UMPCPortal - Smart, Mobile and Internet-Connected » mid

Rumor: Intel Scores Nokia as Atom customer.

Chippy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:37:00 +0000

Already in my calendar yesterday was a short-notice conference call from Intel. Apparently they have an announcement to make. This morning I woke to see the keywords Intel and Nokia streaming through twitter and google reader. The rumor is that Nokia will be using Intel inside.

I assume this is a Moorestown product win which means it sits alongside the LG announcement for a 2010 product launch If this is true, it’s a really significant step forward for Intel in the Ultra Mobile and smartphone market.

Questions to be asked:

Is it going to be voice enabled?
What operating system (Moblin, Maemo or Symbian)
Are Nokia simply testing the market and technology (in which case i’d expect it to be in a next-gen Nokia tablet rather than a phone)
If it’s a tablet, does it mean that the OMAP3-based tablet is scrapped?

The rumor comes from Bloomberg. The press call is at 1130am EST. Expect news on UMPCPortal as at breaks.

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iPhone 3GS website load time tests

Ben — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:49:50 +0000

If you are a regular reader of sites in our end of the blogosphere I’m almost sure that you are aware that the iPhone 3GS has now been released by Apple. While not a drastic change from the original, the 3GS boasts speed improvements that claim to make it twice as fast as the iPhone 3G. Chippy mentions that the iPhone 3GS is ‘the most important MID’ out there right now, and it is inevitable that people will compare many of the upcoming Moorestown devices to the iPhone 3GS. MIDs run lots of different software, amd while we won’t be able to do direct application comparisons, one of factors that we can most easily compare is the speed in which a MID can load a webpage. AnandTech put together a table which stacks the iPhone 3GS up against some of best smartphones out there.

WiFi	Apple iPhone 3G	Apple iPhone 3GS	Palm Pre	T-Mobile G1
anandtech.com	16.3 s	7.8 s	8.2 s	17.2 s
arstechnica.com	17.7 s	6.3 s	7.8 s	17.8 s
hothardware.com	35.2 s	14.7 s	11.2 s	24.4 s
pcper.com	33.3 s	15.0 s	18.0 s	34.0 s
digg.com	34.3 s	15.0 s	22.1 s	40.0 s
techreport.com	24.1 s	9.6 s	9.0 s	20.5 s
tomshardware.com	21.4 s	16.4 s	13.8 s	26.0 s
slashdot.org	26.0 s	10.0 s	20.9 s	46.0 s
facebook.com	31.7 s	13.5 s	19.6 s	37.7 s
iPhone 3GS Advantage over Palm Pre		21%
iPhone 3GS Advantage over iPhone 3G		122%

It is easy to see the ability of the iPhone 3GS to quickly render websites, and the iPhone 3GS has set the bar that upcoming Moorestown MIDs will match and hopefully surpass.

Check out the full article at AnandTech for additional tests.

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Nvidia on Smartbook Operating Systems: WinCE best for now.

Chippy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:45:01 +0000

This is a subject we discussed at length on the last MeeMobility podcast. Operating systems for smartbooks. Android appears to be a great brand but it’s not ready for the big(ger) screen yet. As far as I know, the Open Handset Alliance has never announced plans to upscale the OS to laptop-style usage so for the time being, a good brand is all it is.

Nvidia, the creators of the Tegra MID and Smartbook platform, think the same and are focusing on WinCE right now. Yes, it’s a little shocking to us too. We know the platform is mature and stable but we can’t say we’ve ever seen any good quality consumer-focused mobile internet devices running it. Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Mobile 7, extensions of the WINCE OS could carry more branding weight and attract more developers but again, it might not be the right choice for consumers.

The Nvidia info comes from an interesting ComputerWorld article.

Nvidia chose to work with Windows CE first, said Rayfield, because it “is a rock-solid operating system that has been shipped billions of times.”

Windows CE also has a “low memory footprint and a good collection of apps,” Rayfield said.

He said Nvidia is also improving Tegra for use on Windows Mobile, a close variant of Windows CE, for ARM-based smartphones.

Nvidia is working with Google to accelerate Android, which is based on Linux, when running on Tegra hardware. But it will be about a year before that delivers for smartbooks, due to existing limitations in Android, he said.

Get that? A year before Android ‘delivers’ on a smartbook.

The Tegra playing field has a number of big holes that need to be filled. CPU power, Operating Systems, Adobe Flash, a rich suite of modern applications and the all-important developer ecosystem. When you look at Moorestown and Moblin V2 and hear Intel talking about it being able to deliver better smartbooks than the ARM-based ecosystem, you have to wonder whether Nvidia can really compete. Maybe Tegra-based MIDs and Smartphones on Anroid, Win 7, Mer or Maemo would be a better focus?

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Intel Moorestown Q&A video from jkkmobile

Ben — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:13:52 +0000

Jkk has tons of video coverage of the now finished Computex 2009. Here he has an interesting 17 minute video of a Q&A with Intel’s General Manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, Anand Chandrasekher. Jkk also rounded up a list of all the people in attendance, as follows:

Our very own Steve ‘Chippy’ Paine
Joanna from LAPTOP
Johannes from NewGadgets.de
Frank from SomewhatFrank
Charbax from TechVideoBlog.com
JKK from jkkmobile.com (working the camera)

An interesting watch if you want to understand how Intel is handling the upcoming Moorestown platform and have a chance to see and hear from some prominent members of our blogging community.

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Jkk hands-on with the new EB MID reference design [video]

Ben — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:17:46 +0000

A few days ago I showed you how the new EB MID reference design has been updated from the one that we saw in 2007. Up until this point I had only seen renders of the device, but it looks like they were showing it off at Computex, and jkk got some hands-on time with it. Have a look at the video below. The reference device has a capacitive touchscreen and a UI that looks like it will be well optimized for touch use once it is completed. Let me note again that the EB MID reference is based on Moorestown and is voice-capable, meaning that you’ll be able to use it as a smartphone as well as a media and web device.

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WiMAX MID running Windows CE [video]

Ben — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:58:37 +0000

Jkk seems to have gotten his hands on many of the MIDs shown at Computex this year. Here you can see him checking out the Dmedia M0, which is a MID that looks pretty nice on the outside, but is unfortunately running Windows CE. One surprising thing is that there seems to be a decent 5MP camera on the back of the unit. There is also WiMAX and GPS. Though it looks like the touchscreen is resistive, and there is a very apparent iPhone UI ripoff as the top layer of the devices interface. I’m doubting that this think will go to international market in this form. Jump over to jkk’s site to catch the specs list.

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LonMID M100 Atom-based Phone is Official.

Chippy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:48:29 +0000

Pocketables have posted more information about the LonMID Phone.

We saw a few XP-based phones at Computex but they didn’t impress to be honest. This one, however, looks good even if you disregard the fact that it’s got voice capability.

It runs on the 800Mhz Z-series Atom processor, has an 800×480 screen and 4GB flash drive. Much the same as the Compal/Aigo MID that was also based on Midinux (a port of Moblin V1)

The biggest issue I see right now though is battery life. A device built on Menlow needs a big battery to last all day and the Dphone doesnt look big enough to house anything more than a 15Wh capacity battery which means 4hrs screen-on usage or 6-hours screen off.

Maybe they should just drop the phone bit and focus on bringing it out as a 3G MID. The design certainly looks nice enough. As for Midinux V2, I don’t know. It’s something I’ve never seen or tested yet.

No pricing or availability information appears to be available at the moment but keep an eye on Pocketables as it looks like Jenn has contacts in the right place!

Last thought: I wonder if this really is just two separate devices in one shell? If so, is the MID component able to use 3G data?

LonMID M100 MID phone gets official.

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A theory on why Apple is keeping quiet about the iPhone 3GS specs

Ben — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:40:39 +0000

A quick look around the iPhone 3GS ‘Tech Specs’ page reveals plenty of info about battery life, screen size, resolution, and a number of other info, but we have yet to see any info on the RAM or CPU speed which claims to make the iPhone 3GS “twice as fast’. Even when asked directly, they refused to say exactly.

It seems a bit strange for them to be doing this, but I have a theory. You may have read my article a short while back questioning the rumors that said that Apple would release a touch oriented slate style device at WWDC. In that article, I mentioned that the App Store has been a huge part of the iPhones success, and Apple wouldn’t be releasing anything that runs the iPhone OS with specs that would ruin app compatibility. So, I feel that Apple has done some work to ensure that apps stay cross compatible with every device of their touch series.

I’ll have to mention that I haven’t yet been able to test the iPhone 3GS, but here is my initial theory. Apple may have doubled the RAM in the iPhone but kept the CPU speed the same; they want to keep the double RAM a secret. Why would they do this? The previous iPhone 3G has 128MB of RAM that gets allocated around the system to where it is needed. If a heavy app uses too much RAM, it crashes because the phone doesn’t have any more RAM to offer it, as it is being used up by the rest of the system. By doubling the RAM, they have plenty of space to allocate to the system, and a much larger space to load and run applications. The RAM speed remains the same (and the CPU) which means that app performance (while it is actually running) will stay the same, but with the increased quantity of RAM, more data can be loaded to the RAM at once, increasing the speed in which applications load. This is important because Apple doesn’t want any of the touch devices to run applications better than any other, ensuring compatibility between all.

Apple understands the success of their App Store. In the WWDC keynote, they mentioned that they have 50,000 applications, over 1,000,000,000 downloads of apps, and an install base of 40,000,000 users, across all generations of the iPod Touch and iPhone. Those numbers are insanely impressive, and as I stressed in the aforementioned article, they are not about to ruin compatibility of their precious app store. If they just doubled the CPU speed and double the RAM, developers would have a new performance bar that they could develop for. This means that an application might be designed specifically for a theoretical, more powerful iPhone, and yet it wouldn’t run well on their older devices, totally breaking the trend that the current app store has had since it was released: complete interoperability between all devices regardless of generation. But here is the really tricky part… why keep it a secret?

(continue reading on page 2…)

iPhone 3GS website load time tests
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iPhone 3GS - The Most Important MID

Chippy — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:29:17 +0000

A few minutes after the iphone 3GS announcement yesterday I tweeted that it was still the most important MID out there. Despite some ridiculously lame announcements (MMS and tethering for example) the fact that the processor has been upgraded, that a compass has been added along with video capability, that there’s a turn-by-turn navigation offering and the introduction of a ton of ebooks into the store highlights that it can stretch its wings across nearly all the segments that mobile internet devices should be in. Internet, gaming, photography, communications, ebooks, navigation and media playback.

The fact that it’s capable of all these things (albeit in ‘standard definition’ and with carrier-tied 24month contract) makes it important to watch. Imagine what’s going to happen within the iphone developers ecosystem. The creativity contained within it is incredible and we’re going to see amazing applications, new usage models and a ton of new user-created data.

But…

It’s still not quite the MID most of us are looking for. Keyboard, hi-res screen, 720p recording, hi-def playback, video-out (wasn’t this supposed to be in the new OS?), removable battery, processing power, camera flash, Adobe flash and a general dash of openness are going to be big issues for pro-mobile types and that’s why it doesn’t really challenge devices like the UMID, the S5 or new devices like the Compal KAX-15 or the rumoured Nokia N900. Looking to 2010 and Moorestown/Moblin 2 the iPhone is going to look positively low-def if what’s promised comes true.

It looks like the hardware problems are solved and we could have our ideal MID tomorrow but that software ecosystem is key to gaining a fan-base, developers, word-of-mouth marketing and, quite simply, sales. Moblin and Maemo need to attract some of that creativity otherwise we’re left with some good hardware and a set of basic applications. App stores, stylish hardware, compelling API’s, unique features and attractive brands are a must. The iPhone may not be the MID that any of us would create in our dreams but it’s still the most important MID out there.

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IAC Slider MID running Android

Chippy — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:38:45 +0000

Spotted in a video from Techvideoblog is this 4.3” slider MID running Android on the Freescale i.MX51 platform. i.MX51 runs a Cortex A8 CPU core which means the browser rendering performance could be pretty sharp.

Specifications are unknown but clearly the device is voice-cabable and video-capable. Android on Cortex is definitely something I’d like to test out. ‘Later this year’ says Freescale.

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Moorestown based Inventec MID looks solid [video]

Ben — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:15:30 +0000

Jkk seems to be getting his hands on all of the cool stuff at Computex. Another short video showing a very solid looking Moorestown based MID. It seems to have a very sizable screen which covers much of the real estate on the front of the unit. It looks thin and well designed. Though the unit that jkk got to check out was just a prototype, I have to say that it is looking quite nice. I can’t wait for Moorestown devices to hit the market; we’ll be seeing great devices like this providing a wonderful FIE to users… as long as they nail the software, and I’m hoping that screen is capacitive!

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Evolution of the EB MID reference design

Ben — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:27:22 +0000

Back in 2007, we saw the original EB MID reference design as seen above. As it was announced on their site, they called it the EB MIMD (Mobile Internet Multimedia Device). It was a slider device with a hardware keyboard and it was based on the Menlow platform. This device was never picked up by an OEM and turned into a marketed product, despite its impressive appearance.

Fast forward two years and we are presented with the new vision of a MID reference design by EB. This newer reference design is now based on the next generation Moorestown platform and that means it will be trying for always-on phone/entertainment/FIE functionality and pocketability. While the original 2007 EB MID reference design looked great on the hardware end, it didn’t seem like EB was pushing much on the software side of things.

With this most recent MID reference, it is clear that EB is trying to leverage the reference hardware along with a strong Linux based OS and interface framework. It is quite important toe note that EB realizes that a MID isn’t going to fly without software that really complements the hardware. Luckily it seems that EB already has a software vision for use with this product and I’m happy to report that from the spec sheet we can see that the device will use a “high resolution” 3.97” capacitive touchscreen, and it will also have haptic feedback. In addition to the capacitive touchscreen, the unit will have WiMAX or HSDPA connectivity as well as GPS to support location based services and navigation.

While this all sounds great, it is still up to a company to pick up the reference design, have it tailored for them, then have it brought to market. I’m hoping that we see that happen and that this design doesn’t get left unchecked, as it seems happened to the original.

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Compal KAX-15 Menlow-based MID. Info and JKK’s Video. Coming via Aigo?

Chippy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:24:40 +0000

I’ve been careful to point out in the past that Moorestown and Menlow will overlap and continue to be available as two separate platforms in the MID space. While a version of Moorestown will support XP, it won’t be the version that we’re seeing touted for smartphones. Even Intel were careful to point out that you won’t see the same power envelope with Microsoft products so clearly, Moorestown is initiall a cut-down or special ‘crafted’ platform that only works with Moblin.

Menlow is that platform that continues to be offered for use in UMPCs and note here that Intel appear to accept now that Moblin V1 isn’t going to be the primary OS for Menlow based systems. I think it’s fair to say that Menlow and Moblin V1 failed and even distracted the market for ultra mobile solutions until it got back on course recently with XP versions of the original MIDs. I’m even hearing and seeing Windows 7 being promoted for UMPCs and if OEMs can keep the licensing costs low and ssd speeds high, it will make a great solution.

So that brings us to the Compal KAX-15, the only Menlow-based device that was announced within the Intel meetings. It was shown in the Ultra Mobility keynote and JKK got straight over to the demo device and gave us the full details in a video. (below) Before that, the specs.

It has a sliding/tilting keyboard that is similar to the HTC Shift but on a smaller scale. It’s a bit bigger than the original Compal MID that Aigo and Gigabyte used but that is probably due to a bigger battery. Compal will be aware that the battery life on their JAX-10/KAX-10 is no longer competitive in the UMPC space.

Screen size: 4.8”, 800×480
CPU: Z515 with 800Mhz and 1.2Ghz bursting. (Which I think means that designers can build around the TDP of the 800Mhz part but i’m not 100% sure. Sounds just like speed stepping to me)
No mouse controller
Dual web cams

I think it’s fair to say that this is in the running to be the next Aigo MID. Personally I find it a better form factor than the UMID M1 but we’ll have to see about battery life.

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Intel’s Ultra Mobility Event Live Blogged

Chippy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:33:54 +0000

MIDMoves (that’s me!) live blogged the Intel Mobility Event today and has a bunch of details and pics up.

5 Moorestown MID designs
Demo of Wind River Moblin 2.0 UI
New Compal MID on Menlow
Intel highlights that Moorestown will idle at 1/50th the power drain of Menlow

More information in these 3 posts at MIDMoves.

Live blog

Images of the Quanta MID

Video look at the Quanta MID

Stay tuned to MIDMoves because there’s a private meeting in a short while and we’re hoping to get some more detailed info and more videos.

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DigiCube MIDPhone-50

Ben — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:09:12 +0000

Jkk has a short video from the show floor of Computex showing the DigiCube MIDPhone-50. As you might have guessed from the name, it is a MID that also functions as a phone. The unit has a sliding/tilting HTC Shift [Portal page] style form-factor and runs Windows XP. It also boasts 3G connectivity and full voice capability. An interesting idea, sure, but with 2 hours of battery life, I don’t think you’d be using the phone function of the device for much more than emergencies. In addition to the battery life restraint, the device seems quite big for a phone, and I’m doubting that many would like to be seen holding the device to their head in public. An interesting idea, but I think we’ll need to wait for Moorestown to get devices with a reasonable size/battery life that will be used as full time phones.

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