the ASUS Transformer Prime but there’s a long road ahead in terms of filling the gaps for productivity workers. There’s a Prime sitting on the desk to the right of me now but this article is being written on a Samsung NP350 which is faster, cheaper, and more productive.

I’ll be looking for more information on Windows 8 and Clover Trail W this week. We’ve seen a demo device or two behind glass but maybe now that the public preview is available, manufacturers won’t be so shy with the Windows 8 letting us have hands-on.

Is there any big Windows 8 questions that you think need answering?

Chrome for Android has just been launched.

Many of you know I run three sites. Carrypad, the tablet-focused site. Ultrabooknews, the thin-and-light laptop site and this one, UMPCPortal.  At UMPCPortal we’ve been focused on productive mobility since 2006 (almost exactly) and as you will probably know, the last few years have been hard on us. Trying to get productivity into a two-handed mobile experience has been completely ignored by mainstream manufacturers. We’ve all tried tablets of course and all been disappointed at the lack or processing power, lightweight apps and of course, the full web experience which requires a full web browser. Mozilla tried with Firefox for Android but didn’t really get there yet. Most people settled on Dolphin HD as the best of the bunch but it wasn’t anywhere near the experience needed for web-based productivity and creation.

Intel offered us some hope with Meego, an optimised Linux-based OS that included a Chromium browser…

MeeGo offers me some hope. A full internet experience and an app store but it’s something needs to mature until at least late 2011 and in fact for it to function fast enough to be productive it will need a high-end dual-core ARM or Intel Moorestown platform that will not be able to provide all-day battery life in a smartphone form-factor. [ref June 2010]

… but we all know what happened there.

And then along came the best smartbook yet. The Asus Transformer Prime has fantastic looking hardware, 18hr battery life (with leyboard dock) and some great sensor, touch and app experiences. The problem was that it also had issues when addressing productive and creative work. The apps are still thin and the browser still terrible.

But there was nothing else to choose from. Until today that is.

Chrome for Android has been launched. It’s in the Android Market for anyone with an Android Ice Cream Sandwich device and it’s fully functional. Well, it seems to be. This Beta software may have a few bugs but it represents the best step yet towards a productive handheld ‘UMPC’ solution. There will still be problems with low-quality, unstable and badly supported native apps,  but Chrome on Android is going to develop fast, encourage a new market for Android tablets and  enable a whole new world of desktop-quality browsing.

There are early issues. Mouseover doesn’t seem to be working well and there could be performance issues related to the (relative to laptops) lack of CPU, memory and general platform speed but these are likely to be fixed very quickly given the effort Google is putting into its browser.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t have an ICS tablet right now. I will be looking for ‘ROM’ upgrade for the Acer A500 I have here as it supports USB host (for keyboards/mice etc) and would work well as a smart, Chrome-based desktop device but that could take a few days before I get round to it. Maybe I’ll be looking for an ASUS Transformer Prime though. Given its smartbook credentials and Chrome for Android it now has the potential to span Carrypad, UMPCPortal and Ultrabooknews!

• The official Google Chrome for Android announcement is here.
• Kevin Tofel, a seasoned ultra-mobile man, is reporting for GigaOm here.
• Engadget have a hands-on video too.

A quick note on the Android 4.0 requirement. I think it’s a brave bu neccesary move. It means that only ‘Google Android’ gets the best browser and encoruages a big shift to ICS over 2012. it might be annoying for some now but it makes absolute sense to encourage a move away from 2.x and 3.x variants and get everyone moving with ICS. When that happens, ISVs will be far more likely to invest in high-quality tablet application development and that’s where the turning point comes. Following the turning point, the niche designs will jump in too. There’s every chance that we’ll start to see UMPCs again…running Android. I know you’ll be concerned with security, apps, interfaces and such but I feel sure we’ll see those issues solved. The market for alternative designs is going to grow quickly so watch out for a fresh batch of UMPC news!  It also makes Apple think hard again about a smartbook although my guess is that they have been working on one for a long time already.

Don’t forget that this app is very likely to be in development for X86 devices too. Intel will be putting massive effort into getting this optimised for Medfield-based devices. Comparing Sunspider tests, hopefuly at MWC later this month, will be fun!

I’m interested to hear your thoughts below. I’m sure we’ll have a good discussion.

Updates:

Noted – There’s no Flash support. I’m not sure too many are going to have a problem with this and it sends an important message out to web developers – Stay clear of Flash!

There seems to be a problem with agent-id. I’m reading that Chrome for Android is identifying itself as a mobile browser.

The Open Pandora project has been an amazing project to follow. We first reported on the product, an OMAP-based Linux mini-laptop primarily focused on gaming emulation (but kitted out with some interesting features for anyone interesting in mobile computing) in Dec 2007 and in the last 4 years the product has gone through some amazing ups and downs with spec changes, production issues and community financing but it looks like they’ve made a break-through and that Open Pandoras will be shipping soon.

Update: The first devices off the production line are now being shipped. [9th March 2012]

The story would make a great book. We saw an update in Dec 2008 showing a prototype build and an Angstrom OS build and after a year of refinements it finally went into limited production in May 2010. 4000 units should have been produced before Feb 2011 but it didn’t happen.  “[The production company] communication has been terrible, the missed all the deadlines they set themselves and they have a failure rate of at least 25%.”

On 12 July 2011 ‘EvilDragon’ the lead developer for the project wrote a post entitled ‘A fresh new start’ explaining how production was being stopped as a result of problems with the Texas-based production company. The search started for a new production company and by 27th of the same month they had found a candidate. Soon after, 70 investors had stepped forward and pledged nearly half a million Euros. Contracts were prepared and pre-orders started again.

The next months updates are worth reading in full over at the Openpandora news forum. There’s snow, hacking, sad news about a community member, delivery problems, contracts and more. It’s an amazing story that ends up with this fantastic post and video entitled “100% success.”

What a joy to watch.

The OpenPandora story isn’t over yet though. Mass production is due to start next month and after 4 years of waiting, the specifications don’t look as good as they used to. There’s software to write too. What you’ve got here though is an open-source, very efficient  handheld PC with a strong community behind it. It’s also a bit of history.

In support of the Open Pandora project I’ve put in an order and  I’ll do my best to give it airtime on UMPCPortal when it arrives. You can place a pre-order here. I’m sure there are many readers here who already have their orders in.

Check out the Pandora Rebirth competition too. Apps for prizes and follow OpenPandora on Twitter here. We have a specification page here.

I honestly expected to see more, and better netbooks at CES. The Cedar Trail platform is a solid one and there’s absolutely no reason why netbooks need to fade away because with a bit of a re-design (thinner, SSD, better connectivity, hi-res screens) they could still control a good segment of the market.

Asus were showing their ‘flare’ netbook in three variants (1025CE, 1025C, 1225B) and the X101CH. The X101CH provides some interesting mobility for the cost but as with the Flare netbooks, there is little attempt to push any other boundaries. It’s the same story with the Toshiba NB510. Lenovo announced the S200 and S206 which come with Cedar Trail or AMD C60.  The S200 can be specified with a 32GB SSD but there’s a small battery inside which means you’re looking at 4hr runtime. I suspect this will be a lightweight device although it has an 11.6” screen. (I am a big fan of the S205, the AMD E350 powered version from 2011)

Gigabyte has upgraded the netvertible with the T1006M but again, the design remains thick although credit to Gigabyte for offering easy upgrade ports for memory and hard disk, a high-res screen, pre-wired 3G antenna and a capacitive touchscreen.

The only small laptop-style device I did see that was pushing the boundaries was the Novero Solana.

An SSD, convertible touchscreen and 3G are on offer here but there’s no indication of battery life or price yet. Availability is said to be Feb 2012.

My feeling is that by reducing focus on netbooks, some manufacturers will be missing an opportunity to offer very lightweight, low cost sub-ultrabooks with SSD, high-capacity sealed batteries and other features that the ultra-mobile user could benefit from. Right now though, it looks like laptop manufacturers have dropped everything for Ultrabooks.

Check out the videos below though for a look at the latest netbooks and don’t forget there’s the Lenovo S110 (10”) HP Mini 210 (10.1”) and MSI Wind U180 (10”) that are going to be available with Cedar Trail too. We’ll get all these in the database.

You know what you want in an Ultra Mobile Computing solution. You want a rich spectrum of quality desktop applications with security, flexibility and processing power wrapped up into a handheld device. Unfortunately, after a busy CES, your options remain limited.

Computing at CES this year was all about Ultrabooks and Ice Cream Sandwich and while both of these topics are interesting, neither of the sectors produced anything that can be used today as a handheld PC.

Android devices continue to be crippled by low-quality and restricted software despite some amazing hardware solutions. The ASUS transformer Prime shows what can be done but is the same disappointment as the ‘smartbook’ devices I was testing in 2010. Just try using the Web Browser for a suite of web-based apps, try to write an article in the web-based WordPress back-end or try to book a flight. It’s actually quite embarrassing to see how little the software has moved on. Look for an office suite, a set of security tools, audio and video tools and a good quality image library and editing suite. It seems the only thing the Android ecosystem is working on today is gaming and that’s largely because of the attention that Nvidia have managed to drum up for the Tegra platform.

The fact is that the number of Android tablets out there doesn’t translate into any sort of business-case for porting and developing quality apps. Why bother investing $200K in a high-quality application port for a 7” or 10” screen when the market is an estimated 20 million customers and the average app purchase cost is under $4. The risk is not worth taking.

What the Android market needs is a huge boost in numbers. Fortunately, the Kindle Fire and the newly announced Asus Eee Pad MeMo with Android 4.0 operating system and a price of $250 could help. Although the Kindle Fire only runs V2.x Android software the chances are that newer versions of the Amazon product will get an upgrade and boost the ICS customer base. The Eee Pad MeMo at $250 speaks for itself. By the end of 2012 I estimate there will be well over 50 million Android tablets in the market and the numbers will be accelerating. At that point it makes sense to sit down with your developers and talk about an Android tablet application, albeit for a 2013 launch.

As I look across the other platforms and operating systems, I don’t see any major solutions rising up. The iPad continues to dominate mobile productivity apps but the form factor and operating system flexibility are limiting. The current Windows/Oaktrail pairing is disappointing too in terms of both battery life and performance.

Intel held up the next-gen 32nm, re-architected ‘Clover Trail’ Windows tablet platform at CES which could provide the best chance of a quality handheld Windows experience and with Windows 8, this is probably the one to watch out for. Clover Trail is due in the second half of the year.

Cedar Trail netbooks and tablets provide an intermediate solution though and with the EeePC X101CH coming in cheap and light, it might be something to look at more closely but if you’re really looking for a handheld solution, I just can’t give you any news right now.

We’re at Mobile World Congress next month and at CeBIT in March so with Windows 8 looming, there’s a chance that UMPCPortal will come alive again. In the meantime, I can only advise buying a 7” Android 4.0 tablet and experimenting as soon as you can. While it can be frustrating for productivity, there’s a whole lot of good stuff that can still be done and I’m still not going anywhere without my Samsung Galaxy Tab. Paired with an Ultrabook, it’s a great solution.

I’m focusing on Ultrabooks this week at CES though if I’m lucky I’ll have time to take a look at some netbooks and tablets. It’s more hectic than ever here and press day has been brutal so far. Events go on well into the evening tonight and then I’ll be up at 5am to head over to an Intel booth preview where I hope to get a good overview of their latest mobile products.

Give me a few days on the floor and by Wednesday I’ll have a good idea of where things are heading although the Ultrabook marketing has been so strong today that it’s clear that’s where Intel are heading.

Ultra mobile fans need to keep focus on the tablet market for any sub 1lb product news but i’m of the opinion right now that the tablet market needs something other than a hardware boost. It’s time for the software on Android to come of age and get serious and I hope Ice Cream Sandwich will give us that. For me, there won’t be any new products in my stable until I see proof that ISVs are investing. Gaming appears to be moving along well but there’s a lot of work to be done in the productivity area.

As I mentioned above I’m focusing on Ultrabooks at CES so if you’re interested in the new Samsung Series 9, the new Acer Aspire S5, the Lenovo U310 and U410 and other new devices, check out the action at Ultrabooknews.com

If I find any interesting ultra mobile PC solutions i’ll be posting the information here.

CES is just days away and I’ve just finalised the kit-list for my Ultra Mobile Reporting Kit V11. I’ll be there for the week and focusing on Tablets, Netbooks, Ultrabooks and, if I find anything, UMPCs.

2011 was a year of change in the way I did reporting for my websites Carrypad, UMPCPortal and Ultrabooknews. The Samsung Galaxy Tab gave me more mobility than I had ever had and the Nokia N8 gave me less reason to use a dedicated camera for photos and videos. My last test relied on just those two items for everything.

Towards the middle of 2011 the realisation that YouTube was one of my most important revenue channels led me towards a better quality 720p editing set-up. A series of tests and articles posted here on UMPCPortal gave me an indication that Core i5 Sandy Bridge processors could bring some major advantages for 720p video work. Intel Quick-Sync video hardware and some excellent software from Cyberlink in Media Espresso and PowerDirector sent me on the search for a new camera and in  October I settled on the Panasonic Lumix FZ150, a bridge camera that gives impressive low-light camera and HD video results along with relatively lightweight hardware for a camera with a long-zoom lens and a rotating display. After testing some Ultrabooks I actually took the Samsung NP350, a 1.4KG 12.5” laptop that runs a 2.2Ghz Core i3 and holds a 60Wh battery. Compared to my previous netbook (Gigabyte Touchnote) it’s the same weight but a gigantic step forward in processing power. Even battery life is better so I’m happy that it will work well when on the road.

Here’s the detail on the kit-list:

Samsung NP350 Notebook

A 1.4KG (3lb) notebook running a Core i3 CPU at 800Mhz-2.2Ghz with battery life ranging from over 8hrs (typing) to 1hr (gaming.) It has a 12.5” 1366×768 matt screen, 600GB hard drive, good keyboard, Intel Centrino Wifi module with Wi-Di, SSD, fast-start, HDMI, VGA, full-size SDHC and 2 USB2.0 ports with sleep ‘n charge. There’s no backlit keyboard, SSD or USB3.0. Cost – €430 before taxes.

I’ll use the NP350 for 720p video conversion and editing and sit-down article composition, data storage, mass photo upload.

Panasonic Lumix FZ150 Camera

12MP, 24x Zoom, hot-shoe, rotating display, full HD (plus 720p) in MPEG4 or AVCHD, external mic port, HDMI-out and some impressive low-light performance for a compact-size sensor. Weight is just over 500gm. Price around €500

The FZ150 will be used as a 720p video device and camera. I won’t be using 1080p quality as it’s overkill for the quick hands-on videos I post to YouTube, especially as YouTube compresses the hell out of 1080p!

Nokia N8 CameraPhone

A Symbian-based phone with high quality camera, Xenon flash and 720 video capability. Long battery life.

The N8 will be used as phone, SMS, calendar reminder and for quick photos (including evening/people/party) that I’ll put up on Twitter, Facebook and other channels. It will remain on my European SIM card with no data capability while at CES. Images will be transferred to the Galaxy Tab via Bluetooth for sending to various social channels when needed.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Android Tablet

At over one year old, you’d think that there are many better 7” tablet solutions out there by now but the Galaxy Tab 7 is still up there as one of the most usable 7” tablets on the market. I’m looking to upgrade when ICS is available but the original Galaxy Tab 7 will be fine for CES work. There won’t be a SIM card in it for data or voice but it will be connected to my Clear MiFi unit as my ‘always-on, always connected’ component. I suspect i’ll have some mini blogs going out through this as well as Tweets, Facebook posts and Google Plus posts.

Clear MiFi + Power Pack

Not shown on the picture are a Clear 4G MiFi unit (rented from Event Radio) and a small USB power-pack that I hope will sit in my bag and provide me with a moving cloud.

The kit weight is going to be well over 2KG once the tripod, cables and spares are added and it’s more than I would like to be carrying but for a 720p recording and editing suite and always-connected mobile and social set-up, it’s not far from optimal.