Just how long have we been waiting for a low-power productive computing platform and an operation system built to go with it? Atom has been around (largely unchanged in it’s CPU architecture) for many years but we’ve been through Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 before the OS finally matured to support touch, pen and mouse computing. UMPC’s won’t be coming soon but if the convertible Windows 8 devices do well, there’s a chance that the screen-sizes will drop.

Last week at IDF I took a look at a few of the convertibles and spent a lot of time learning about the platform and analyzing what could be possible.

Read the full story

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!

We’ve just put the Samsung TX100 specs in the database along with an expected launch price of $699. It’s been confirmed today though that the Pc7 series / TX100 is going to come in, with a 1.5Ghz Oaktrail / GMA 600 processing engine, 32Gb ssd, 2Gb of RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium for $649.

http://www.netbooknews.com/24590/samsung-series-7-hybrid-tablet-up-for-pre-order-at-amazon/

Those of you thinking about $299 netbooks might be a little shocked at the price but remember the TX100 is aimed at flexibility and portability with a good battery life. Windows 7 may not excite you either but its productive, plus, there are two more operating systems on the horizon that should sit well with the Oaktrail platform. Meego is still in progress and should be well optimized in terms of power efficiency but more exciting to the masses is the possibility of an official Intel Honeycomb build. It is being worked on for Oaktrail, Moorestown and Medfield although neither Intel or Samsung have mentioned anything about it. They should because I’m sure there are people put there interested in the advantages of a 2-way virtualised OS build.

The CPU could be a little weak compared to dual-core Atom Netbooks but if it has a fast SSD, it should help along with the 2x boost in GPU power over previous Menlow devices.

The TX100 is an important device for Intel. Samsung have done great work with mobile Intel devices in the past, lets hope they also do a good job with this one.

Posted from WordPress for Android with the Galaxy Tab

After I had tested the N570-based S1080 tablet yesterday I had a great discussion with Gigabyte about mobile video editing. Gigabyte have always explored new features and pushed the boundaries in some way another so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when the representative told me I should wait for Computex to see the T20xx range of devices that will come with the latest, Sandy Bridge versions of Intel’s Core i3 or i5 CPUs. I understood that they would be convertible too.

That’s going to be something to test as soon as possible because if they manage it, we could have another low-cost power-option on our hands. If they manage to get some decent battery life out of it and keep it under 1.5KG too, it’s going to be very interesting indeed. I sincerely hope that the rep knew what he was talking about and can’t wait to hear more.

Computex starts on May 31st and we’re planning to be there.

The product page for the Acer Iconia Tab W500 is now live and populated with links, specs, gallery and videos.

I’ve been through the details with a fine toothcomb and on one had I’m quite excited about a sub 1KG tablet with an acceptable CPU, good GPU, hi-res wide-view screen, UMTS and docking station for 599 Euro (current average online prices, Germany) but when you look at the weight / battery life ratio, it isn’t that good. Acer have only managed to squeeze in a 36Wh battery which means you’re looking at 3-4hrs usable battery life. Add the dock (which doesn’t look like it’s built for the road!) and you’re up over 1.5KG.

Taken as a tablet only, it actually looks like an interesting proposition. With CPU power up at the top end of the netbook range and GPU that blows away anything based purely on Intel netbook platforms it should perform smoothly. 2GB of RAM and Windows Home Premium give it media serving capability. Throw in the UMTS/HSDPA and it gets even more exciting.

See the W500 gallery for more.

At the end of the day, and specifications list, I’ve a feeling that this is going to work well as a hot-desking solution. It should serve well as a home desktop for anyone not getting involved with hundreds of browser tabs or video editing and the grab-and-go capability means it can be used in a more casual manner now and again. It looks fun too!

For UMPC fans though, it’s just too heavy. An upgraded 1.25KG Asus 1015PN with 6hr battery would be a much better choice for true mobile computing.

Me and chippy mentioned on Twitter just the other day that more power was needed from netbook based systems and Gigabyte may have just come up with the goods in their T1000 series refresh.

The T1005M comes packing Intels newest Atom processor, the N550. Its a 1.5GHz dual-core chip with 512KB of L2 cache, DDR3 support and hyperthreading to get you multitaskers moving along nicely.

Other specifications from this convertible netbook include, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB hard drive, WiFi 80211b/g/n, Bluetooth, 2x USB 2.0, Windows 7 Home Premium and a 10.1” capacitive multi-touch display running at 1366 x 768 pixels resolution. What is also notable is the inclusion of one USB 3.0 port and optional inbuilt HSDPA.

Based on these specifications I think we have found chippy a new convertible, assuming he’s willing to stump up the $798 USD premium.

The unit weighs 3.3 pounds, measures in at 10.4” x 8.4” x 1.6” and comes with a 6 cell, 41Whr, 7650mAh battery.

Gigabytes T1005M is already available in Australia, although curiously the retailer is showing the product as discontinued. When it will grace European and US shores is yet unknown but watch this space.

[via Liliputing]

Many of you have asked about the inking ability of the Acer 1825 PT I reviewed two weeks back, so I thought I would do a short demonstration video of it.

As you can see its not a perfect experience and won’t provide the same level as a full tablet PC with an active digitiser but it usable for short note taking sessions.

I wanted to live with the Acer 1825 PT [image gallery] for a couple of weeks before I posted a review because using it for a couple of days isn’t a good test of any device. Its been a great work horse but not without its faults. If you haven’t already, check out my unboxing video.

Hardware

Overall the look of and feel of the Acer is good, its very compact and not too heavy, although at 1.72 kg (3.79 lbs) it does begin to feel weighty when using it one handed. The screen is bright and crisp and the 1366 x 768 resolution is perfect for the 11.6” screen size, touch input is accurate on the capacitive touch display and you rarely find yourself having to press multiple times when trying to hit on screen buttons like the classic close program. One of the major downsides to the screen is its highly reflective, probably more so than any other device I have used or owned. This is a major point, when using the screen in a well lit room like an office or for example a hospital waiting room, the viewing angle is tiny, this often means the angle you are holding it at is a strain. I’ve lived with this problem for two weeks and have learnt to deal with it but if you spend a lot of time in well lit places then you must take this into consideration, even more so if you plan to use this device in tablet mode often.

One of the other advantages of an 11.6” device is the keyboard, the Acer 1825 PT has a full size short press keyboard which is perfect for typing on. In no time at all, my words per minute speed was up to the same level as it would be when using a full sized desktop keyboard which is a huge boost to productivity. There is some flex in the keyboard which does leave a feeling of low quality but it certainly doesn’t effect typing speed.

There are two additional hardware buttons on the Acer, a ‘P’ button the screen bezel and a Acer Backup Manager button above the keyboard. The ‘P’ button has three actions, CTRL + ALT + DEL, print screen or a customisable program launcher. It lacks a screen brightness function which given how reflective the screen is, should have been included.

Another issue I have come across during everyday use of the Acer is the screen hinge. The hinge itself feels pretty solid and robust but it isn’t stiff enough, when you pick up  the device in laptop mode the screen almost falls back to the flat position and you have to be weary when moving the Acer about because of this. The screen can also only be twisted in one direction which isn’t uncommon for convertibles, although is a learning curve.

Performance

The Acer 1825 PT’s performance has been excellent, the Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 is clocked at 1.3GHz which when coupled with 4GB of RAM means Windows 7 steams along. I have done some serious multitasking on this device, Chrome with several tabs open, Windows Live Writer, photo editing, Outlook 2010, Evernote, Skype, Live Messenger all open concurrently and with no noticeable slow down or reduction in performance. For a convertible of this size its mightily impressive when it comes to productivity. Cold boot times for Windows are nice and quick and your looking around a 30 second wait for the device to boot into the operating system.

Video playback has also been excellent, YouTube HD isn’t at all an issue as you would expect from the Intel 4500MHD graphics unit. As a further test I had the film 2012, both in 720p and 1080p encoded in the matroska format. On the Acer’s display the 720p version played without a hitch with no noticeable frame’s dropped. When outputting 1080p to a 40” LCD via the HDMI port, video became choppy and the audio lost synchronisation, however 720p video playing at the TV’s native resolution of 1920 x 1080 worked perfectly and looked great. With Xvid, WMV and H.264 file formats and encoding, video playback at both 720p was near on perfect. This is down to the 4500MHD GPU which can share up to 1695MB’s  of the system RAM.

Battery life has excellent and not far off Acer’s figure of 8 hours. I have regularly achieved 7 hours with 40% screen brightness and WiFi turned on when web browsing or writing. This figure drops significantly under certain circumstances, one of which is video playback. Running the 720p version of the film 2012 on a loop the Acer managed a measly 3 hours and 50 minutes before going into hibernation, this has been true of any situation that utilises the graphics controller on the device, including flash video playback. The other strange circumstance I have suffered with the Acer is sleep. If you sleep the device the battery life time is significantly reduced in less than a 12 hour period, I found that if I used the devices for several sessions in a day with a one to two hour intervals of sleep in between sessions the battery would be reduced to 5 hours. I’m really not sure what is draining the battery when the Acer is asleep but by using hibernation this problem is resolved. The obvious issue with hibernation is the 10 seconds for Windows to resume which hinders productivity.

Software

There is an unfortunate amount of crapware that comes preloaded on the Acer, this took a good 30 minutes to remove the unnecessary software. Acer include a whole host of  software with the 1825, including crystal eye webcam software to enhance video calling through Skype and Live Messenger and a backup manager linked to the hardware button I mentioned earlier. Also included is the Acer Touch Portal which has the Microsoft Touch Pack programs and Windows Media Player enclosed into a custom user interface, you can access it through a corner of the desktop which looks like a folded over page. Its a pretty poor attempt at a UI, it looks ugly with a front room type layout and lacks finesse. You can access the Microsoft Touch Pack programs separately through the start menu which makes the Touch Portal redundant. A 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium is also included with full touch support including the Tablet Input Panel (TIP).

Touch Features

We have said before that Windows 7 isn’t built from the ground up to be finger touched, there are too many small buttons and scroll bars that require a precise input like a stylus or pen to operate. However, at the panels standard resolution I have found it actually very easy to operate and navigate around Windows with finger touch, the pixels per inch seems to be a good balance of resolution without making items too small to hit accurately.

I also wanted to demonstrate the screen with a capacitive stylus for ink input. I know many of you would be looking at the Acer 1825 PT as a device to ink on and I believe it is achievable. If you are happy to hold your wrist or palm on the bezel of the screen, then stylus input works without issue. I have ordered a capacitive stylus but it has not yet arrived, if and when it does I will do a demonstration video of ink input.

Conclusion

There is a lot to like about the Acer 1825 PT, its performance and video playback features are excellent, even the battery life is good and has been better than expected. Windows 7 performs very well on the dual core processor and the 300GB’s of storage means you shouldn’t have to worry about space. For me I’m still unsure if its going to have to be returned, the screen reflection is a big drawback and I have found constantly changing the position of it in tablet and laptop modes is a real pain.

If you have any questions then fire off below and I will do my best to answer them.

Acer has taken what seems like an age to get stock of the 1825 PT and PTZ out to distributors but finally I have managed to get hold of one. I will be reviewing it over the next two weeks to give you an insight of the devices capabilities but in the meantime here is the unboxing video.

Specifications;

• Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
• Intel® Core™2 Duo processor SU7300 (1.3 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
• 11.6″ HD Acer LED LCD (1366×768), 2 point multi touch
• 4 GB Memory
• 320 GB HDD
• Multi-in-1 card reader
• 802.11a/b/g
• Bluetooth
• Webcam, 6-cell Li-ion battery
• Weight 1.7KG

How does it look to you? Netbook upgrade?

[I'm interested in seeing how Guy's testing goes. With 3G and a fast SSD, this could be a nice upgrade from my Touchnote which, with the extra battery that gives me 8 hours, weighs over 1.5KG! - Chippy]

Thanks to GottaBeMobile for spotting this deal over at LogicBuy.

You can use the coupon code on the LogicBuy page to save $200 on the IdeaPad S10-3t multitouch convertible. Check the specs (top end model):

• Intel Atom N450 CPU @ 1.83GHz
• 2GB of DDR2 RAM
• Windows 7 Home Premium
• 250GB HDD
• 4-cell battery
• WiFi G/N
• 10.1” capacitive multitouch screen

If you are interested in this deal, make haste, it’s only good until April 19th, or the first 150 uses!

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t — full specs and details in our product database

The Viliv S10, Lenovo S10-3T and Gigabyte T1000 sit in the 1.2-1.5KG bracket and are therefore just outside the range that we normally focus on here at UMPCPortal but given the multiple usage scenarios offered by the touch-capable convertible form-factor they are still worth looking at.

The four interesting models in the 10” screen size range right now are:

• Viliv S10 – 1GB RAM, Multitouch (1366×768) Z530 1.6Ghz Windows 7 Home Premium  32GB SSD. 779 Euro (expected)
• Lenovo S10-3T – 1GB RAM, Multitouch (1024×600) N450 1.6Ghz Windows 7 Home Premium 449 Euro
• Gigabyte Touchnote – 2GB RAM, Single Touch N280 1.6Ghz (1366×768) Windows 7 Starter, 569 Euro
• ASUS T101 MT – 2GB RAM, Multitouch (1024×600), N450 1.6Ghz CPU, Win 7 Home Premium. 320GN HDD. 499 Euro

I’ve talked about the relative pricing of the four devices here but what about the features? Sascha got to play with the S10-3T, the T1000 and the S10 at CeBIT last week and here’s his hand-on video. [S10 appears later in the video here.] You can see how slim the S10 is compared to the other two devices.Viliv have done an excellent job with size, weight and styling. “They are kinda bulky” says Sascha as he holds the Viliv S10 and points to the other two devices!

*** We’ll have the S10 and Touchnote T1028M in a live session today.***

Netbooknews.de has the IdeaPad S10-t3 [Product page] and pops the box open to let us all have a look. This multitouch convertible looks quite slick and comes with a massive battery. They were even kind enough to include an English unboxing (embedded below) in addition to their usual German one.

With options for 2.0Ghz Intel Atom CPU, multi-touch, SSD and 3G, a 1366×768 screen, 10 hours of battery life, 1.2KG in weight and a very good looking and well-built form factor, it’s no wonder that the Viliv S10 beat the Lenovo S10-t3 and the ASUS T101H to become Laptopmag’s best of CES netbook. The question is though, how much will the Viliv S10 cost in fully stacked form?

The S10 is a device I’m watching carefully though and if it turns out to be significantly faster and more usable than the Gigabyte Touchnote i’m using right now, it might be my next laptop.

Viliv tell me that it should launch very soon in South Korea with a follow-up launch in the US in Feb. Full pricing details are still unknown.

Here’s a video I made at CES that demonstrates the multi-touch capabilities. I’m still not convinced that multi-touch screen is better than multi-touch mouse pad but i’ll have to test it out in tablet mode when we get one for testing here in the next few weeks.

Viliv S10 Specifications and links in the product database.

We’ve seen several Viliv S10 [Portal page] units in the past [gallery], but it looks like the retail version was on display at CES this year. Naturally, jkk got his hands on the device and has a video of a brief rundown and some quick impressions on the unit (also don’t miss his video with the Viliv N5). This is one of the first netbooks I’ve seen that has a capacitive multitouch screen which should offer improved touchscreen consistency than we’re used to with most large touchscreens. Still no word on pricing or availability but the best we can hope for is soon. Without ION, it feels like Viliv has missed the optimal time to bring this great looking convertible to market — if they don’t hurry up they might not have a chance to capitalize on what could have been a significant device for Viliv.  Jump over to jkk’s site to check out the video.

You may have seen the Kohjinsha dual screen netbook concept floating around the web recently, but apparently they are actually going to be putting this thing on the market. The unit will go on sale as the Kohjinsha DZ, and at first I saw this unit as novel, but after seeing it function on video I realize that this could really be useful for some people out there.

Maybe I just missed it before, but this thing is also a convertible, and while it doesn’t have a touchscreen, the screen will still spin around like you’d expect. See toward the end of this promotional video from Kohjinsha’s site.
Looks like the DZ will be running Windows 7 Home Premium, an AMD Athlon Neo CPU, 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and have BT/WiFi.

If I was shopping for a new netbook for blogging, I’d seriously consider the Kohjinsha DZ. If you’ve ever had to write a paper while referencing other sources on a single screen, you know it can be a major pain to flip back and forth between the two. I’ve got a dual monitor setup at home, but if you need this same functionality on-the-go, the DZ can actually provide that in a netbook sized package. Have a look at the impressively designed DZ screen below. There are no goofy steps to go through, just slide and you are ready to work.

The only issue is that you are getting a unique feature, and you are going to have to pay for it. The Kohjinsha DZ will apparently be sold in Japan starting December 11th for ¥79,800 which is aprox. $925 or €617. Hopefully we’ll see some importers pick this one up to make it easy to purchase in the US and abroad.

via Liliputing and Netbooked

Over the last 6 months or so, Viliv has created a near rebirth of the UMPC, stunning a good number of people with the highly regarded S5 and X70. Not to long after, they brought the Viliv S7, their first device with a keyboard. I wrote an article back in July titled: The Viliv S7’s biggest challenge: the keyboard. After having a chance to review the S7 for myself, I found the keyboard to be the most disappointing part of the S7. At the same time however the S7 made me very excited for Viliv’s upcoming 10″ version, the S10.

What we’ve see so far from the S10 has shown it to be a very attractive device. If the S10 has the footprint to offer a good typing experience, and still delivers the good points of the S7, I feel that the S10 could break through and become a serious netbook competitor which will put the name Viliv in front of a large new audience that they haven’t yet had access to.

The keyboard forecast on the S10 is looking really good so far. From early pictures that Chippy shot of the unit at IDF 09 I can see that the S10’s footprint gave Viliv enough room to fix every single issue that I noted in my S7 review. They fixed the tiny right shift key by dropping the arrow keys down and providing enough space for a full right shift key. They fixed the F11 and F12 keys being bound to F9 and F10 as the extra width provided room for these keys to be in their own dedicated space. They also put the tilde key back where it needs to go, which aligns the number row correctly, and fixed other things like odd punctuation placement and backward Fn/ctrl keys.

But netbooks as of late have offered rather good typing experiences, so presuming that the S10’s keyboard can match these, how does the S10 stand a chance of competing against already established brands? The answer to this lies in the S10’s battery life, convertibility, and high res screen.

The S7 had hugely impressive battery life, running for almost 6 hours at 100% CPU usage, 100% brightness, and WiFi+BT turned on. This means that the S7 should run for around 8 hours with regular usage. Incredibly fast standby times allow one to extend the battery life of the S7 to great lengths. If the S10 can offer the same speedy standby and huge battery life, it’ll beat out most existing netbooks and would be great for a thin, light weight, ‘all day’ computing experience. Viliv is currently quoting the S10 as having 10 hours of battery, and given Viliv’s previous battery life claims I would say this is fairly accurate, and within an hour of realistic usage.

The S10 isn’t 100% official yet, but the one that Chippy looked at in an IDF 09 video hands-on had a 1366×768 resolution screen, which again beats out most of the netbook contenders. Then there is the flexibility that the touchscreen and convertible aspect offer. The majority of netbooks out there today aren’t touchscreen equipped and definitely aren’t convertible. This fact alone puts the S10 in direct competition with devices like the Gigabyte TouchNote [Portal page] and Asus Eee T91 [Portal page].

If the S10 can be competitive in the netbook field and stand its ground against the existing convertible options, I think that it could have a big impact on Viliv as a company – getting the company into the eyes of a much broader range than they’ve been used to because previously they’ve been dealing in a rather niche market, and for UMPC fans out there — some of that additional market may flow through Viliv to their other devices, and introduce new people to the world of UMPCs.

Of course it will all really depend on the price that Viliv picks for the S10. Hopefully it’ll hit low enough to compete with netbooks and will create choice and competition for consumers, while being an impressive debut product for Viliv’s foray into the netbook space. Most of the other players will have some serious catching up to do if the S10 jumps onto the scene with a reasonable price, 10 hour battery life, great keyboard, high-res screen and convertible form factor to boot!

Apparently white is not a girl’s colour. At least that’s what my wife and daughter tell me. “Blue or Red would be better. This is just going to get dirty.” Hmm, since when did women think about practicalities?

Despite that, I’ve managed to convince my wife to take on the S7 as a personal mobile computer. She works in the health and fitness industry and is often out and about at customer premises using Windows-based measurement and analysis software so she’s agreed that it would actually be quite cool to turn up with this.

I’ll be setting her up with a 3G SIM card and all the software she needs and she’s promised to report back in early October.

I’ll still be doing a full review of the S7 but as I’ll be away in IDF next week, expect that in early October too. Hands-on and first impressions thoughts coming before the end of the week. Don’t forget that the three-J’s are also testing the S7. That’s JKK, Jenn and James

Viliv S7 information and specifications here.