As I come towards the end of the loan period for the Wibrain i1 HSDPA and Compal MID (Thanks Mobilx. Thanks Intel) it’s time to start thinking about what device(s) should replace them. The i1 has been extremely productive and enjoyable and the battery life was the best that I’ve ever experienced without using an extended battery. It will be hard, if not impossible with the devices on the market today, to replace it. The Compal Jax10 (3G) was the best browsing experience I’ve ever had in my pocket so that’s going to be tough to match too.
For the time being I’m not going to buy anything new and there’s two reasons for that. Number one is cash. There isn’t a lot in the UMPCPortal pot at the moment and with CeBIT just a month away, I need keep money locked-up for that. The second problem is knowing about devices that are coming up. Viliv S5, UMID M1 and the new Nokia Tablet are three devices that I really must know more about before I buy something and that information just isn’t available at the moment. I know many of you are in the same position. Frustrating isn’t it!
If you are looking for a great deal on a netbook that will be able to handle your basic computing tasks, take a look at the Acer Aspire One [Portal page] [review] which can be bought for $249. The Black Friday Aspire One comes with Linpus Lite (Linux), 8GB SSD storage, and 512MB of RAM.
If you want some serious mobile computing power in a tiny package, Dynamism has the Raon Everun Note [Portal page] [review] for $599. The Black Friday Everun Note is configured with an AMD Sempron 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, and Ubuntu Linux.
Want something hand-held? You can pick up a well equipped OQO 02 [Portal page] [review] for $1599. The Black Friday Special OQO 02 comes with a 1.6GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 1GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, and Windows XP Pro.
And last but not least, there is an Asus Eee PC 900 [Portal page] for $299. The Black Friday configuration of this computer has the Intel Celeron 900MHz CPU, 12GB SSD, 1GB of RAM and Windows XP.
Check out the rest of the Black Friday Specials page for deals on other products as well. Again, these deals will only last until Sunday or possibly sooner if stock runs out, don’t let this one slip by.
You might have heard about the Everun Note. Its currently the most powerful sub-800gm laptop around due to its dual-core 1.2Ghz AMD Turion X2 and an ATI R690 graphics solution. When it’s running at full steam, it’s impressive!
Raon have now released two new versions that sit either side of the original and both include an SSD for improved speed, noise and ruggedness characteristics. We’ve had both of them here for a week or so now so here’s a rundown of the features and some notes that we want to highlight.
After getting the WiFi working, I spent a few hours tweaking Gnome to have bigger fonts, larger scrollbars, a better toolbar, sub-pixel smoothing and installed a few packages. In my quest for some widgets, I stumbled across Screenlets. You’ve probably seen and heard of widgets before as they appear on many other platforms and through the website screenlets.org, you can get access to hundreds of them. You can even convert Google and SpringWidgets which makes it very flexible. They look good, perform well and there are two features that make them extra useful on touchscreens. 1) You can lock them to the screen which prevents them moving around like screen shortcuts. 2) They have a scaling feature. Here’s a screen set-up I have on the 1024×600 Everun Note at the moment.
For those of you who love the Everun Note for its power and portability, you may be looking for a way to extend the battery life of the little powerhouse. Now you can, thanks to the external battery pack charger that is now available from Moblix. The external charger does more than simply charge a secondary battery, it also functions as an external case for your battery. Keep your secondary battery in the external charger and plug it directly into the Everun Note’s A/C adapter to keep your Note running without having to swap the battery. What’s more, the external battery charger also adds an ethernet port to the Note. What more could you ask for in an external charger?
Raon Digital will offer two new variants of the Everun Note UMPC that we tested last month. The two models will be SSD-based and will come as high-end and low-end alternatives to the existing HDD-based model, the D60H. The low-end device (S16S) will offer Ubuntu Mobile and a 12GB MLC SSD with the CPU swapped out for a Sempron CPU running at 1.2Ghz. The high-end model (D24S) will retain Windows XP and the Dual-Core Turion but will come with a 24GB split SSD with 8GB of Fast SLC and 16GB of standard MLC flash memory. Prices aren’t available at resellers yet but we’re told that Raon are aiming for a $659 pre-tax retail price on the low-end model when it becomes available in mid-November and $950 pre-tax price on the high-end model which is already available for ordering by resellers.
Taking away one of the stand-out features of the Everun Note, the processing power, in order to lower the price is a questionable move but you’re still left with an extremely small use-anywhere ultra mobile touchscreen PC at a reasonable price. As for the D24S, you’re getting a faster version of one of the fastest UMPCs out there. Need we say more, apart from ‘where’s the built-in 3G Raon?’
Hi Chippy. i want to know, after you fried the Everun Note. What is your final thought of it? Is it worth buying and for the price mark of $900? Would you buy one yourself?
Yes, I fried the Everun note by plugging in the wrong power cable. Luckily I had two good weeks of solid testing with it as my personal UMPC before I killed it. Here’s my personal (PERSONAL!) thoughts on it right now.
I am impressed and excited by the Everun Note. It proves that independent manufacturers, free of marketing restraints, can create a device far more powerful than we’re seeing on the market today. If this had an easy docking solution, it would make a very very useful hot-desk / UMPC solution. Even without it, you can do things that just aren’t possible on other devices. Its a reliable power-house.
After using the Note though, I’ve learnt that I don’t need a lot of processing power. I used the device in power saving mode nearly 100% of the time. Why? Because I was always mobile with it and battery life was more important than processing power to me. The second thing that I need is connectivity. Without 3G, a device is useless in mobile situations. With tethering, a device is useful. With a built-in factory fitted reliable and high quality 3G solution, a device is good enough to rely on for productivity work. This is why I’m currently carrying round an old Samsung Q1b. 1.0Ghz 800×480 UMPC. It has long battery life and an excellent built-in 3G solution. So the answer is, no. I won’t be buying a Raon Digital Everun Note until I can see a min 3hr battery life (4-6 with an extended battery) and a good quality 3G solution.
The Everun Note is an awesome little device. Great keyboard, stylish, useful in almost every situation you might yourself in but not quite meeting my personal criteria.
Are we entering a new era of mobile computing where the UMPC could be the only computer you ever need? The processing module you can take anywhere? Raon Digital are breaking into exactly that category of converged mobile devices with the new and interesting Everun Note. Here at UMPCPortal we’ve been lucky enough to get hold of one of the first samples out of the door for some long term testing but after 4 days of hard but enjoyable testing, were ready to bring you the full review.
While I continue to work on (read: enjoy!) completing the full review of the Raon Digital Everun Note, you can enjoy some of the images that I’ve dropped into the gallery.
Creating content couldn’t be simpler. I just had 20 minutes between tasks here so i decided to transmit and record a little video directly on the Everun Note. This whole post has been done while standing up too!
Its here. Its small. Its powerful and it, according to my daughter, looks like a Nintendo DS for Daddys! Its the Raon Digital Everun Note that arrived just a few hours ago.
I’m currently setting up for the live session and so far everything is going smoothly. I’ve already run a 7.5mbps WMV HD video, played Unreal Tournament, Skyped and am currently running 3DMark2001. THis little bad boy can really push the bits around! The only thing I’ve found disappointing so far is the optical mouse pointer which doesn’t seem to be working well. Its could be a broken one as the one I have on the original Everun is much nicer. Its not as bad as it sounds as the touchscreen is just wonderful! Anyway, all will be revealed later and in future posts!
If you’re following the Raon Digital Everun Note (due here in a matter of hours now) then you’ll be aware that there’s an external battery charger/pack and, although this isn’t yet confirmed, a large capacity external battery pack. Mobile users are going to want something a bit more portable than that though so here’s what Raon Digital have come up with. Its a large-capacity internal battery with 45% more juice. It comes with 4 new feet to provide the necessary clearance but from the images below, you can see it only adds 2-3mm extra thickness. If Raon’s battery life figures of 2-3hrs are to believed, the extended battery will take you into the 3-4 hours range. You’ll also have the standard battery as a spare when you buy this so in effect, you end up with a potential 7-hours in under 900gms and total mobile flexibility. Don’t expect the battery to be cheap as, like the rest of this device, it’s pushing the envelope on miniaturization but at least the option is there for those that need it. Planned for shipping in October.
Its these little features that make mobile computing so much easier. External battery chargers, flexible CPU and GPU configurations, desktop-quality processing power. Unlike some of the UMPCs of the past, the Everun Note looks like it could work out well as a 2-3 year investment.
Live session with the Raon Everun Note is planned for 2100 CET (GMT+2) start time here at UMPCPortal/live although the cam is likely to be on while I do the unboxing video so I’ll keep an eye on the chat session there and try and answer questions as I go along.
Following on from yesterdays shockingly popular (read: Almost took my site out at one point) post about the Everun Note, I’ve got some new information pertaining to availability and have a copy of the manual that exposes some good information.
The first shipments should go out on Sept 19th with resellers being able to get them to customers the following week. 4-weeks to wait if you’re interested in this one. I have only heard from one reseller so far (Mobilx) but I’m sure there will be others. [Resellers. If you're going to stock this, I'll be happy to relay the information in the official Raon Digital forum we have here.]
I’ve also got a copy of the manual which I’m not going to post just yet as I haven’t been able to check if its final but there are a few interesting items in it that I will air. The first thing that caught my eye was some information about how to use Avivo which is ATI’s hardware accelerated video engine. They include a video conversion tool which I assume just uses the hardware-accelerated decoding features of the GPU but this is something I had not considered before, its got hardware video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV. Its good and bad news because it means that video performance will be top-notch [Raon provide details of how to enable the hardware encoding in KMPlayer] but it means that any battery life figures for video playback might not have any relevance to browsing use. Its a shame there’s no HDMI output on the Everun Note as this is going be one amazing PMP. [article continues...]
“This new machine from Raon Digital is designed for power users like you, not for children.”
So say Raon Digital’s marketing people via the sales brochure I just received for their new dual-core AMD-Turion based Everun Note . There’s nothing new in the brochure apart from new images showing the underside of the device (memory, disk and PCI-express mini accessible) and a revised weight (down to 748gm)
This balance of leading-edge power, battery life and miniaturisation doesn’t come cheap but in the world of pro-mo devices, this is really on-the-mark. The recommended sales price is $879 (US, before tax.) which means its way, way cheaper than the other high-performance UMPCs, the Sony UX and the Q1 Ultra Premium and it includes a 16mm pitch keyboard and easy 3G upgrade path. With Windows XP Home (yes, I know some of you would be looking for TE or Vista) it will really fly.
They are definitely targeting the pro-mo set and what better place to be sending a product sample than to Chippy at UMPCPortal. Yes, there’s one in the post and as I said before, when it arrives, you can expect a very long live session with it!
So what do you think of the price/feature balance? End users will be paying over $900 including tax and postage so it’s not cheap. Many of you will question why someone needs anything other than an Eee PC 901, why its been given a touchscreen and why there’s no mousepad (its an optical mouse) and you’d be correct in assuming that most people won’t be able to justify the cost of this but there are a great many people that need the power and are happy to pay for a 30% weight reduction, a 50% reduction in total volume and nearly double the raw processing power. Does it resonate with you?
Before I get all excited, I better say up front that the info here is mostly from Raon Digitals marketing group. That said…WOW! The Everun Note could be the most powerful UMPC yet.
Raon have sent over some early marketing material for the Everun Note and there’s a whole lot of interesting information in it. The most interesting is a set of Crystal Mark test results that are showing stunning processing performances figures that are way faster than anything on the UMPC and netbook market. It blows the 1.3Ghz Core-based Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium out of the water and netbooks are going to look extremely slow beside it! (more after the pic…)
As I come towards the end of the loan period for the Wibrain i1 HSDPA and Compal MID (Thanks Mobilx. Thanks Intel) it’s time to start thinking about what device(s) should replace them. The i1 has been extremely productive and enjoyable and the battery life was the best that I’ve ever experienced without using an extended battery. It will be hard, if not impossible with the devices on the market today, to replace it. The Compal Jax10 (3G) was the best browsing experience I’ve ever had in my pocket so that’s going to be tough to match too.
