There’s some news out this morning that Samsung will get into tablet PCs next year. They seem to forget that Samsung is already selling Tablet PC’s! I was going to write a short article moaning about the hype and the fact that this subject seems to come up every year but when I checked up on some Q1 Ultra prices I decided to do a promo piece instead. The Samsung Q1 Ultra, 7” Tablet PC with 5hr battery life, 1024×600 screen and weighing just 840gm is available for just £359 in the UK.

[Yes, this article is an infomercial now, I will get some money if you use this offer, but it’s a very good offer and comes completely unplanned.]

The Q1 Ultra is a 7” touchscreen tablet with integrated mini keypad, an excellent, bright, 1024×600 resistive touch screen, the 800Mhz Intel Stealey processor (comparable with a 1.3Ghz Atom) with the GMA950 GPU. There’s a web-cam, [note: no BT too] excellent stereo speakers, a stand, 40GB HDD and in this case, the XP Tablet Edition (Pro+Touch) operating system. Two years ago we were looking (and paying) about 1000 Euro for such a device. I bought one (why?) and even managed to upgrade to SSD and 3G making it a fantastic package. Even the battery life was good. At 5hrs with the extended battery, (7hrs quiet-state) it proved that Samsung had done an excellent engineering job. I would still be using mine today if I hadn’t blown it up in a solar charging experiment.

Really, honestly, I think the Q1 Ultra was the best tablet UMPC ever. Only the Viliv X70 beats it now.

I’m starting to sound like a QVC salesman now but you have to believe me when I say that I nearly spit my coffee all over the monitor when I saw it on sale at Expansys for 313 pounds (360 pounds inclusive tax – 400 Euros today) with the 6-cell battery pack as standard. There don’t seem to be any ‘gotchas’ here at all. This is the full version of the Q1 Ultra.

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This is a great deal for Europeans and I encourage anyone who’s on the fence about a TabletPC to check this one out. The Q1 Ultra will work well on the sofa, in the office (second screen using Synergy is great) in the car (car mount is available) and should (I haven’t tested) work with Windows 7 tablet features. Jolicloud should install too.  RAM can be upgraded to 2GB. It includes rotation for book reading (although the unit is a little heavy for that.)

The Q1 Ultra has been on the market for over 2 years now but it’s still a great device. I can’t say I’m not looking forward to a new Samsung Tablet PC but the Q1 Ultra is still a valid choice.

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?