Back in Feb, I listed a set of devices that should be high on your list if you’re thinking about mobile microblogging. It included MIDs and UMPCs. As the market for mobile social networking, mobile web search, mobile content creation, location based services and lifestreaming (my rough definition of Mobile Microblogging) gathers steam we’re seeing more and more devices coming into the segment and it’s mainly from the smartphone sector. UMPCs and MIDs aren’t getting a look-in. In fact, in my latest list, below, you won’t find a MID or UMPC.

Smartphones with bigger, higher resolution screens and high-end processors are appearing on the radar almost every week. Smartphone-based mobile software development is increasing too as more and more mobile device application stores tempt developers with easy-to-use, rich SDKs and APIs, a channel that reaches right down to millions of users devices and a good cut of any earnings.

What’s really interesting about the Mobile Microblogging phenomenon is that very little software development is happening for today’s Intel MIDs, the very devices that were targeted into this segment. Intel have stopped work on the Moblin OS for them and they’re effectively UMPCs. You could even argue that there are no Intel MIDs any more! They are being totally left behind in both software and hardware until Intel push the reset button when Moorestown MIDs with Moblin hit the market. Until then, it’s desktop operating systems for MIDs and UMPCs.

You won’t find an easy-to-use, small-screen, GPS-enabled search service on Windows. You can’t even link Google Maps to a GPS on the browser. Forget the thought of a compass helping with augmented reality, an accelerometer, an FM receiver with RDS or, if you’re into internet photography, a half-decent snapshot camera. There’s no application store either. Only on smartphones will you find the creative software and hardware that is driving the mobile microblogging market and making it exciting, fresh, competitive and, quite frankly, desirable.

Moblin-based MIDs do have a chance as do Maemo 5 based devices but you won’t find any on the market yet so it’s going to take time for the developers to warm to those platforms. Come back in 2010 to discuss that!

Apple and Android have done a lot for the new generation of mobile internet devices and usage scenarios and so it should be no surprise to see smartphones dominating this Mobile Microblogging segment to the point where UMPCs and MIDs don’t get a look-in. UMPCs and Netbooks still have big  advantages for general purpose, day-to-day productive computing but if mobile creativity is your thing, there’s nothing better than the new generation of smartphones.

One could argue that smartphones have grown into the MID segment but for me it was always about usage scenarios rather than device categories. As Intel said, communication, location, entertainment and productivity. It’s a shame that Intel’s MIDs aren’t living up to their own hype yet. (see my recent Moorestown article for thoughts about 2010)

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I’m still in the process of unravelling all the ARM-related news from Computex to see what’s important and what is not but maybe ARM just saved me the trouble of going through a lot of news articles. They’ve got all the important links on their Computex blog. They’ve also created some great articles from within ARM

Laurance Bryant reports that Intels MID category is manufactured and that the smartphone market is the place to look. (I think he must have missed the news about Moorestown being in the smartphone game!)

Katie Morgan rounds up the ARM-related news. A must-read. (Another set of links here)

Rob Coombs says that the ARM software model is THE software model for smartbooks. : “There is a misconception that in the old world of x86 no porting is necessary. Well, this is only true if there is no further innovation around developing any new peripherals or advancing GPU/Video/Wireless solutions or supporting any new OS. Any of these changes require porting.” I tend to agree although Moblin seems to be tackling this problem well. The API is the key and both ARM and X86 have exactly the same issue. Like a swan, it needs to be graceful on the top while a lot of work goes on underneath to drive everything.

James Bruce has a teaser of an article. Why the Internet Experience will be better on your Smartphone. He argues that the always-on nature of a smartphone allows developers to think of more interesting applications. I totally agree. I’ve recently had UMPC devices that I have been able to leave on all day. People asked ‘why’ but I explain that IM, Skype and location services can run in the background. The problem with James’ argument is that all-day or even 24hr battery life isn’t only going to be capable on ARM devices. In 2010 ARM will start to lose their monopoly on this. Screen, radio, battery and software design becomes more important than how low a CPU can idle. Lets face it, with all these apps running in the background, most smartphone CPUs won’t even get to see an idle state!

Warren East talks about ARMs presence at Computex. “Well, I’ve spent a couple of days in Taiwan and I’m impressed. The ARM Partners who have targeted this new space are delivering.” It’s true. There were a ton of ARM-based products and I think we can safely say that it was ARM’s year at Computex in terms of media coverage. With the Pre, the N97 and the iPhone 3GS (which I assume is running an ARM core) news this week, the wave continues.

Finally, Bob Morris, Diretor of Mobile Computing reports: “what makes this year unique is the opportunity that they see in the diverging PC market and the potential to change what has been the legacy for the last 20+ years.” Yes, the market is diverging. Niches are becoming important. Choice is becoming important. Choice is now possible! Another must-read.

We’re entering a huge period of change in the computing market and it’s happening right under our noses in the mobile computing and mobile internet space. The next 5 years are going to be critical for all players. Lets see how Intel handles ARM’s home territory at Mobile World Congress in 2010.

P.S. Don’t miss the ARM ‘smart mobile devices’ blog too.

I had an update from TI’s ‘Mobile Mover’ Seshu Madhavapeddy on Thursday evening and came away with a very strong impression that Ti want to conquer the whole ‘Ring of FIE’ with their OMAP 3 platform. PMPs were mentioned (Archos.) Smartphones were mentioned (Samsung Omnia HD, Palm Pre) and so were tablets and netbooks.  Seshu also outlined how ARM-based netbooks would differ from the netbooks we know today buy talking about targeted markets and highlighting the Always Innovating TouchBook. He asked me if I’d heard of it. Bells rang in my head and as I scrambled to Google search and saw the first image, I remembered that I really should have brought this to the top of my to-do list sooner. It was announced at the same time as I was in Texas for SXSW and I never got round to checking it out in detail. I’m glad Seshu highlighted it because it looks and sounds great. We’ve put a UMPCPortal order in for one because, like the SmartDevices Q7, there’s going to be a lot of questions about it.

You’ll remember the device from the photos.

More photo’s in the gallery.

The specs are interesting too. It’s based on an OMAP 3 platform which is the same as is being used in the Open Pandora project and the next Nokia Tablet  along with the aforementioned Pre and Omnia. It will run a Linux distribution (The Ångström Distribution) with a Fennec browser and the hardware includes a two-part chassis. The screen contains the components and can operate standalone. The keyboard is a simple add-on which means you can carry the two together as a netbook and then separate them for ebook reading and browsing. The keyboard also contains an extended battery. You can buy the tablet for $299 or the complete unit for $399 putting it right in the netbook space.

It’s an interesting concept with a smooth design that fits well in the UMPC segment and we look forward to receiving our order and getting down to testing it out. No release data is available yet but according to their website, Always Innovating are ‘targeting to ship the first units early this summer.’ According to an email from the founder, Grégoire Gentil, Always Innovating should be releasing more information in June.

We’re tracking information in the portal under a new Touchbook product page.

Considering the SmartDevices Q7 isn’t a true UMPC and it’s going to be a relatively slow browsing device, it’s getting a lot of coverage on UMPCPortal this week.

Read the full story

My Smart Q7 should ship from China on Friday so it’s interesting to see more live images of the device to try and get a feel for what’s going to turn up next week.

Three things strike me from the pics. Firstly, it’s thicker than expected. Aesthetically that’s not good and I question the 250gm weight having seen this. The second thing to notice is that there is no obvious battery compartment. It could be sealed. Finally, it’s nice to see a stand.

More details and links available in the product pages. I’ll run a live session as soon as possible after receiving it. I still have the Samsung Q1EX from VIA so it will be interesting to put a $750 PC-based tablet up against this $200 ARM-based device.

Via Pocketables. Source: Engadget China.

Remember that ‘coffee table’ pad I was talking about yesterday? The one I said could be under $250? Well it looks like it might be even cheaper than I expected. http://www.eletroworld.cn have it up for $189.

We have no idea if this is real but we’re trying to order one pronto because it deserves to be investigated on the coffee table ASAP!

Specs from the web site:

• Processor: Sansumg ARM S3C6410 Processor 667MHz
• Screen size: 7-inch Touch-lens screen,800 X480 pixels
• Memory: 128MB DDR RAM
• Storage: 1GB Flash Memory
• Operating System: Ubuntu Linux
• Language: Chinese/English/German/French/Portuguese
• Memory card slot supporting up to 32GB microSD memory cards
• Wireless: supports WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth
• Connectivity: 2.0 USB HOST supported to connect the high-speed EDGE, HSDPA network adapter or mobile phone
• Weight: 250g
• Battery: 4500mAH
• Warranty: One year

We’ve added the details to the product portal and will continue updating with new news as we find it.

Completely screwing up any categorisation I ever used in the mobile computing space is the Wistron PurseBook (aka PBook and what we highlighted incorrectly as the ‘FirstBook’ last week.) Take a look at this video from Engadget and then consider some of the specs, especially the weight which comes in at an impressively light 800gm.

• Snapdragon Platform: 1Ghz ARM V7 CPU
• Hardware video decoding
• 3D-capable GPU
• Integrated 3G, Wifi, BT, GPS
• 11.1” screen (resolution unknown. Touch unknown)
• 800gm
• Linux OS (Thundersoft and Xandros possibilities)
• ‘Full size’ keyboard
• Optical Mouse
• $299-$499 estimated price range.
• 8hrs battery life
• Full specs and info.

The 11.1” screen size is quite misleading as it’s a super-wide aspect meaning it would be something like 1024×480 resolution, less pixels than many 8.9” netbooks. Update: ‘Kola’ spotted a pic (see comments) that shows the resolution as 1280×545. My guess on the size is about 280×150x25. [See comparison image below] The processor isn’t going to give you netbook browsing speeds either but it’s going to be way better than we’re seeing on smartphones. 8hrs battery life with instant or ‘always-on’ means you’ll save time when opening it just to make a quick check on email or a web page and it also means you could leave IM, Skype, Tweetdeck running all the time.

Specifications (unofficial) and links are in the database.

Size comparison:

I spent a few hours researching and pulling together  information on the SmartQ5 this morning and feel more positive about it now than I did a few weeks ago.

The SmartQ5 looks good and has an amazing price (local price in China – approx $132.) It has a good screen size/resolution and with Ubuntu (ARM), an good supply of software. As a media/internet/e-book reader/photo browser/travel device, there’s definitely a lot of pocketable value there. The 667Mhz ARM11 CPU should make it faster than the Nokia tablet devices and the large 7.5wh battery should keep it running for a long long time between charges.

If it was ever available in Europe or US though, you’d be looking at something like $199 which puts it close to the offers that occasionally float around for the N810. (cdw.com have it for $226 as I write) With GPS, keyboard, camera, a healthy user-base and local-country support, the N810 is the better MID option in my eyes but that’s only if you can find an offer.

It’s difficult to comment with any authority when you’ve never even had hands-on so if you’ve been thinking about the Smart Q, keep an eye on the new SmartQ5 product page where we’ll be adding info, images and links as they come along. One of the first to be added was an unboxing photo-set from Kam Leung. There’s also an unboxing from ‘Sky’ over at UMPCFever. [translation link]

If you see any more interesting content about the SmartQ5, please take the time to submit it ifor inclusion in the database.

Netbooknews.de have posted a video via (PDA.pl) from ARM that shows the Wistron Netbook, a thin, Sony Vaio-like netbook baed on the Quallcom Snapdragon CPU and running Linux. Jump to the action at 2:32

I really realy want to get my hands on a snapdragon-based device as soon as possible. I want to feed back to you all on the real-world browsing speed and capabilities.

Video: Qualcomm Konzepte auf dem MWC 2009 | Netbooknews.de - das Netbook Blog.

Note. ‘Firstbook’ is the name i’ve picked up from the video. It’s unconfirmed.

Update: Now confirmed as the ‘PurseBook.’ Article title changed.

While it’s very exciting to be thinking about OMAP 4 and Sparrow, they are a long, long way away from being a reality in a device. More interesting today are the Cortex A8-based products. Texas Instruments have the OMAP3 platform which includes a Cortex A8 core and you can find it in a number of leading-edge computing products like Open Pandora, the BeagleBoard and, when it launches, the Palm Pre. As these and other OMAP34xx devices reach the market, Ti will be feeding in a new range of OMAP3 platforms known as the OMAP36xx series. The platform doesn’t change much in terms of building blocks but there are important incremental improvements all round. The platforms will be available for sampling in Q3 2009 which probably means 2010 production and products.

Most important are the improvements brought by moving to a 45nm process (as the Intel Atom uses) which are said to improve efficiency by up to 25%.  An extra 30 minutes mobile browsing time here and there is never a bad thing! Key features reported on the press release are shown below.

• 45 nm CMOS process technology delivers higher performance with lower power consumption versus the OMAP34x family, including an approximately 25% reduction in power and 75% improvement in graphics performance.
• Robust multi-tasking platform that supports running multiple applications in parallel by simultaneously exercising the CPU, multimedia performance and 2D/3D graphics engines.
• Dedicated 2D/3D graphics hardware accelerator, enabling more immersive user interfaces and compelling graphics for applications like realistic 3D gaming.
• Smart pixel technology via OpenGL ES 2.0 delivers stunning imaging capabilities through advanced reflection effects and life-like facial features.
• Supports multi-standard 720p HD functionality for HD video recording and playback.
• Integrated image signal processor (ISP) supporting up to 12 megapixel (MP) imaging for enhanced photographic image quality and fast shot-to-shot camera performance.
• Pre-integrated support for mobile connectivity, including TI’s current and future combo WiLink^TM Wi-Fi solutions, NaviLink^TM GPS solutions, and BlueLink^TM Bluetooth(r) solutions.

More details on the Ti product pages

That’s not me adding the ‘MID’ label there, that’s exactly what Texas Instruments are saying as they announce the OMAP 4 series of platforms.

OMAP 4 is built using the next generation of ARM Cores, Cortex A9 MPCore, which allow for dual-core builds.

Helping Smartphone and Mobile Internet Device (MID) manufacturers shape the future of the mobile market with innovative devices, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced the new OMAP™ 4 mobile applications platform. The OMAP 4 platform delivers new, stunning, multimedia-rich user experiences such as 1080p video record and playback, 20 megapixel (MP) imaging and approximately a week of audio play time. The new platform provides significant improvements in performance and play time compared to today’s most popular Smartphones, with 10x faster Web page loading times, more than 7x higher computing performance, 6x higher video resolution, 10x better graphics performance and 6x longer audio play time.

The last time I spoke to Ti, their definition of MIDs was slightly wider ranging than the average definition out there and included voice-enabled sliders, tablets and netbooks so you can see why they are giving it such weighting.

Putting the figures into perspective from the above excerpt, I’d say they’re talking about performance levels well above the baseline 800Mhz Silverthorne Atom from Intel. Maybe something around the 1.3Ghz Atom level that we see today. Of course that’s an educated guess. Real-world speed really depends on software and ergonomics in addition to raw power.

There’s a lot of information to digest on the press release and accompanying white papers but don’t worry too much unless you intend to use it in multi-million quantities , it’s initially aimed at large volume wireless carriers and won’t be in production until late 2010. For you, me and the rest of the potential customers out there, we’ve still got the OMAP 3 platform to look forward to. Now where’s that new Nokia Tablet?

Maybe its just something that Intel said but it looks like the Atom vs Cortex (ARM V7) fight is continuing into the next round at MWC. ARM have just send out a press release highlighting that there will be a Cortex-A8 processor vs Intel Atom power comparison on the stand at MWC!

Note that it say’s ‘power’ comparison. Well it’s not exactly hard to demo that one. The best Intel Atom device takes 3-4W. The best Cortex based devices take about 2W under similar usage scenarios. Simple. The problem is, it could take twice as long to do something on a Cortex device. I hope they demo web pages rather than the mostly irrelevant video playback comparison that most companies fall back on. Lets see decoding of a full-screen YouTube SD video in CPU and running 5 tabs of flash-enabled web pages, constantly refreshing!

Other highlights include a Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha release, Cortex A9 demo, Pegatron Netbook.

• first public demonstration of two new technologies working together that will be key to the future of the mobile industry: The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore™ multicore processor delivering notebook performance with the power footprint of mobile, and Symbian OS SMP capability
• Launch of wide range of innovative devices including the G1 handset and the first Cortex™-A8 processor-powered mobile phones.
• Cortex-A8 processor vs Intel Atom power comparison
• Pegatron Netbook running Ubuntu
• Hybrid Notebook
• Ubuntu with Firefox 3
• Phoenix Technologies™ Hyperspace™ running on Cortex-A8 processor
• Thinkfree™ office suite with Sun’s Java SE on Qualcomm SnapDragon™-powered Inventec Netbook
• TI® OMAP™ Zoom2 reference design running Android.
• Alpha release of Ubuntu 9.04 for ARM will be shown running on Cortex-A8 processor-based systems. Ubuntu 9.04 is scheduled for full release in April 2009.

No hint of a new Nokia Tablet there but maybe Nokia want to keep it to themselves! Don’t get you’re hopes up too high though. We’re not expecting a new tablet to be available until the summer.

Press release here.

Engadget seem quite impressed with the Pegatron Freescale-based netbooks. 8.9-inch screen, 8 hour battery life, 8GB of storage and retail prices near the $199 mark. Pegatron will be working with Ubuntu to get the ARM-compatable distribution cleaned up and ready for a late Spring launch.

Maybe it’s just the design that Engadget are impressed with though. “The limitation here is obviously straight-up processing power — it’s not very impressive, and certainly slower than Intel’s Atom” say Engadget but it’s clear (check the video below) that it’s a whole lot faster than ARM devices we’ve seen in the past. Cortex A8 seems to be hitting the right mark.

Pics and more commentary at Engadget.

Pegatron and Freescale team for low-power, ultra-cheap netbooks and nettops - Engadget.

Video below from Notebooks.com shows the device in action.

VRLabs just tipped me off on an article they have about Zii. ‘Stem Cell Computing’ is the tag-line that Creative are using and the product appears to be a processing engine built around two ARM9 cores aimed at a wide range of consumer focused products.

Its difficult to tell exactly if it’s a single chip computer or a complete computer ecosystem including hardware and software but just by looking at some of the marketing images, it’s clear that one of it’s target markets is low-cost connected and media devices. MIDs.

Creative is going to make the SDKs available to developers today, and is also working with many OEM partners worldwide to bring out products based on the ZMS. One familiar name is MSI, which will be working closely with ZiiLABS for their future low cost, high performance Internet-ready devices.

We’ll keep a close eye on this and try to get more detail ASAP.

Creative Zii Mystery Unravels - Nano Size Supercomputer - VR-Zone.com

Update: More info from Electronista.

I haven’t go much to add to this video except to say that I can’t wait to see the next one where EvilDragon will demonstrate Firefox. For more info on OpenPandora, the Ti OMAP-based open-source mini PC see our info page or the OpenPandora website.

Source: OpenPandora Blog. Thanks Marc.

Another article has been posted about how Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform is ideal for low cost, long battery life, small form factor notebook PCs. We heard about this a few weeks ago but Brooke Crothers of CNet visited Qualcomm to hear more detail about what’s going on. The article gives me a chance to dive into the details and give some thought about what’s happening here in both technology and market terms. Is it significant or not?

First of all a little background about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. Its a small-form-factor, mobile computing platform (think of it as a ready-to-use computer on a tiny motherboard a bit like the image you see below-right.) that includes a CPU core which is based on a licensed ARMv7 architecture. ARMV7 is the architecture used in the ARM A8 Cortex CPU design that you can now find in the new Archos devices, the Open Pandora and BeagleBoard (image below-right) projects. Snapdragon has been a four year, $350 million project. It’s not clear how many snapdragon versions there are but the one that CNet are talking about is the new dual-core QSD8672 capable of clock speeds up to 1.5Ghz. The platform also includes the following features: (Details from Qualcomm.)

• WWAN, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Seventh-generation gpsOne® engine for Standalone-GPS and Assisted-GPS modes, as well as gpsOneXTRA^TM Assistance 
• High definition video decode (720P)
• 3D graphics with up to 22M triangles/sec and 133M 3D pixels/sec
• High resolution XGA display support
• 12-megapixel camera
• Support for multiple video codecs
• Audio codecs: (AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711 , AAC stereo encode)
• Support for Broadcast TV (MediaFLO^TM , DVB-H and ISDB-T)
• Fully tested, highly-integrated solution including baseband, software, RF, PMIC, Bluetooth, Broadcast & Wi-Fi

Looking at the article from CNet, these tech specs might be referring to a previous Snapdragon platform because the CNet article mentions 1080p video and an ATI graphics core.

As JKKMobile pointed out , one of the important things to note about this platform is its inability to run Windows desktop software meaning that it’s restricted to mainly Linux-based distributions or WindowsCE-based operating systems but lets take a look at a few other aspects of the platform first.

Performance

According to some references on the Internet that I’ve been able to cross-check, raw single-core CPU performance of the platform, an important factor in rendering browser-based pages and applications, is in the order of 2000 Dhrystone MIPS at 1Ghz. Obviously a dual-core version, clocked at 1.5Ghz means we’re in the region of 3000-5000 MIPS which means, if you take a look around for Dhrystone tests on the Atom N270 used in netbooks, its right in the same ballpark. The N270 appears to return about 4000 Dhrystone MIPS. These figures don’t indicate anything about the real-world performance but they do tell us that, given good memory and storage performance the results are good enough to run a basic desktop OS.

Power Efficiency

This is something I think we should be careful to remain realistic about. While ARM cores are extremely efficient and idle at extremely low levels, we’re at the point where CPU power usage on Atom and ARM-architecture CPUs aren’t a world apart from each other. When taken as a ratio of total system power drain, including screen, radios, DC-DC components and storage, the CPU is well under 50% of the equation. In 10" screen devices, it’s even less. 20% maybe. The major power advantage here is gained through on-board integration. Packing processing cores, communications silicon and memory tightly together, unifying the power-saving methodology across the board and writing efficient firmware is they key. Qualcomm have a lot of experience in that and I expect to see well-designed Snapdragon-based netbooks in 2009 to be running in the order of 5W  about half the power that an N270-based notebook will use. Due to the high level of integration, the boards will be smaller too. The solution gives designers the option to make the devices smaller or run with longer battery power. With more space for batteries, you could even see devices where thin Li-Poly take up most of the underside of the netbook and offer capacities that will allow you to leave your netbook on all day. An always-on netbook is a seriously interesting prospect!

Cost

It’s difficult to do a complete estimate on this but experience tells me that in quantities, the highly integrated Snapdragon platforms would be significantly cheaper than a full Atom-based motherboard build-out.

Markets

This could go two ways. Initially I would expect to see manufacturers use the new Snapdragon platform to make cheaper Linux-based netbooks that will go into some of the emerging markets in India and China. These markets are less sensitive to desktop OS types due to the shorter history of XP and Vista. We will see some low-cost and long-battery life versions coming to ‘our’ markets (I speak to 80% of readers when I say that; Americas, Europe, Japan) but without XP, the devices won’t get the traction and channels that the Intel-based devices will. There’s one thing that could change this though and I know for sure that people are working on this. High-quality consumer focused, easy-to-use, reliable, branded, thin operating systems. Operating systems that completely hide their roots and offer a slick UI, rich applications suite, content and branding. So far we haven’t seen anything but there are a few projects and companies out there that are working on this. The Open Handset Alliance work has potential. Moblin too. They will need a good company to ‘finish’ the product though and the branding will need to come from a big name in order to give it traction. It will need that all-important app-store too. The one OS that could really change the game though is WM7. I don’t really expect this to happen but if it is an OS that offers a large-screen experience and the opportunity to work with native document formats and in both a ‘business’ and ‘consumer’ mode, there’s no reason why it can’t be used as a netbook OS.

Back to that article now. (Sorry, I got carried away. I actually wanted to write a quick re-blog article!) CNet mentions a few companies working on solutions:

Companies including Acer, Asus, and Toshiba are planning devices based on Snapdragon, according to Qualcomm. Acer, for example, will initially introduce Qualcomm’s Gobi 3G modem into its devices, then gravitate to products based on Snapdragon.

Of course we need to take that with a pinch of salt considering the fact that there are already supposed to be 15 ultra mobile devices out there running on Snapdragon.

Gizmodo have just completed a browsing speed and accuracy test with three high-end windows mobile devices using Pocket IE and Opera 9.5. The results should hardly be a surprise. There isn’t a single reasonable result among them with page load times well over a minute in many cases and very few of the devices rendering the pages well.

In the test, Gizmodo used the Sony Xperia, HTC Fuze, Samsung Omnia and Samsung Epix. Some of the newest WM-based phones you can buy.

Opera 9.5 appears to have turned in a better level of quality and speed than Pocket IE but there’s still a bunch of ‘fails’ in there which would turn off anyone thinking of relying on the given combo.

We’ve done similar tests here in the past which have proven that, on average, with some of the best ARM-based devices you can find and under good conditions, average page load times are twice as long when compared to on low-end ultra mobile PCs. We’ve even done some extensive Opera Mobile 9.5 testing and can confirm that while it does render well, it needs a lot more horsepower underneath it than the average smartphone can provide. Nothing in the smartphone world, including the iPhone, comes close to the speed and accuracy of even the lowest-level UMPC or Intel-based MID so once again I hear myself saying; If you or your business relies on fast, accurate access to Web-based resources through a browser, don’t risk problems or waste time by using a sub-standard solution. Don’t try and push everything onto one device. Buy a dedicated device. If not for the speed and quality, do it to preserve battery life for your important voice calls!

Take a read of the article and the HUGE bashing that WM gets from author, Matt Buchanan. Its a fun read!

Source: Gizmodo Via Friendfeed