There are two ways to look at the Samsung Mondi, the oversized slider-style PocketPC with built-in WiMax. Either you wonder why Samsung didn’t go all the way with the convergence theme by adding in the cellular voice capability or you look at it as a flag-bearer in the Smartphone and MID market. One of the first devices that promotes the use of internet based services for all your communications and a real benchmark for pricing and capability.

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Jkk seems to have gotten his hands on many of the MIDs shown at Computex this year. Here you can see him checking out the Dmedia M0, which is a MID that looks pretty nice on the outside, but is unfortunately running Windows CE. One surprising thing is that there seems to be a decent 5MP camera on the back of the unit. There is also WiMAX and GPS. Though it looks like the touchscreen is resistive, and there is a very apparent iPhone UI ripoff as the top layer of the devices interface. I’m doubting that this think will go to international market in this form. Jump over to jkk’s site to catch the specs list.

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.

Check out the full story at Pocketables.

Samsung Mondi WiMAX MID powered by ARM11 CPU.

It’s that time again. Lets have a look at some interesting netbook content from this week.

• Asus to Phase Out 8.9 Inch Screens in 2009 — Asus started with the 7″ screen, moved up to 8.9″ and now seems to be on track to settle for 10″. Digitimes is reporting that Asus says 95% of its 2009 netbook shipments will be 10″ models.
• Dell files for cancelation of Psion’s “netbook” trademark — Dell might not be the biggest netbook company out there, but they are clearly interested in the sector. Dell has filed for a cancelation of Psion’s claim to the ‘netbook’ trademark. Dell says that Pison abandoned the term and it should not have the trademark because of its “genericness”.
• Dell launches Inspiron Mini 10 preorders… with QVC — Dell might have made the Inspiron Mini 10 official in the last several days, but the first place you’ll be able to pre-order it is through QVC. This is an interesting partnership and will definitely get the Mini 10 in the sights of those that might not normally come across it.
• Mini-notebooks account for 30% of consumer laptop sales in EMEA — A research firm is saying that 30% of all consumer laptop sales in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region are netbooks.
• Meet Gigabyte M1028, convertible netbook — Jkk shoes us the new M1028 tablet-netbook from Gigabyte. This bumps the screen size up from 8.9″ as it was on the Gigabyte M912, and a few specs.
• Gigabyte M912, convertible netbook, gets the needed 6 cell battery — …and speaking of the M912; there is now a 6-cell battery available.
• Asus Eee PC 1000HG with WiMAX gets official — WiMax might not be a highly deployed WWAN technology yet but that isn’t stopping Asus from slapping some letters on to the end of the Eee 1000 and putting out a model with built in WiMax.

According to Mobile Burn, the Nokia N810 WiMax version has been discontinued. Distributors have been asked to return the devices and the source states that it’s due to both slow rollout and a problem with the current WiMax switches in the network.

Personally I’m surprised that the WiMax even went on sale. I can’t imagine that the customer base was that big with just two new rollouts in the U.S.  Lets hope that Nokia are just going to hold back until the new tablet is out. Sometime in Q2 I suspect.

It seems like it has been forever since we heard about the WiMAX equipped N810, and yet the device wasn’t made available… until now that is. Probably owing the delay to the fact that the WiMAX network was hardly even a reality until a few weeks ago when they started testing WiMAX in Baltimore, Maryland (or they might have been waiting until October to match the black and orange color scheme…). The N810 WiMAX edition appears to be finally purchasable directly from Nokia at a price of $443 (after an instant $50 discount), which is right around the launch price of the original N810. The N810 WiMAX edition is exactly the same as the N810 aside from its black color and WiMAX capability.

Jenn from Pocketables tells us that WiMAX’s next stops will be in Washington DC and Chicago, followed by Dallas, Fort Worth, Providence, Boston, and Philadelphia. As far as I have heard, WiMAX tests are going well, and Nokia might be able to cash-in by having one of the first readily available WiMAX equipped products.