The CommunicAsia expo is happening in Singapore right now and Samsung have taken the opportunity to show off a previously ‘leaked’ product, the Omnia Pro B7610.
Like the HTC Touch Pro 2, it’s got a slider keyboard, an 800×480 screen and Windows Mobile. it’s got a 5mp camera and an 800Mhz CPU. 800Mhz sounds quite hefty but the CPU architecture details aren’t known yet so don’t get too excited about this being the ultimate pocketable browsing device.
It’s said to ship with WM6.1 but Samsung have promised an upgrade to WM6.5 which should keep this device current for a good year or more. While some of you might not like Windows Mobile, I still find it a productive and relatively open environment with a great software ecosystem. It should also be capable of running Opera Mobile 9.7 too which is one of the most advanced mobile browsers out there.
One more thing. The screen is a 3.5” AMOLED type which will provide great indoor color saturation but may not be the best choice for outdoor use. Expect a release in Q3 or even Q4 and keep your fingers crossed for 720p recording and the high-end processor that could make Opera Mobile a truly slick mobile browser experience.
This is not a UMPC but could make a nice Portable or CarPC. The FitPC has been upgraded to use an Intel Atom 1.1 or 1.6 Z-series CPU so if you load up XP and plug in the USB Powered (apparently) Samsung frame/mini monitor you’ve got quite a cheap modular PC. Quite a cute solution for around $400.
I was recently on a trip which took me on one of those big coach buses. A friend inquired to me as to whether the bus driver was using GPS or if he just knew where he was going. I assumed that he’d be using some sort of GPS, but I wasn’t expecting that he’d be using a popular UMPC at the center of his navigation solution. It was interesting to see a Samsung Q1 Ultra [Portal page] in the wild, and apparently being used quite effectively. I was able to snap two quick images with my iPhone; sorry about the quality, the lighting was not in a favorable position.
The bus driver was an older man who looked to me nearing or into his 60’s. I wasn’t sure if the Q1U based navigation system was devised by him or supplied by the bus company. Again to my surprise, the system was set up by the bus driver himself. I suppose the old “book by its cover…” adage is suitable here. I exchanged just a few quick words with the driver about the setup. I wasn’t able to capture all of it, but it sounded like he was using some pretty powerful industry navigation software to map routes effectively. I believe he was using a Bluetooth GPS unit to obtain nav data, and I saw an AT&T branded unit which I’m assuming provided 3G data, but it looked a bit old and could have been EDGE only.
Nearly every part of the setup was mounted right on the windshield, it was pretty cool. The Q1U looked to be using a suction mount designed specifically for it. There was a DIY looking sunshade to block direct sunlight and make sure that the screen stayed readable. The sunshade looks to consist of two separate pieces and be resourcefully held together with velcro, which I would imagine makes it easy to break the setup down and pack it away. On top of the sunshade was a USB hub which provided four USB slots, in one of them a USB memory stick was plugged in. The GPS unit and AT&T data unit were both mounted to the windshield as well.
Pretty cool to see this nice navigation setup. I imagine that the driver is able to do much more than similar drivers who are using simple consumer GPS units.
Is anyone else out there using a UMPC for their in-car navigation needs?
The Samsung Q1EX is due to head on to its next review appointment so it’s time for me to round-up my coverage of it by giving you some performance test results and an overview. It should at least give a reference point for future VIA Nano-based products and an idea of where this device fits in. It’s a difficult device to position but when compared with peer devices, it offers improvements all round at a good value price.
Overall performance levels as measured by CrystalMark are in the netbook class which is good for a UMPC. I saw CPU results coming in at what I’d normally expect from a 1.3Ghz Atom Z-series CPU but similar clock-for-clock results when compared to, say, the older Pentium-M. It’s nearly twice as powerful as the VIA C7 at the same clock speed according to the results. The summary is shown below and the details can be seen here.
The Omnia HD is something that all MID fans should be taking a close look at. It highlights how close the ARM-based platforms are to Intel’s MID platforms. In fact, in many ways, the Omnia HD looks like one of the best MIDs so far with longer battery life, smaller form factor, 720p video recording and a mobile-focused software suite that addresses new mobile markets. It’s an incredibly converged product but at the same time, you could call it a tweener. Neither a 24/7 phone or high quality mobile internet device. I intend to re-visit the Omnia HD by testing it in full in the near future but in the meantime, take a look at the specifications when placed side-by-side with the most popular tablet MID of the day and lets think about how the Omnia HD highlights that there is no such thing as a tweener.
Omnia browsing will fall way short of a desktop experience.
3D graphics: Power VR SGX
3G Graphics: Power VR SGX
Snap!
Accelerometer
Good for navi, web, ereading
FM Radio
A useful, very low power information source. (Local Traffic, news, music, events)
Component, S-video out, VGA
HDMI Out
Digital output on Omnia turns it into a better set top box.
Best USB device support
Limited USB device support
If you have USB devices, they are likely to work better with the Viliv S5
Full desktop software capability
Mobile-focused software capability
Viliv S5 allows you to carry on using your desktop software. Desktop software is, however, expensive.
Availability: Limited roll-out
Availability: Global
Omnia HD will be widely available
Brand unknown outside Korea
Top-tier global branding.
Provides consumer confidence.
Clearly the Samsung Omnia HD has specifications that are very close to one of the best Intel-based MIDs on the market. You’re looking at an extremely capable hardware platform that provides consumer-focused MID, PMP, PVR and PND-like capabilities in a 24/7 voice-capable form factor. It’s also got mature, consumer-friendly mobile-focused software that tackles new mobile usage scnearios and it’s reached the market before anyone else could with Intel-based MIDs that are targeted at the same usage scenarios. For some it’s going to be seen as the ultimate converged device and one of the best ‘MIDs’ on the market.
Look at it from another angle though and you see a different story. If you want a 24/7 phone, the Omnia HD is very very expensive and for most people, too big. If you’re looking for the best quality mobile web browser, PND, PMP or microblogging device, it falls short on either screen size, keyboard or software. As with most converged devices, it takes new, exciting usage scenarios and lever’s them into compromised form factors.
What I see with the Samsung Omnia HD is a device that underscores exactly the emerging scenarios that MIDs are targeted at. It’s providing a taster of things to come. If these scenarios develop, the new ecosystems created could support dedicated devices that fit in the space between the smartphone and the netbook. With technology like the Texas Instruments OMAP 3 platform and Intel’s Moorestown available to OEMs, it will only be a matter of tweaking the design, the software and applying the right marketing to slot the variants into the new ecosystems.
How about dropping the Omni HD’s internals into a Nokia N810-like form factor and increasing the screen to 4.8” with 250 DPI to improve the focus on mobile geo-enabled social networking? How about adding a powerful photo flash and video editing software to enhance mobile photo capabilities and add how about adding a daylight-readable 6″ screen for a move into the ebook market? Think about an iPod Plus, a Kindle with a fast browser and think about the next Nokia Tablet. A Techcrunch Crunchpad or a Google Lattitude Social Tablet. A Canon/YouTube device or even a dedicated Vodafone/BBC iPlayer. I don’t propose that all of these are winning business opportunities but I bet there are a few opportunitues in that list for dedicated devices that people have called ‘tweeners’ in the past.
The real story here is three-fold. The Omnia HD highlights how advanced and flexible the latest smartphone platforms are. It highlights that new usage models are emerging and that if these ecosystems grow, there will be opportunities for dedicated devices. Thank-you Samsung for highlighting that the MID concept is on the right track and that the end of the Tweener-era is nigh.
Ever since we outed the Samsung Q1EX I’ve had trouble positioning it. After an unboxing (see below) a 4-hour live Q&A session (1hr video below) I still cant see why Samsung created the Q1EX. It’s a fine tabletPC but in the last 3 years they’ve learned a lot about the UMPC market and they know that Tablet PCs can be a hard sell. What made them go back to the no-keyboard form-factor?
From a TabletPC perspective, the Samsung is actually a very good all-rounder. I called it the ‘20% device’ in our live Ustream Q&A because that about sums up the improvements overall. 20% less weight, 20% less cost, 20% more GPU, 20% more battery life, 20% better looking!! All excellent incremental changes for the TabletPC market but there are silly things that appear to have been left out.
A 1.3mp cam on the rear means it’s no good for Skype video and not high enough quality for photography. The stylus slots into the lanyard which means you need to leave the lanyard attached, affecting the smooth looks of the device. The hard drive is neither fast (in comparison with some of the SSD’s we’re seeing now) nor does it have a very high capacity. The touchscreen doesnt run full tabletPC-compatible drivers meaning the input panel doesnt float and you get low sample-rate handwriting recognition. The organiser pack accessory bulks it out to a size that’s than most netbooks and finally, I managed to push the CPU/GPU combination so hard in a Cooliris test that I got the battery life meter down to 1.5hrs! It bounced back up to three when I stopped playing with Cooliris but it shows that the power envelope of the Q1EX is very very wide.
On the positive side, the push/scroll wheel is the best implementation I’ve seen yet for an on-screen control panel. Changing brightness, volume, rotation is a breeze. The weight is down to one-handed usage levels meaning you can flip this one into portrait ‘reading’ mode. I was seeing over 4hrs battery life in this, no-radio, quiescent state. Also, the touchscreen has some palm rejection capability. For my ‘pinky on the screen’ left-handed writing method, it didn’t work but it’s clearly a lot better than other touchscreens for handwriting. In fact, one-handed portrait mode usage with a stylus is probably the #1 ‘feature’ over other UMPCs.
Considering that this is entering the market at $750, I would expect to see this discounted like many other devices have been over the last two years. In fact, I think this is very likely. It looks to me like this was a project by Samsung to put a new tablet out there for a specific market, a market-research exercise or even an industry request. Resellers have decided to price-up the device (still below all the other Samsung UMPC offerings) in order to get the most out of the early, mostly commercial, buyers but based on the fact that a VIA-based Samsung NC20 can sell for 75% of the price, there must be room for a sub $500 or even sub $400 price point. That would be pretty close to that CrunchPad that Techcrunch are working on.
What do you think? Is there a usage model that jumps out at you or is this simply targeted as a good quality, well-priced, TabletPC? Here’s the unboxing video…
For a more detailed look at the Q1EX, check out the Ustream recording below. (If the video is not showing below, go to the Ustream page. I’ve been seeing some problems with the UStream embedded videos today.)
Thanks to VIA Technologies for sending the Samsung Q1EX over for a test.
Smaller than I thought it would be and looking well designed (as always with Samsung devices) it’s the Samsung Q1-EX being reviewed by VIA’s ‘How To Be Mobile’ crew.
LaptopMag reviewed this recently and weren’t too impressed that the split mini thumboard was missing but as I said before, I think this one is targeted at a specific industry segment where it will fit perfectly with dedicated software. It may not be the perfect consumer UMPC but I’m eager to test it out with my ‘business’ hat on and see how the VIA Nano and VX800 chipset perform.
Sad news (at least for me) has just come in via Jenn at Pocketables.
The Mondi is confirmed (reliable source Jenn tells me) that the Mondi [product details] will be powered by an ARM11 CPU at 800Mhz.
Its a good clock-rate and if Samsung have linked the software nicely into all the DSP’s and 3D capability on the device, it should be a good improvement over something like the N810 and better than most smartphones out there but it’s not quite the step to ARMv7 core that I was looking for.
Turning the tables on you this morning, I’m trying to find out what CPU/chipset Samsung are using in the Mondi. I’ve spent a lot of time searching but it seems that no-one at CTIA, so far, has popped the obvious question - “Hi Samsung. Is it correct that the Mondi is running an ARMv7 (E.g. Cortex) CPU and not the ARMv6 (E.g. ARM11) core that’s too under-powered for Internet browsing?” If Samsung won’t say, just dive into the settings, please someone.
At the moment, all I can find is something that Qualcom leaked last year. At WITA, they said that Samsung would be producing a MID that would be based on ARM v7. I covered it in this article and I really hope it’s true because ‘10 times the processing power of a Nokia N810’ would put this in a very special place on my wishlist.
There are a couple of new videos of the Mondi on YouTube this morning. I’ve linked them in at the bottom of the product page.
Looking like a set-play organised by Clearwire to promote WiMax is the official Samsung announcement of the Samsung Mondi Mobile Internet Device. The Mondi is the SWD-M100 mobile Internet device that we’ve reported on a few times. Despite the fact that it might be commissioned to promote WiMax, it’s looking very interesting indeed.
Specifications:
CPU type - Unknown
OS - Windows Mobile 6.1
Display Size - 4.3″ 800 X 480 (resolution not confirmed)
Welcome to this week’s netbook roundup. In this space every Monday I’ll highlight netbook news items that might not need their own individual posts but may still be interesting.
Meet Asus Eee PC 1002H — Jkk shows us the new Eee 1002H which has a slightly faster CPU than the 1002HA, (1.6GHz vs. 1.66) which probably won’t display any noticeable increase in performance. They also put a net chiclet style keyboard on the 1002H. Anything to release a new SKU, right?
Touching Windows 7 — Another video pointed out by the media master, jkk. This one shows how multi-touch support is coming along in Windows 7. It is looking a lot more impressive than what we’ve seen from Vista. Hopefully some of the upcoming capacitive touchscreen netbooks will be able to power these kinds of smooth interactions.
Samsung Netbook Offers Full-sized Keyboard — It looks like in addition to the N110 and N310, Samsung will also be coming out with the N120 which will provide a full sized laptop keyboard while retaining the standard 10.1” screen size. This seems counter-intuitive to the very well received keyboard on the Samsung NC10, and may be another blur to consumers who already might have trouble differentiating the difference between the N110 and N310.
Jkk points us to a quick video of the upcoming Samsung N310. Take a look a the video below. As I mentioned when we first saw the N310, I don’t quite see how customers will differentiate this from the N110. Both are running extremely similar specs and the only major differences seem to be aesthetics and a chilet keyboard on the N310 vs. a standard laptop keyboard on the N110 [
File this post into the better late than never category.
Samsung started into the UMPC market with the original Q1 [Portal page] from there, they upgraded to the Q1 Ultra [Portal page] which added a split keyboard, increased the screen resolution, and made some other upgrades. Now Samsung is getting back to its roots with the Q1EX which was spotted at CES 2009.
The Q1EX looks like a more refined version of Samsung’s original slate UMPC, the Q1. They dropped the split keyboard from the Q1 Ultra and moved to the Via Nano platform for processing. They were able to get the price down to a pretty reasonable price, but they made some compromises like battery life and no more keyboard.
Laptop Mag got their hands on a Q1EX for a review session. They found the price to be more reasonable than the predecessors, but didn’t like the reduced battery life and lack of an effective method of text input. I would say that the unit is definitely an upgrade over the original Q1 which would be great for anyone who enjoyed using one. There is also a pretty cool organizer case which has a keyboard that attaches to the Q1EX to make text entry a bit easier (pictured below).
The SWD-M100 Mondi [product page] is the WiMax device that was spotted at MWC in Feb. There in Barcelona it was seen running Windows Mobile 6.1 which didn’t really get too many people excited. It looks like we might find out more soon though. Phone Scoop have found a new image on a Samsung RSS feed.
The device is potentially very interesting. If it uses a fast, Cortex-core processor, Windows Mobile 6.5 and the new Opera Mobile 9.7 browser then it will meet a lot of wish-lists, spot-on. Until we get further info though, we’re still left with the same specs as we had before:
Laptopmag.com seems to get their hands on netbooks before anyone else these days. Not only did they get a Samsung NC110 before the unit was announced, but they had enough time to review the whole thing and record a nice video overview that compares the new N110 to the old NC10.
Today we saw the introduction of two new netbooks to the Samsung line. Samsung entered the netbook market in October of 2008 with the respectable NC10 [Portal page] which had a solid economy design, and impressed people with its battery life. Now Samsung updates the NC10 to the the N110, and introduces the NC310. Laptopmag.com already got their hands on the N110 and gives us a nice review (linked below).
You won’t be surprised at the insides of the N110; not only are they similar to almost every other netbook out there, but they are actually identical to the NC10:
1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU
1GB of RAM
160GB HDD
The N110 is also still has the same 1024×600, 10.2” screen. However they did make some improvements. The exterior of the netbook is all new. The unit definitely looks more sleek than the original. The touch pad is bagger, and perhaps most importantly, the battery has had an increase in capacity. The battery has jumped up to a 5900mAh rating, over the original 6-cell’s 5200mah, yet the size remains the same which is great. It seems as though they have squeezed a bit more room out of the keyboard as well. It definitely looks a bit nicer than the original, though they are still using very standard laptop key style, while we see many other netbooks jumping over to the chicle style keys. Read the entire N110 review from Laptopmag.com.
Samsung also announced the NC310 today which is an interesting looking netbook. The NC310 seems to be a bit less worried about a slim design, and instead adds a bit of ruggedness to the netbook. Strangely, they went with the chicle style keyboard on the NC310, but not the NC110. The internal offerings are identical to the N10/110 except right off the bat Samsung tells us that the NC310 will have optional 3G or WiMAX. The NC310 seems to share a bit of styling from the HP Mini 1000 [Portal page] with a non-protruding bezel around the screen. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the giant, raised Samsung logo on the top of the lid, and I seems like consumers might have a hard time seeing the difference between the N110 and NC310.
Welcome to this week’s netbook roundup. In this space every Monday I’ll highlight netbook news items that might not need their own individual posts but may still be interesting.
Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Review — Laptop Mag reviews the Dell Mini 10 [Portal page]. “Dell’s first 10-inch netbook has a compact chassis, good keyboard, and a crisp 10-inch display, but we wish it offered better battery life for the price”.
Samsung also announced the NC310 today which is an interesting looking netbook. The NC310 seems to be a bit less worried about a slim design, and instead adds a bit of ruggedness to the netbook. Strangely, they went with the chicle style keyboard on the NC310, but not the NC110. The internal offerings are identical to the N10/110 except right off the bat Samsung tells us that the NC310 will have optional 3G or WiMAX. The NC310 seems to share a bit of styling from the HP Mini 1000 [
