Back in Feb, I listed a set of devices that should be high on your list if you’re thinking about mobile microblogging. It included MIDs and UMPCs. As the market for mobile social networking, mobile web search, mobile content creation, location based services and lifestreaming (my rough definition of Mobile Microblogging) gathers steam we’re seeing more and more devices coming into the segment and it’s mainly from the smartphone sector. UMPCs and MIDs aren’t getting a look-in. In fact, in my latest list, below, you won’t find a MID or UMPC.

Smartphones with bigger, higher resolution screens and high-end processors are appearing on the radar almost every week. Smartphone-based mobile software development is increasing too as more and more mobile device application stores tempt developers with easy-to-use, rich SDKs and APIs, a channel that reaches right down to millions of users devices and a good cut of any earnings.

What’s really interesting about the Mobile Microblogging phenomenon is that very little software development is happening for today’s Intel MIDs, the very devices that were targeted into this segment. Intel have stopped work on the Moblin OS for them and they’re effectively UMPCs. You could even argue that there are no Intel MIDs any more! They are being totally left behind in both software and hardware until Intel push the reset button when Moorestown MIDs with Moblin hit the market. Until then, it’s desktop operating systems for MIDs and UMPCs.

You won’t find an easy-to-use, small-screen, GPS-enabled search service on Windows. You can’t even link Google Maps to a GPS on the browser. Forget the thought of a compass helping with augmented reality, an accelerometer, an FM receiver with RDS or, if you’re into internet photography, a half-decent snapshot camera. There’s no application store either. Only on smartphones will you find the creative software and hardware that is driving the mobile microblogging market and making it exciting, fresh, competitive and, quite frankly, desirable.

Moblin-based MIDs do have a chance as do Maemo 5 based devices but you won’t find any on the market yet so it’s going to take time for the developers to warm to those platforms. Come back in 2010 to discuss that!

Apple and Android have done a lot for the new generation of mobile internet devices and usage scenarios and so it should be no surprise to see smartphones dominating this Mobile Microblogging segment to the point where UMPCs and MIDs don’t get a look-in. UMPCs and Netbooks still have big  advantages for general purpose, day-to-day productive computing but if mobile creativity is your thing, there’s nothing better than the new generation of smartphones.

One could argue that smartphones have grown into the MID segment but for me it was always about usage scenarios rather than device categories. As Intel said, communication, location, entertainment and productivity. It’s a shame that Intel’s MIDs aren’t living up to their own hype yet. (see my recent Moorestown article for thoughts about 2010)

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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.

Via Akihabara News

More thoughts on pocketable communications solutions from the smartphone bracket in this article.

We’re not quite sure if we’re supposed to have this PDF but it’s just landed in our lap and we don’t see any confidential markings so we might as well relay the info. It’s a slide set from an investor meeting from the Ultra Mobility group and it highlights a few interesting points about Moorestown and Medfield. It appears to be dated 05_2009 so it’s very recent.

Read the full story

I love competition. A company drops a device like the iPhone 3G integrating some great hardware, and quite soon after, all the other players realize that they need to update their own hardware to catch up. Welcome the new Sidekick LX into the competitor’s corner. The Sidekick has been exclusively on T-Mobile since its creation, and the LX is no different. While the overall form factor of the Sidekick LX has not changed much from past iterations, the LX adds some nice new hardware:

• 3.2” high res 854×480 screen
• 3G connectivity
• GPS
• 3.2MP camera with autofocus and LED flash

Additionally the Sidekick’s software has been updated to be a bit more social. Twitter, Facebook and Myspace integration has been built into the interface so you can get notifications from your favorite social network on the go.

Adrian Covert from Gizmodo got a short hands-on with the device saying that the external design of the device is not much different but it “feels and looks pretty solid as far as Sidekicks go”. And that the keyboard “feels nice and clicky, and the screen is gorgeous”. Sounds like a nice upgrade from previous models. Swing over to the Gizmodo article to see some images of the Sidekick LX.

As time draws closer and closer to the time when Intel’s Moorestown platform is due to be released, I’ve been looking around at some of the concepts that they have been showing over the last year to get an idea of what we’ll see when the Moorestown platform hits. Moorestown is a platform for an upcoming set of devices that will blur the lines between smartphones and MIDs. Chippy used the term ‘MIDphone’ not long ago in an article about a voice capable software stack that would be making its way to Moblin (a MID oriented OS). One of these MIDphones that you will probably recognize is, at this point, nameless, but many have said that it looks to be a super-wide iPhone (let’s call it Moorestown X). A little while back, Intel released three videos showing concepts of what they want a device like Moorestown X to be able to achieve with the platform:

As I look at these videos and compare similar hardware that we have access to today, I get quite excited to see if something like this can be delivered. Obviously the videos above are simply conceptual, but if they could deliver functional software that is even half as polished as what we see above, it would make for an excellent device, as long as the Moorestown platform is really up to the task of delivering this experience with the battery life that people expect from a phone. Moorestown is purportedly going to consume ten times less power while idle than current Atom platforms. Concepts like these always make the software look good, but I hope they spend some serious time on the GUI if they are planning on bringing a similar product to market. I can’t stand the idea that the eye-candy would get in the way of productivity.

It seems like some of the focus on Moorestown has been shifted in light of the success that Intel has been having with their Atom platform, which powers an incredible amount of the netbooks that we see today. As far as we know however, Intel is still hard at work on Moorestown, and as soon as they complete their work, which should be in late 2009 or early 2010, we’ll start seeing hardware that should change the way we think about pocketable computing.

It is interesting to me to think about what will happen to devices like the iPhone and upcoming Palm Pre when they are put in perspective with the kind of devices that we could see coming from Moorestown. Competition always functions as a driver for innovation, so I think its safe to say that the release of the Moorestown platform will be good for everyone in the long run.

Thoughts on the Moorestown vision? What would you be willing to pay for a device like the Moorestown X? Are you excited about the upcoming platform if it could bring products like this into the smartphone/MID space?

I briefly mentioned this back in late 2006 so I was surprised to see it in the flesh at CeBIT 2009 yesterday. Rather disappointed to hear that it still hasn’t hit the market though. Fortunately for ROAD, they were way ahead of the game so they’ve still got a chance to get this out without the specs looking too outdated although something tells me that the 2.5G data capability isn’t going to impress too many ‘road’ warriors .  JKK and I did a quick video overview of the device which you’ll find after the jump.

Read the full story

Here’s a few more clues to how the voice capability on Moorestown ‘midphones’ will be played out. Open-Plug have announced their 2G and 3G capable ‘ELIPS’ Telephony stack for Moblin, the OS being built for current and future MIDs and netbooks.

This Open-Plug stack is likely to be the one on the LG  ‘midphone’ announced for 2010. We’re expecting to hear a bit mroe about that next week at CeBIT.

“Mobile Internet Devices make it easy for people to stay connected wherever they are,” said Pankaj Kedia, director of global ecosystem programs in Intel Corporation’s Ultra Mobility Group. “Intel’s next generation MID platform, codenamed Moorestown, in combination with Open-Plug’s telephony stack integrated with a Moblin based Linux OS, will set a new threshold for making this connected experience a reality by delivering a compelling Internet experience while supporting voice capabilities on the platform.”

Intel appear to be starting to push their marketing towards smartphones now so expect a lot more talk about Moblin 2 ( release due in a few months) and smartphones/MIDs from Intel over the next 18 months. Can’t wait to see them at MWC in Barcelona next year.

Source Finazenachrichten.de

Jkkmobile points out an interesting video from Engadget that shows some interesting multi-touch demos on a resistive touchscreen. Have a look at the video embedded below, but be sure to stick around for some thoughts below.

The demos are definitely neat, but I’m a very big proponent of capacitive touch technology, not because of multi-touch, but because of its consistent recognition of input. Multi-touch and the ability to do gestures is great, but I would argue that it is not the best part of capacitive touch technology. So they have managed to port the multi-touch facet of capacitive touchscreens over to resistive touchscreens, but they stick lack the consistent detection of input. Nothing is more annoying to me than having to click on one item several times because it is easy for a resistive touchscreen to either miss or misinterpret your input. It really ruins the touchscreen experience. Low pressure input resistive screens help to alleviate this to some degree but the issue still remains. Capacitive touch’s ability to extremely consistently recognize touch input is what makes it possible to have a viable on-screen keyboard on a device the size of the iPhone. I’ve tried many other resistive touch phones with OSKs, and the experience is almost embarrassing to the hardware.

As for the pressure sensitivity of the demoed screen: The way it was described is that it recognizes how much pressure you are putting on the screen by how much contact there is with the surface of your finger. If this is the correct explanation of how the technology works, then pressure sensitivity will not be able to be measured with a stylus. When you apply more pressure to a surface with your finger, the skin around the bone presses down with a larger surface area, this obviously doesn’t occur with the tip of a stylus.

This is definitely good for resistive touchscreens and a jump forward for devices that will continue to use them, but in many cases I still feel like capacitive touch offers the best experience.

I’ve been pondering this question for a long time and have never come up with a decisive answer. Ever since the iPhone came out, people have been criticizing it for not providing the ‘full internet experience’, citing the lack of true flash support. I just don’t get it though, where is the demand?

Several years ago it seems like having a full flash website was all the rage, but since then lots of great web technologies (javascript, ajax, etc.) have been utilized to make highly interactive websites that often outperform their flash counterparts in both performance and utility. These days it seems like the majority of flash content comes from flash video players, and of course the king of all flash video players is YouTube.

When you upload a video you YouTube, by default, is it transcoded to a format playable by most modern smartphones (using built in media players, not flash). I couldn’t tell you for certain, but in my experiences, it seems like the majority of YouTube’s content is available in this format. The iPhone already has a dedicated YouTube application which makes it easy to browse YouTube’s library and play videos. For phones that don’t have a dedicated application, there is the www.m.youtube.com site for browsing the library and doing many of the things you would do on the full version of the site like rating and commenting on movies. Once you get past YouTube as the majority of Flash content, you start to break it down to other video players. Sites like Hulu, Netflix, and many others offer video through flash players as well, but don’t offer nearly the amount of content as there is available on YouTube.

After videos players, I would argue that the second most common flash content is flash advertisements. These things are scatter all over pages these days, and unfortunately, those that design flash ads are not usually concerned with the efficiency of their animations, they just want to animate enough motion and colors to capture your attention. What this leads to is poor performance on the flash content that you actually want. For example, a website like Gametrailers will have a flash banner ad, or a box on the right of the video that plays a flash ad while you are trying to watch a video through a flash player, and flash generally splits the available resources between the two. I’ve seen the framerate on videos drop so low because of other pieces of flash content (like ads) playing on a page at the same time that they are unwatchable, and that is on a full computer. How do people expect mobile phones to handle all the flash content on a page these days, in addition to watching a flash video player? It is important to realize that if you are asking for full flash support, you are also welcoming all the resource sucking advertisements that plague websites. These ads aren’t usually a performance concern for full computers (except the situation I provided above), but on low powered hardware they could be a serious performance ditch and that always leads to reduced battery life.

Aside from flash video players and flash ads, the remaining flash content doesn’t seem to be in high demand (unless I’m missing something important). For example, there are lots of flash games out there, and they are lots of fun. But even if we did have full flash support on mobile phones, I don’t feel like phones are equipped with the necessary control schemes to be able to manipulate that content. Do people expect to be able to play Desktop Defense with the navigation ball on their Blackberry Pearl? I don’t think that it is realistic to expect mobile phones to be able to interface with flash content that was designed with a user, using a mouse and keyboard, in mind. Do people expect flash developers to adapt their flash content to function with the myriad of phone control schemes that are out there?

It all seems rather ridiculous to me, and I still don’t understand what content there is that drives people to ask for flash on their phones. Flash videos players are great, but the majority of content (ie: YouTube) is already available to most modern smartphones. If other flash players want to bring their content to mobile phones, they could do so much more efficiently (for the phones) by following YouTube’s approach. I don’t quite see it being necessary to provide full flash support on mobile phones; what would be the benefit of doing so? Maybe providing a familiar programing environment?

One potential option that I see for the future is that phones begin using a ‘Flash Lite’ standard which provides programmers with a familiar programming environment, and makes it easy for popular flash player sites to create simple flash applications (like video players) that will launch from a link on a website into a Flash Lite application on the phone.

I don’t think we’ll see full flash support (ie: flash players, apps, and ads embedded directly into websites) in mobile phones for a long time because it just doesn’t make sense when you weigh the content gain against the performance and battery life concerns, and isn’t practical when you consider the logistics of controlling that content with various phone control schemes.

I’ve been using an iPod Touch/iPhone 3G for nearly a year now and I can’t say that there are many times while using them that I’ve said to myself “Wow I wish this thing supported flash”. Sure, occasionally there is a video I want to watch that isn’t hosted on YouTube, but on another flash player instead; is that justification to ask for flash on phones? In my opinion, the answer is no, but I want to hear the thoughts of others. When you are using your mobile phone for web browsing, what content do you come across that makes you wish you had full flash support?

With an even bigger WVGA screen than the HTC Touch Pro2 that we highlighted earlier today, the Acer M900 Tempo is going to be another high-end smartphone to consider if you need a consolidated device. Its got a similar high-capacity battery to the Pro2, GPS and a higher resolution camera. The processor is still an ARM11 device though so once again, the form factor is good but the CPU isn’t quite there. I can also hear the simultaneous cheers and boo’s for Windows Mobile!

Full specifications:

• Operating system: Genuine Windows Mobile® 6.1
• Processor: Samsung S3C 6410 mobile processor (533 MHz)
• System memory: 128 MB SDRAM for user applications and storage, 256 MB flash memory for operating system and embedded applications
• Display:3.8″ WVGA TFT LCD touch screen, 800 x 480 pixel resolution, 65536 colors
• Expansion: microSD™ Card
• Dimensions: 119 (L) x 62 (W) x 17.1 (H) mm
• Weight: 188 g
• Battery: Rechargeable lithium polymer battery, Capacity: 1530 mAh; Talk time: 3G: 5h depend on usage / 2G : 5h depend on usage; Standby: 160h depends on usage
• CMOS camera: 5M pixels Auto-Focus with flashlight, up to 2560 x 1920 resolution
• Audio: Built-in microphone, speaker
• Communications: HSDPA Category 8/ HSUPA Category 5 ( 2100/1900/850 Mhz); GSM/EDGE: Quad-band, 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; GPRS/EGPRS: Class B, multi-slot class 11; WLAN: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED® network connection; Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
• GPS: SiRFstar III®
• I/O interface: 2.5mm stereo jack / AC adapter, microSD™ Card, SIM card slot
• Sensor: G-sensor
• User interface: Acer Shell v2.0
• Phone Tools: Phone settings, SIM toolkit, Speed dial, Call filter, Wireless modem, Communication manager
  Add ringtone, CSD type, Voice commander, Connection wizard, SMS sender, MMS composer
  SIM manager, Video Telephony
• Multimedia tools: Pictures & Videos, Camera /Camcorder, Album, Streaming player, Media player
• Utilities: Backup utility, Default Settings, Application recovery, Memory Optimization
• In-box accessories: Mini USB headset, Mini USB sync cable, Mini USB AC adaptor, Battery pack
• Optional accessories: Car mount kit

I’ll try and get the in the database ASAP so you can side-by-side it with the Touch Pro2, N97 and others. Right now though, I think that’s enough smartphone coverage on UMPCPortal for one day.

Acer product page with images is here.

Via PhoneScoop

It’s not quite the MID that many of us would like to see (it’s missing a slightly larger screen and a dod of processing power) but because its voice-enabled, highly converged and slick, we’re going to keep a close eye on this one. We’re tracking details and keeping the new Pro2 product page up to date.

Engadget also have a hands-on video.

Update: We’ve put the Pro2 in the database and will add links, videos and specs as we get them. If you’ve found any good articles, galleries or videos yourself, send them in via this form.

HTC Just announced the HTC Touch Pro 2, a Windows Mobile slide/tilt device that many readers at UMPCPortal are going to be interested in. It’s still using the ‘old’ (or maybe I should say ‘current’) processing platform which is a little disappointing but the big battery, big 3.6″ screen and keyboard make it a good productivity option. Note the ‘zoom-bar’ specification which could help a lot in navigating websites. looking at the WCDMA talk time figures gives a good idea of how long it will last in ‘MID’ usage scenarios. About 4hrs.

The press release also mentions ‘Push Internet’. “HTC Push Internet alleviates slow downloading and rendering of Web pages on a mobile phone. Users can preselect their favorite Websites to get immediate access to them when needed.” Its sounds like some sort of background downloading service. Also note the lack of 3.5mm headphone socket. This is a very business-focused device.

No pricing info has been announced but you can estimate a price in the 600 Euro bracket. Availability in Europe is ‘Early Q2.’ putting it just ahead of the N97 timeframe in Europe.  (Nokia said the N97 would be available in June in their updates at MWC today.)

Specifications:

• Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
• Operating System: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional [Note: HTC announced a FREE upgrade to 6.5]
• Memory: ROM: 512 MB RAM: 288 MB
• Dimensions: 116 X 59.2 X 17.25 mm (4.57 X 2.33 X 0.68 inches)
• Weight: 175 grams (6.17 ounces) with battery
• Display: 3.6-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution
  Adjustable tilt screen
• Network
  HSDPA/WCDMA:Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz, Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds,
  Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, (Band frequency, HSUPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
• Device Control: TouchFLO™ 3D, Zoom bar
• GPS
• Connectivity
  Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
  Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
  HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0, audio jack, and TV Out* in one)
• Camera
  Main camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
  Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
• Battery
  Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  Capacity: 1500 mAh
  Talk time: Up to 270 minutes for WCDMA, Up to 419 minutes for GSM
  Standby time: Up to 454 hours for WCDMA, Up to 348 hours for GSM
• Video call time: Up to 150 minutes
  (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
• Expansion Slot
  microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Special Features. FM Radio, G-Sensor

More details and images at the HTC website.

I’ve been thinking about this subject for a while but this post by Robert Scoble has prompted me to get everything written down and finalised. My thoughts about the ideal microblogging device started during the MBC09 conference that I attended as part of the first MIDMoves tour where people were all using either smartphones or PCs to microblog. I couldn’t help thinking there was a better way and of course, as I’m familiar with the area of pocketable productivity, couldn’t help thinking that the latest MIDs would be good so i’ve decided to spec out my ideal microblogging tool. It turns out that it sits right at the intersection point between MIDs and the new generation of high-end smartphones. Where ARM meets Intel!

First of all, what is microblogging? Wikipedia has a definition but to me, it’s being able to post a thought, image or sound to a publishing platform in the quickest and easiest possible way AND at the same time being able to track that publishing platform for posts that interest or are directed at you in some way. Tracking posts means being able to view 100% of the web in a quick and quality way because most microblogging posts are just leaders into rich web content

Twitter, Friendfeed, Seesmic, Flickr, Jaiku and many others fall into the platform category and in some respects, social networking platforms like Facebook also allow you to do the same. In general, most of the services offer a programming interface that allows direct posting and status updates from the platform and because of this, many third party tools have surfaced. Twhirl and Tweetdeck are the two that Robert Scoble addresses in his post but these are for desktop operating systems. The nature of microblogging means that you’re not always at your desk when that microblogging moment happens and i’d argue that most microblogging moments come when away from the desk making mobile devices extremely important.

Smartphones are a good choice for microblogging Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, and RIM mobile platforms all have microblogging client options available for them but so far, I haven’t seen a complete mobile microblogging solution. They all have major issues.

Web access.

All the clients seem to be efficient and do a good job of showing generic streams and targeted or filtered posts. I use Mauku on the Nokia Internet Tablet a lot and it’s great but just as on all smartphones, when I reach a link (I estimate over 50% of the microblog posts that interest me, have URLs attached to them), it takes forever to open and never gives me the full web experience thats required. Either javascript is not working, flash or some other component that is expected today. Screen sizes are too small and it’s slow, slow, frustratingly slow.

Battery Life.

Using a mobile phone for constant web access kills the battery life. Smartphones are efficient, yes, but having to carry a handfull of spare batteries or having to worry about turning off the microblogging client to preserve the last bar for voice is just not on.

Screen.

There are two things that annoy me about screen size. One is that I can’t scan tens of items in one go. The second is the problem of navigating a web page. After awaiting 30 seconds for a page to open you then have to scroll around and navigate ads or irrelevant content to get the important part of the page. It’s a poor show.

Keyboard.

Keyboards are getting better on smartphones, it’s true, but I haven’t yet seen a smartphone that combines a keyboard with a high capacity battery. As with MIDs, it’s a design choice. You choose between, large keyboard, large screen or large battery and never all three at the same time. With current ( < 2008) technology, it wouldn’t fit comfortably in a pocket otherwise.

Processing power and storage speed.

This is related to the ‘web access’ problem above. More processing power is required to be able to get those clients up and running quickly. More disk access speed is required for the same reason. Smooth scrolling, multi-tasking and other elements also hinge on processing power. Again, it’s part of the design tradeoff. More processing power requires a bigger battery. (Smaller screen and keyboard)

Microblogging is relatively new and none of the phones on the market appear to have included it as a design consideration (Web OS from Palm is one that might be an exception here) so the question is, if you were to design a microblogging device, what would it look like and what specs would it have? Here are my specifications:

Stylish Hardware (quality finishing, stylish appearance)

• 4.1″ 800×480 screen. It’s entry level for a good, productive web experience.
• High-end mobile processor (Benchmarks: 10-second average web page load time. YouTube SD flash playback. 5-10 active programs.)
• Video playback acceleration (Benchmark: 720p)
• 3W max design power. 1.5W average. 15W battery for all-day microblogging.
• Camera. 5mp glass optics. VGA video capture. (720p would be nice too!)
• GPS for geotagging, navigation.
• Slider keyboard with backlight
• Local 3G flavor $30 per month data cost (unlimited)
• Wifi, Bluetooth (2.1 for near-field pairing)
• Voice - SIP, Skype, GSM
• FM radio and TX (Always worth having on a mobile device.)
• Stereo speakers for kitchen-quality sound.
• 16GB + fast SD storage.
• Stylus
• Fanless and silent (of course!)
• Weight < 300gm.

Stylish Software

• finger and stylus driven UI.
• Firefox 3.
• Adobe Air.
• Full flash.
• Easy image posting s/w,
• Multi-protocol Blogging client.
• Podcatcher
• Multi-protocol IM
• Video capture software (VGA, direct to H.264 for YouTube posting)
• Navigation (turn-by-turn car and pediestrian) and geo-social software clients.
• Intelligent predictive text and on-screen keyboard option (in-car use)
• Configurable home-screen applets.
• Fast, well-featured RSS client
• SyncML for contacts and calendar.
• Email client
• PIM features
• Basic office suite (for occasional use only)
• Compatibility with a common gaming platform.
• App store
• E-Book software with link to stores and DRM authorisation.

Stylish Accessories:

• Netbook (dumb screen  + keyboard + battery with CPU booster. (second core?)) dock.
• Car Dock
• Wall mount
• Credit-card sized remote display and drive a-la windows sideshow that also houses a BT headset.
• Wrist strap display option that is used as the notifier. (Vibration, audible and visual.)

Cost:

Under $800, sim-free, unsubsidised.

What does it look like?

The Ring of FIE

FIE stands for FULL INTERNET EXPERIENCE and the ring of FIE is my definition (see original here) of the gadget middle-ground that many people ignore when considering a ‘third’ device. There’s already a range of gadgets out there in the middle ground and most of them are already migrating towards internet connectivity. The closest form-factor I can think of is the Nokia N810 although given the battery requirement, it would probably be a bit thicker than the existing N810.

Anything else?

Yes, community. That exciting feeling that you’re buying into something more than a bit of hardware. With the popularity of microblogging at a peak, now is exactly the right time to be bringing a device to market and build a community.

Differences to a smartphone.

As far as 99% of the technical specs go, it’s a smartphone. The big issue, quite literally, is the size. It’s beyond current limits for an acceptable 24/7 consumer phone. There’s no getting away from the physics of good keyboards and an 800×480 screen with a sensible 200-250 DPI. With current technology, the battery is also big and heavy.

Differences to a MID.

For some people, (Texas Instruments, ARM, Qualcomm) the device here is exactly an MID. It even fits in Intel’s definition of a MID although some of the devices we’re seeing now just aren’t quite there yet and in the current Intel platforms, voice support doesnt exist.

Why not call it a smartphone?

This will be too big to fit inside the smartphone category. It also does far more than a smartphone ever did. It makes sense to break out a new category of communicator-style devices, to ride on the microblogging wave and for people to treat this as a second, high-end device. As most high-end users carry two phones anyway, why not make one of them a MID? Breaking out a another device category is also in line with what the marketing people will do anyway.

Can I buy it?

Nope. no-one has done it yet. Nokia have been on this track for years with their Internet Tablets and I anxiously await their new device (which appears to satisfy all requirements except Voice. That might be good enough for me!) Intel are moving into this segment too with their MIDs (See Compal, UMID.) Archos are attempting to unite the smartphone with a media and internet tablet and I know from discussions that ARM’s partners are planning to launch these devices too. Qualcomm were talking about these devices months ago. I would put money on us seeing more than one device in this vein next week in Barcelona and am expecting to be able to buy a device like this before Summer 2009. We’re almost there!

It would be silly not to point out that what I’ve defined here is much the same as I defined three years ago as my ideal device (The Carrypad) but technology, the WEB and Internet-based services have moved on to make this an even more desirable device now than it was then. We’re just at the right point on the timeline of technology and web services that make this sort of device possible and potentially, extremely successful.

Jon Stokes, one of my favourite mobility-focused journalists, wrote in ARS Technica about battery life on the Palm Pre a few days ago and brings up one of my favourite topics. Battery life.

It’s a real issue for smartphones now as the platforms reach levels where they can be considered capable of returning an acceptable web experience but when used in such a scenario, the battery life is too short. Losing your mobile communications because you spent 2 hours messing around on the Internet isn’t the situation most want to be in.

All day battery life on a smartphone!

Read what Jon has to say about the Pre battery life here:

The Palm Pre’s possible Achilles heel: battery life - Ars Technica.

And check out my thoughts on the Pre too. I’d rather see the Pre as a MID than a smartphone. It will still be pocketable but you’ll be able to fit a decent battery on it and still have it in a pockateble format. It’s better for many people to split voice from Internet on separate devices to improve both experiences to the ‘pro’ level.

I’ve also taken a look at this topic in these two articles:

How long does your smartphone last in ‘MID’ mode?

How big is an ‘all-day’ Mobile Internet smartphone?

This is an unconfirmed rumor but if it’s true, we might have another smartphone ‘MID’ on our hands here. 3G, 854×480 screen, GPS, Qwerty keyboard, slick design. No info on processor at the moment. I’ve never tried a sidekick as they’ve always looked like toys to me but I know some people that swear by them and rate the keyboard very highly indeed.

The 3.2inch screen would be difficult to read at standard text sizes but if the zoom is smooth and quick it might not be a problem.

More information and an image at the link below…

» Sidekick LX 2009 - Sidekick 2008 / Sidekick LX / Sidekick Slide / Sidekick 3 / Hiptop 3.

Business Week summarises the current position on Intel-based MIDs nicely and talks about Moblin 2.0 (due to appear in devices later this year,) a new partner announcement that will come at the Mobile World Congress and covers the ever-present discussion about the space between a smartphone and a laptop.

“I’m not sure there’s a third category of device” between a cell phone and a netbook, says Andy Lees, a senior vice-president in Microsoft’s mobile communications business. “The thing that distinguishes a phone is it goes in your pocket or purse. If you have a six-inch screen, that’s no-man’s land.”

I had this question put to me many times last week and i’m quite clear about the answer now.

1) Intel will push Atom-based MID devices so small that they will be smartphones (i.e. will be voice-capable and will be 24/7 pocketable.) You won’t know them as MIDs at this point. (Estimated 2010-2011 timeframe.)

2) People are forgetting about the third, forth, fifth etc. devices we already carry around. PMP’s, Navigation units and Video/photographic cameras are present in many peoples gadget bag and there’s a few upcoming categories too. Ebook readers, full experience web devices and even handheld gaming devices.

No one is saying that MID’s, either from Intel, from ARM or from anyone else are going to take one form and be ‘the winner’ because at the start, it’s going to be about creating devices for specific users and solving specific problems like internet-connected navigation, video streaming, full internet experience and portable HD media playback. Some consolidation of devices will be possible though and when you look at the screen requirements for all these ‘in between’ products, they all fit with the 4-6″ screen range. If someone does it right, there could well be a hit do-it-all device among them (Ipod Plus is one) but even if there isn’t, there’s sill a chance for many successful products in this multi-million unit pre existing market that Andy Lees is calling ‘no mans land.’

Intel Readies Push into Mobile Internet Devices - BusinessWeek.

Gizmodo have just completed a browsing speed and accuracy test with three high-end windows mobile devices using Pocket IE and Opera 9.5. The results should hardly be a surprise. There isn’t a single reasonable result among them with page load times well over a minute in many cases and very few of the devices rendering the pages well.

In the test, Gizmodo used the Sony Xperia, HTC Fuze, Samsung Omnia and Samsung Epix. Some of the newest WM-based phones you can buy.

Opera 9.5 appears to have turned in a better level of quality and speed than Pocket IE but there’s still a bunch of ‘fails’ in there which would turn off anyone thinking of relying on the given combo.

We’ve done similar tests here in the past which have proven that, on average, with some of the best ARM-based devices you can find and under good conditions, average page load times are twice as long when compared to on low-end ultra mobile PCs. We’ve even done some extensive Opera Mobile 9.5 testing and can confirm that while it does render well, it needs a lot more horsepower underneath it than the average smartphone can provide. Nothing in the smartphone world, including the iPhone, comes close to the speed and accuracy of even the lowest-level UMPC or Intel-based MID so once again I hear myself saying; If you or your business relies on fast, accurate access to Web-based resources through a browser, don’t risk problems or waste time by using a sub-standard solution. Don’t try and push everything onto one device. Buy a dedicated device. If not for the speed and quality, do it to preserve battery life for your important voice calls!

Take a read of the article and the HUGE bashing that WM gets from author, Matt Buchanan. Its a fun read!

Source: Gizmodo Via Friendfeed