I had hoped to get a big big updated version of the mobile computing guide out before the end of 2009 but time was definitely not on my side. I’ve done a lot of work on it but it’s going to take many more hours before it’s finished. In the meantime, the late 2008 version is still available as a re-flowable PDF and is still worth reading if you’re thinking about buying a mobile computer, tablet, MID or other mobile computing device this year.

Click on the image to download the free 28-page PDF.

If you want to view it online, use the links below.

Part One: ‘What is an Ultra Mobile PC.’ We give you a history of Ultra Mobile computing, show you how the devices break down into segments and show you what each segment is capable of.

Part Two: ‘Details and Choices.’ It covers the form factors, the keyboard, storage, the screen and connectivity elements of an Ultra Mobile PC. You’ll find a good overview and a lot of tips that will help you refine your choice.

Part Three ‘Details and Choices continued‘ continues the details about the components and covers CPU (including a detailed overview of the currently available solutions) GPU, memory, battery, weight and cost.

Part Four: ‘Additional Information and further reading.‘ In this section we cover some of the less commonly found features on Ultra Mobile computers and give you information and links to further reading resources.

If you find the buyers guide useful, think about donating. It all goes back into making UMPCPortal a better place.

An interesting question, posed by Mark Spoonauer of Laptop Mag, about three different types of devices that companies are attempting to push to mainstream. Spoonauer put together a concise chart demonstrating the differences between these devices, and some predictions about the chances of success for each category. I’d add my own predictions for the future of these categories here, but I think Spoonauer has done a nice job and my thoughts mirror his own pretty closely. Check out his article here, it’s a brief but good read.

For the majority of the chart, the MID is treated like a smartphone without the phone capability, but at the bottom, he does mention that MIDs are becoming smartphones, which is more in line with the way I see things happening. He only gives MIDs a 20% chance of success, but I’m assuming that this is without the assumption that MIDs and smartphones will be synonymous soon.

via jkOnTheRun

Meet:Mobility Podcast 41 is now available. Recorded on 1st Feb 2010, JKK, Sascha and Chippy talk around the iPad and other mobile computing news including the Aspire ONE 532H, Archos 7, Dell Mini5, iPad, ExoPC, NetbookNavigator, Firefox for N900 and Adobe Flash.
Detailed show notes below.

SUBSCRIBE:
You can also find the podcast on iTunes (Please rate the show on iTunes.) You can also subscribe via RSS.

Full show notes available at Meet:Mobility.

Updated: 14th Jan 2010

Updated: 18th Jan 2010 (added ARM slide)

Updated: 28 Jan 2010 (added possible Apple licensee (for A4 processor) information.

The ecosystem around ARM, its designs and licensee products can be difficult to understand so I’ve been researching the current status and have summarized the important products, brands and technologies in the article below. You’ll find details on all the important keywords and technologies, links to all the important CPUs and platforms, a reading list and some ‘tip’s’ for CES2010 which starts this week. All the information is based on my own knowledge and research so if you spot any errors, please be sure to let us all know in the comments. I know there are some CPU designers and ARM partners reading this site so again, if there’s anything that needs changing or adding, please help us all by adding a comment below.

Overview of processor architectures in current ARM products

For the purposes of this article I’m ignoring anything other than ARM v7 architecture CPUs. In my opinion and experience the previous (ARMv6, ARMv5) designs don’t provide the processing power needed for the quality web experience expected in  MIDs. Note: Tegra (current version 2009) is an ARM11 multi-core CPU  implementation based on ARMv6 architecture. I expect Nvidia to move to ARMv7 in their next Tegra product.

ARM v7 is a CPU architecture, not a CPU.

ARM V7 is a processor architecture. It’s a design that belongs to ARM and it can be used to build CPUs that can process around 2 Dhrystone MIPS/Mhz. (Wikipedia – Dhrystone) That’s about 2000 DMIPs/Ghz which is not far from the processing power achieved by simple, non-hyperthreading Intel Atom cores also used in MIDs. DMIPs processor performance is not the only measurement of device speed but it’s a good starting point and is relevant to web rendering and web applications.

Processing power

In general, the architecture is being used to make CPUs and platforms running at between 600-1000Mhz (about 1200-2000 DMIPs) although there is one known implementation that has been tested at over 2Ghz. Power consumption per core is said to be around 300mw per 2000DMIPs using the latest manufacturing processes although this figure can vary greatly depending on implementation.

Remember that the CPU core takes only a small percentage of the power drain in a working device where the total in-use power budget including screen lighting, radios, audio, gpu, storage and DC components can span from 2W to 10W. (Texas instruments thinks that a 1W MID is possible though)

In comparison with the Intel Atom CPU the ARM v7 architecture can be used to make CPUs that consume about 1/3 – 1/5th of the power of an Intel Atom CPU for the same DMIPs computing power.

ARMv7 can also be used to make multi-core CPUs where up to 4 cores can be used to provide over 8000 DMIPS of computing power. (Assuming the software is built to handle multi-processing hardware)

(Further note: All these figures based on research, marketing figures, experience, testing and technical documents that I have read during this research.)

ARM does not manufacture CPUs.

The architecture created by ARM is used to do two things:

• The architecture is used by ARM themselves to make a complete processor implementation which may include other ARM property. The CPU implementation is then licensed out to third parties who can either mass produce the CPU or build and manufacture complete computing platforms including graphics, sound, power, memory, etc. One example is the Ti OMAP 3 and 4-series platforms.
• The architecture gets licensed out to third parties who make their own processors and platforms based on it. One example is the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform.

ARM have a number of processors that they’ve built using ARMv7 architecture and all fall under the ‘Cortex’ brand. There are real-time and highly embedded versions but the ‘A’ versions are the ones that interesting for general mobile computing tasks. ARM have three versions of the CPU. The A8 (currently in products), A9 (high end, multi-core capable due in products in 2010) and A5 (small, low-cost, due in products in late 2010) versions

Licensees.

When final products are completed by licensees you will often see them marketed under different brands. This is where it gets very confusing so I’ve listed most of the main players below along with notes and links to their various products and brands. Note that some ARM licensees are not made public and therefore no information is available.

ARM Cortex A8

ARM has 9 licencees. 8 are public.

Cortex A8 Product brief (PDF)

Licensee notes.

• Ti OMAP 3 platforms 34xx 35xx 36xx  using Cortex A8 CPU core up to 800Mhz. Used in Nokia N900, Archos 5 devices for example.
• Freescale iMX5 family of CPUs based on Cortex A8. Use in the Sharp Netwalker for example. iMX515 is focused at mobile internet and includes graphics co-processing.
• Samsung. S5PC100 application processor includes the Cortex A8 CPU core (E.g. Odroid)
• Samsung / Intrinsity – Hummingbird A very specific implementation of the Cortex Core using a tightly defined manufacturing process.
• Zii Labs ZMS08 Core of the ‘stem cell’ computing platform. (Q1 2010 volume shipment) 1Ghz implementation.
• Matsushita (Panasonic) Details unknown.
• PMC-Sierra (storage, switching, routing solutions) Details unknown.

Cortex A9 (Multi-core capable)

Cortex A9 Product information (PDF)

ARM has 9 licencees. 6 are public.

Licensee notes.

• Ti OMAP Dual-core 44xx platform. Full production expected 2H 2010.
• ST Electronics Cortex A8 licensee (set top boxes)
• St Ericsson – U8500 Dual Cortex A9/HSPA Modem platform. (Note Nokia and Symbian will be using this and it includes a Mali GPU and 1080p recording capability)
• Broadcom (ARM news. No products announced yet.)
• Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual-core
• NEC Electronics. No information available.
• Update: 28 Jan 2010. It appears that Apple may have licensed Cortex A9 for the iPad A4 CPU. (Source)

Cortex A9 MPCore Hard Macro – 2Ghz implementation of Cortex A9 using specific TSMC silicon manufacturing process.

Cortex A5

Cortex A5 is a multi-core, low cost ARM V7 implementation previously known as Sparrow.

Link to ARM information

No known implementations at present.

Other ARM v7 implementations:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon platform (QSD8×50) uses single core CPU (Scorpion) based on ARMv7 architecture.
• Qualcomm QSD8672 dual core platform at up to 1.5Ghz.
• Marvell Armada 500 / 510 platform (PDF product brief) Up to 1.2Ghz

Notes for CES 2010 (UPDATED)

Key platform announcements to watch out for at CES 2010. Expect demonstrator products planned for 2H 2010. (All Cortex A9)

• Nvidia Tegra 2 – Announced.
• Ti OMAP 44xx – No news.
• St Ericsson U8500 – Demonstrated by Movial on a set top box.

Expected in MIDs and smartbooks shipping in 1H 2010 on the following platforms. (Single core ARmv7 and Cortex A8 implementations.)

• Freescale iMX5
• Ti OMAP 3
• Qualcomm Snapdragon
• Nvidia Tegra
• Zii Labs ZMS08

Product rumors / expectations: CES 2010.

• Mobinova Elan / N910 on Nvidia Tegra
• ICD Ultra on Tegra 2
• Google Nexus One smartphone on Snapdragon
• ASUS Eee Pad
• Qualcomm Snapdragon-based products
• Freescale netbook and MID
• Lennovo Skylight
• ARM talks about 20 manufacturers in Q1 2010.
• Notion Ink Tablet on Nvidia Tegra ‘T20’ (unknown Nvidia product)
• Archos Smartphone with 4” screen on Ti OMAP 3 platform
• C-Motech Mangrove Windows Mobile Tablet on Snapdragon
• Freescale smartbook tablet reference platform.
• Dell Streak rumor.
• MSI Tegra-powered dual-screen E-book
• Inbrics MID
• Smits 7″ Android MID

Further reading:

• Wikipedia ARM Architecture
• ARM Tech conference: Techcon3 (and virtual classroom)
• ARM ‘Smart Mobile Devices’ blog.
• Bob Morris on the values of an ARM-based netbook.
• Katie Morgan – Roundup of ARM related news from Computex June 2009
• Texas Instruments – OMAP and MIDs Whitepaper. (PDF)
• Texas Instruments blog – Mobile Momentum.
• UMPCPortal articles mentioning ARM processors
• Independent blog: ARMDevices.net
• Independent blog: ARM News
• Independant blog: Carrypad (consumer products)
• Eric Shorn (VP ARM Processor Marketing) Blog.
• Twitter: ARM Community
• Twitter list: Alban Rampon ARM-Related.
• Podcast: MeetMobility

Update: ARM presentation at CES.

I had a chat with ARM at CES and they followed up by sending me a PDF. Here’s one slide from that PDF that is directly relevant here. It lists ‘candidate’ platforms for Mobile Computing. We listed all of these platforms above but it’s good to know what ARM sees at potential platforms.

Click to Enlarge.

Note to PR agencies for ARM ecosystem partners. Put one twitter/web address in the comments and we’ll add it to the further reading list.

If you find the information useful for your work, please consider a small donation to help us continue the work. UMPCPortal is independent and funded purely through donations and advertising revenue.  Many thanks

Customers and bloggers spend a lot of time feeding back what they think about UMPCs and MIDs. Wouldn’t it be great if the same happened from the other direction? I mean it’s a given that everyone in the smartphone and netbook business should be buying up a few MIDs and UMPCs so that they can analyse the designs, scenarios and potential. Right? If Apple haven’t got a lab full of UMPCs and MIDs then I’ll eat my motherboard!

One company that is now providing feedback and that should be praised for their openness is AMD. Patrick Moorhead, VP and member of the ‘Office of Strategy’ of AMD has just kicked off an 8-part blog series called “Will MIDs and UMPCs Inherit the Earth?” It started yesterday with an introduction (and a hat-tip for myself and our podcast partner over at Meet:Mobility, Sascha. Thx Patrick!) and will go on to present general thoughts on MIDs and hands-on feedback with 4 mobile and handheld devices. The UMID M1, Viliv S5, Viliv X70 EX and Archos 5 Internet Tablet.

In Part 2 today we’ll get a feel for Patrick’s thoughts . Let’s hope that they are positive and influence AMD to take some of that cash and re-build the momentum that was lost when the Geode project was put to one side. AMD have publicly said that there isn’t a successor to Geode but maybe the Bobcat and Brazos projects gives us some clues. How about a gaming-focused UMPC?

One of the big questions for me is ‘What Operating System’?’

Stay tuned to Patrick’s blog here on the AMD website.

We mentioned the supposedly Android and Nvidia Tegra powered ‘Vega’ tablet a few weeks ago, and now it looks like Engadget has gotten their hands on a prototype. Jump over to their story to see the video.

The thing that will probably jump out to any of us is that the prototype is running Windows CE at the moment. It’s possible that this is just temporary while they build and fine tune the Android software that will be purportedly powering the device at launch, but I’m just hoping that they don’t rush the unit out the door with Windows CE and promise Android firmware at a later time. This would put them in some regards on the same unwanted level of the no-name MIDs I wrote about the other day (see the ‘Users as beta testers’ section). I’ve also got to mention that I’m not digging the resistive touchscreen.

At least the Tegra hardware ensures some pretty good performance. A movie playing at 1280×720 is demoed in the video and the device seems to handle it just fine. The ZuneHD might have the same Nvidia Tegra hardware, but it is too small to actually have a screen with an HD resolution, so on the Vega it is nice to see that HD decoding capability put to good use.

Wow… and I thought netbooks were boring…

Seems strange that we’ve been seeing quite a few MIDs lately, but not in the capacity in which they were expected. Intel is responsible for propagating the term MID and the initial plan was to couple these devices with the Atom platform to have pocketable web access ‘companion’ device that could also function as a media player and productivity tool. However this hasn’t quite come to fruition as the current Atom lineup just doesn’t lend itself to the type of device that people want in their pocket. Instead of X86 architecture running a full OS for two or three hours, the masses seem to want always-on all day devices. At this point, we’ve only seen that achieved with some combination of the ARM platform and a ‘mobile’ OS (Android etc.). Seems like we’ll need to wait on Moorestown to see Intel’s true vision of a MID.

Until then, we’ve seen a relatively small number of attempts from large companies to create MID devices. The Archos 5 Android Internet Tablet is a good example of a pretty well done MID, but at this point not many other big companies are following suit.

Filling the void seem to be a bunch of ‘no-name’ MIDs coming out of Asia from companies that I’ll wager most of us never knew existed. We should be happy that there are MIDs being made, right? Unfortunately there are several problems with these devices:

1. Inconsistent specs and info

As is the nature of these devices, it is hard to find solid and consistent translations of specs or convincingly official information about a given device. Maybe it’s our fault for trying to buy devices which are designed for the Asian market, but most of the time it seems that emails need to be sent to the manufacturers to determine exactly what the specs of the device are, what version of software they are running, included wireless radios and supports bands, etc. “Marketing” seems to only come in the form of YouTube videos showing off what seem to be perpetually early builds of these foreign devices.

2. Early-adopters as beta testers

Another frightening trend with no-name MID companies is their willingness to ship units ripe with bugs, or lacking features that were claimed. Several of the devices out there today mention “Android capable”, but ship with Windows CE instead, promising updates at later times. But how is a consumer to know whether or not these companies will follow up on those promises in a timely manner? Even if they do provide these updates, how many users really want to go through the process of a firmware upgrade? Is it too much to ask that these devices be released once they have been thoroughly tested and polished?

3. Availability

This is one of the most peculiar problems. Even if someone wants one of these devices, it is rarely clear whether they are yet on the market, or where to buy them. Best case scenario, you can pick up a device through a big name importer, which usually makes sure that these devices are in working order. But these random MIDs we’ve seen lately aren’t hitting the big name importers, they are often sold direct through the OEMs website and sometimes can only be purchased in bulk! One of the biggest roadblocks to actually owning one of these is deciding whether or not you trust the company to ship the MID to you after forking over your cash, the vast majority of consumers (and even of hardcore gadget gurus) aren’t going to be tracking these guys down and trying to ascertain a unit from overseas.

4. None of these devices are going mainstream

All of the points listed above lead to these devices staying random no-name MIDs. Even when one breaks out of no-name land and makes rounds on the web, like the SmartQ 7, all of the above issues prevent these units from being anything more than a geek toy. Which is really sad considering this is the state of the majority of MIDs that we see today.

For those of you paying attention to the segment, it seems like MIDs never really took off as Intel envisioned them, but they picked up an additional component, phone capability. Now we see devices like the HTC HD2 which could be considered a pretty good attempt at a MID, but we are still calling these devices smartphones. So maybe Asia hasn’t caught on that we’ve made the jump from standalone MIDs to MID + phone devices, or they just really like to cobble together generic slate devices running Windows CE – either way, these no-name MIDs that we’ve seen lately are doing nothing but giving a bad name to the term MID, and I’m really hoping that they aren’t a sign of things to come. Maybe if Dell would hurry up and show us a decent attempt with their rumored Streak MID, we could break out of this boring no-name MID era.

And just in case you were wondering, this article was inspired by this device as well as other random MIDs we’ve seen over the last few months.

The Viliv boys pointed out that Dynamism will be selling a limited edition* pink UMID M1 [Portal page]. Though the UIMD M2 is due out sometime soon — I guess the more colors, the better!The pink UMID M1 is $50 less ($449) than the black low-end UMID M1 that Dynamism sells. Unfortunately no, they aren’t giving you $50 off just because its pink… the pink one has a slightly slower CPU – the Atom Z515 at 1.2GHz (vs. 1.3GHz for the low-end black model, or 1.33GHz on the high-end black model). Everything else, however, is the same as on the low-end black model: 8GB SSD, 512MB of RAM, and Windows XP. From the images it is a bit tough to tell exactly how glossy or matte the pink version is, but it appears to be more on the matte side of the spectrum, similar to the black one that I looked at.

*Dynamism has the pink M1 down as “limited edition”, but it isn’t exactly clear whether it is the pink M1 itself which is limited, or the deal currently running that includes a free pink pouch and 4GB MicroSD card.

What a hectic few hours!  I’ve had DHL at the door with the Archos 5 Mini Dock, a tweet from Pocketables alerting me that the new firmware is available and the whole lot has been captured in a video. I’ll say no more than this:

• Mini-dock = Bargain!
• YouTube HD on TV = Fantastic!
• IR RF keyboard and mouse = Total TV laziness.
• Mini keyboard and mouse = Mini ‘Web’ PC under 500gm and 300 Euro!

It looks like some hard drives with no external power won’t work but I tested a few USB SD-card adaptors and it worked fine. Questions remain over 3G sticks.

As for the firmware, there are a lot of improvements. Check the updates page for details.

More images in the gallery.

More information about the Archos 5 Internet Tablet here.

Update: TV interference is purely due to trying to record a CRT. For a better look at TV-out put using an HDMI dock, Check out Charbax’s video here.

Help your UMPCPortal! Buy the Archos 5 Mini-Dock through our affiliates.

• ARCHOS Mini Dock für ARCHOS 5 / 5g und ARCHOS 7
• Archos Germany ordering page for 8GB (not in stock – see selection boxes on page.)
• ARCHOS Mini Dock for ARCHOS 5 & ARCHOS 7
• Mini Dock at Amazon US (Not available at present)

It would appear as though the SmartQ 7 [Portal page] which Chippy checked out for a while is getting a little refresh. This site shows what seems to be called the ‘SmartQ V7 HDMID’ which is actually sort of clever as the V7 has an HDMI port and is a MID! Beyond the HDMI port, the V7 triple boots into your choice of OS – Android, Ubuntu, or Win CE, and has some under-the-hood adjustments.

The case of the V7 looks to be exactly the same as the SmartQ 7 but it looks like the V7 has some slight technical upgrades inside. Update: Peter in the comments linked us to some more detailed into on the SmartQ V7. The CPU is indeed different. The V7 is using (according to info Peter has found) the Telechips TCC8900 Arm 11 CPU, which may be running as reported, at 600MHz. There is also some hardware acceleration which will hopefully allow the V7 to push 1080P content out the HDMI port. According to the source site, the V7 has a 600MHz Arm 11 CPU, but this is probably actually the same 667MHz CPU in the Smart Q7, (we’ll let those extra 67MHz slide for now). Same CPU maybe, but The V7 seems to be rocking out twice the RAM as the original (128MB vs. 256MB) and the RAM is three times as fast too. The original was DDR @ 133MHz and while the V7’s is DDR2 @ 330MHz. The V7 is also has double the internal storage which goes up to 2GB (and an SD slot capable of up to 32GB) from the SmartQ 7’s 1GB. No word yet on availability, or if the V7 will actually be able to handle pushing HD video through that HDMI port, but we can always hope, and if so, this makes the V7 a more attractive mobile HD theater than even the Zune HD – for me anyway!

Jump to the site for a few more images of the SmartQ V7.

Thanks to Adam for sending this in!

Sumocat asked the question a few days ago and now Steve Litchfield brings up the same. It’s the question of one or two handed usage. I’ve been talking about it too because the N900 taught me an important lesson. I don’t like smartphones that need two hands. It goes against my main usage scenario for a phone…

I’m quickly starting to struggle with the two-handed nature of the device. The phone and image viewer applications are working in portrait mode but the feature is missing from every other part of the software. A 2-handed phone restricts mobility and I won’t be able to use this as my one-and-only if it’s not fixed soon.

My issue was with the landscape scenario but the same problem occurs when you can’t reach 100% of a touchscreen with your thumb. It’s just about possible (although somewhat unbalanced) to thumb the whole area of a 3.5” screen but what about a 4.3” one?

I really like Steve Litchfield’s take on this issue…

…the fundamental division between ‘phone’ and ‘mobile computer’ comes as a result of looking at how the device is used. I suggest that if a device is used one-handed for more than 50% of the time then it can count as a ‘phone’. In other words, a device that can be used while hanging from a tube train strap, while walking along with a bag of shopping, while driving, and so on. The whole point about a smartphone is that it takes this basic definition and adds a super-powerful OS and add-on applications – often with a miniature qwerty keyboard as well. All while keeping the primarily one-handed use and yet allowing the possibility of two-handed use when needed – such as when composing an email or watching a video.

I advise reading the whole article but here’s another snippet….

If a device is used two-handed for most of its life then it’s not really a phone at all – I’d class it as a ‘mobile computer’ or ‘Mobile Internet Device’ (MID). For example, the Nokia N900 is used 98% of the time in landscape, two-handed mode, and only rotated to portrait and one-handed use to make a voice call. Consider also the HTC HD2 – at 4.3″, its screen is so huge that you can’t hold it in one hand and comfortably operate more than a fraction of its functions. So you end up operating it two-handed and, despite the portrait form factor, it ceases to become a phone per se.

Keep an eye on the comments on the AAS article as they are sure to be interesting. If you have an opinion, let us all know below. When is a smartphone, a MID? (or MIDPhone as I, probably annoyingly, keep calling them.)

The Boy Genius Report has their hands on a pre-production version of the Motorola Droid, and has a pretty thorough preview of the device which is running Android 2.0. Sounds like 2.0 brings some much desired improvements, and it’s good to hear that Verizon won’t be touching the Droid in terms of software. I still have nightmares of terrible proprietary Verizon interfaces locking down functions that a phone was supposed to supposed to support (cough*bluetooth*cough), though I still squirm a bit seeing that ugly Verizon branding.

I don’t find the phone itself to be too attractive, especially the keyboard, but with a huge, high resolution, capacitive touchscreen, the Droid looks like it’ll be a nice MIDphone, and certainly goes to show that smartphones are really heading in this direction.

What do the readers say? Would you prefer to have your MID separate from your phone, or have a nice MID that is also a phone?

It is just me or does it seem like Android is the hot thing right now? Motorola and Verizon have been teasing the internet for the last few days about their upcoming Droid phone which is powered by Android (of course). Well the joke is on them as the Droid page seemed to have accidentally popped up ahead of schedule and the folks over at the Boy Genius snagged screenshots of the pages before they had a chance to take it down. Check the Droid’s specs:

• Slider with physical keyboard
• Runs Android
• 3.7”, 16:9, 480 x 854 touchscreen
• 5MP camera with 4x zoom, autofocus, and dual LED flash
• 550MHz CPU
• Included 16GB Micro-SD card
• GPS
• Bluetooth and WiFi

There aren’t too many other details at this point, but with a faster CPU than most Android phones to date, and a 16:9 screen, the Droid is shaping up to be a nice MIDPhone. Engadget also has a video from the site showing the Droid in a 360 view, head over to check it out.

Sascha Pallenberg from netbooknews and our very own Chippy had a nice little debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the MID vs. the Netbook, and they also touch a bit on the Atom Developer Program which will cross both device groups.

Fennec is Mozilla’s mobile device browser. They have been working on it for some time. Last time I looked at Fennec on the VAIO UX, it was in beta 1. They’ve moved on to beta 3 now and I gave it a quick test on the Viliv S7:

If you’d like to give Fennec a try on your own device, you can download beta 3 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Windows Mobile, and Maemo (the WM version is still in Alpha 3).

Check out this cool video which shows just how easy it is to turn the Archos 5 into a capable terminal for remotely accessing full fledged computers:

Look at how simple the Bluetooth integration is. I didn’t know that Android would even provide a mouse cursor given a Bluetooth mouse — very cool. This is pretty impressive when you consider how small the entire kit is. It is also remarkably similar to the Archos 9 slim blogging kit that I’m planning, the difference being that the Archos 9 will be the full computer, and won’t need to remotely connect to anything!

One of the key focal-points of the N900, and one it does better than any other smartphone I’ve seen to date, is the browsing experience. Fast, reliable and supporting a full flash plugin on an 800×480 screen with finger-focused controls it tries to do what desktops do, in a fraction of the size.

Like other small-screen browsers it has the same screen real-estate issues where pixels don’t help. Fingers cover large areas of the screen when browsing. Top and bottom toolbars hide 30% of the content area and standard web fonts require a zoom to read and reduce the size of the effective window even further. Until we get to the stage where expandable screens become thin, cheap and reliable enough to design into a pocketable device, the issue will remain.

Given the constraints, Nokia, the Maemo teams and partners have done a good job. It will get better too as Fennec becomes available next year and includes features like slide-in/out toolbars, synchronization features and plugin support and then, in 2010, better again when Flash 10.1 is introduced and enables 3D and video playback improvements.

Here’s the situation today though. In the video you’ll see standard web sites, flash, javascript and embedded video working well.