Archive for the ‘mobile internet’ Category

Coming to you live on 1700Mhz, its UMTS data at 356kbps. on the T-Mobile network.

As far as I’m concerned, UMTS speeds aren’t bad for browsing and email which keeps 99% of users happy for 99% of the time. The problem is when you want to download a big file or, even worse, upload something. In that case you’re down to analogue modem speeds which isn’t much fun at all, especially when its an important document. Don’t forget that 3G data transmissions take a huge amount of power though. In my tests I see something like 100% higher battery load when doing continuous 3G data transmissions compared to data over the GPRS/GSM network here in Europe. Continuous use of Voip, instant messaging and other always-on app’s will kill your battery faster than you could ever imagine. 1-hour battery life isn’t much fun which, bizarrely enough, is why I tend to use a UMPC for mobile Internet operations. In these ‘always on’ conditions, the UMPC battery life far outlives that of my ‘2-day standby’ mobile phone. [Related article]

Maybe those of you in the U.S. with some background info would care to fill me in on why T-Mobile appear to be 3 years behind AT&T in their 3G data rollout and eons behind European rollouts. Vodafone Germany, homeland of T-Mobile, are promising a 28/2mbps rollout in 2009 which is just insanely fast for a wireless local loop. Fingers crossed that the back-hauls are in place otherwise we’ll all be meeting at a bottleneck somewhere in the base station. It reminds me of my network planing days with ISP’s; the bandwidth and financial calculations for business-grade Internet access products only worked if the contention ratio was over 30:1. For consumers, the contention ratio was embarrassing and I’m sure it’s no better now.

Via IntoMobile. User reports at Howard Forums.

In a week where we’ve been bombarded by news (or Pyrotechnics as Richard Brown of VIA, calls it) from the Intel IDF, it’s important to remember the other side of the fence. Over in smartphone, pmp and pocketPC land, things are happening just as quickly. The PR machine isn’t as big but the products could be just as capable.

GigaOm interviewed Qualcomm’s Dr. Sanjay Jha , COO and president of its CDMA technologies division last week and put a few interesting Ultra Mobile related questions his way.

Stacey Higginbbotham asked the following:

When will these [snapdragon-based] devices come out, and how does this compete with Intel’s Atom processors for ultra-mobile PCs?

Sanjay replies: Devices using Snapdragon will come out in the second half of this year, before or after Christmas. And I wouldn’t say we’re competing with Intel because we want to focus on a pocket-sized device that you can carry with you. Intel’s specifications for Atom are focused on a device with a 7-inch to 9-inch display.

I think Sanjay needs to do a little bit more research. 20 manufacturers are licensed (as ARM might say!) to produce MIDs and all should produce devices before Christmas. Nearly all of the devices will fall smack-bang into the pocket-sized market so Qualcomm, you DO have competition.

ARM-based MIDS will come and i’m sure we’ll see them with longer battery life and smaller designs than with Atom but will they be powerful enough to handle the a full browser and all the media that a user can throw at them?

GigaOm interview.

Via ElectronRun

According to a Boy-Genius four-liner, there’s a rumor that the Nokia N810 will launch with WiMax soon. I don’t see many people jumping up and down with joy though. A clutch of users in Baltimore perhaps but even these people are still wondering how much it’s going to cost.

WiMax on the N810 is at most, a demonstrator for the Xohm ecosystem so I personally think it’s one we can ignore as end users. If Nokia wanted to make a peoples product they would drop a 2.5G modem inside and partner with someone to make a $20 per month contact but I doubt that would be on the cards for this generation of the device. Nokia have a lot to do to bring the UI and software standards up to consumer levels so it wouldn’t make sense to push the tablet into the mainstream just yet. It would just end up with a bunch of unhappy customers expecting an iPhone-esque experience.

Its good to see WiMax gaining momentum. God knows America needs something that will allow them to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of mobile connectivity. It has been really interesting to hear the negative stateside response to Ericsson’s comment about hotspots dying and it highlights how far behind the infrastructure is in comparison with Europe and a lot of Asian cities. In Germany, T-Mobile have just announced a pay-as-you go 7.2mbps 3.5G deal which undercuts their own hotspot product. As they are the biggest hotspot provider in Germany, it gives us some idea of where the carriers think this is going! Go WiMax!

N810 with WiMax launching April 1st.[Rumor]

I have three navigation programs that I use on my PC and UMPCs. PC Navigator, Sygic and Autoroute. All three of them have now been made totally redundant by Nokia Maps 2.0 on my N82 smartphone. Its doesn’t quite have the screen information that you’d get by using a UMPC but the fact that it is always with me, net-connected and personal makes it far far more useful. I doubt I will ever go back to a dedicated or PC-based navigation system now.

There are two other features that make it more interesting too. 1) Its small enough to be used for pedestrian navigation. 2) The potential for it to be further enhanced into a social, tracking, weather, traffic and local information tool is incredible.

Nokia have a killer smartphone feature on their hands here and anyone developing for PC or dedicated navigation platforms might want to think twice about continuing.

Something had to give last week. Despite two of us hitting CeBIT (representing UMPCPortal and JKKMobile) there was a serious lack of time to get much posting done. UMPCPortal was my primary blogging platform and Carrypad suffered which is a real shame because my heart is so much more with consumer Internet devices than 7″ mini-notes.

I think I can summarise by saying that for me, CeBIT split into two threads. The mini-note thread (boosted by the Eee PC 900 announcement) and the Intel mobile Internet devices thread. It’s the latter that’s the focus here because Atom, the Intel processor brand that will be used in these devices, is all about consumer products. From TVs, fridges and cars through to ‘netbooks’ and ‘nettops’ (intel expressions) with PMPs, PNDs, dedicated Internet tablets and eventually in late 2009 or 2010, the smartphone. The processor is focused on size, power efficiency, heat and price, not processing performance. In addition to the Atom processor there’s a big push to make a new operating system platform. Moblin is the Linux-based core OS that Intel is developing and we’ll see this appear on many of the Atom-based products.

Here are a few examples. Firstly, (and my personal favorite right now) the Gigabyte M528 MID. Its a pocketable mobile Internet device with a finger-optimised and attractive user interface, 3G, cameras, flash storage and a slide-out keyboard. Pricing is said to be 699 Euros and it will include GPS, 3G and a 3mp auto-focus camera. I’ve written extensively about it over at UMPCPortal. Check out some of the videos and hands-on reviews.

Using the same Compal design but targeted at the Asian market is the Aigo branded version of the same device. Both devices have the same hardware but use different user interface layers over the Moblin core linux.

A similar ’slider’ device is the A-Bit MID. This one is targeted for a global launch according to A-Bit. Specs are very similar but it might have a slightly more powerful processor and larger battery. Final specs aren’t available at this stage. Look out for a presentation video on this at UMPCPortal in the next few days.

The LG device was at CeBIT but it’s not a mobile Internet device, apparently. LG want to position it as a productivity or professional device and will offer it with Windows Vista and will call it a UMPC. A similar approach is being made by Toshiba too. Their pocketable device will also run windows and will also be called a UMPC. Strangely though, the Toshiba device doesn’t have a keyboard.

Coming this summer!

Overall it looks very positive for consumer devices coming out of the Atom stable this year. We should expect to see 10 appearing in summer (before August) and another 10-20 coming out in the latter part of the year.

Clockwise from top: Gigabyte, Clarion, EB (probably under another brand), Lenovo (Asian market) Toshiba UMPC, LG UMPC, Digifriends, Aigo, ASUS, Benq.

For more details on Atom and the Intel MID plans, check out the Atom/MID article on UMPCPortal.com. Most of the devices are in the Carrypad product database and the UMPC Product database.

Note: UMPCPortal is having performance issues right now.