I’ve just stepped away from a tablet-fest. It’s like I’m partying in 2006, Origami style, here! The difference is that these devices are thin, look good and run from 9 to 12 inches.
The most interesting was, of course, the thinnest device which apparently runs on Moorestown with MeeGo which means, this is a smart Slate. E.g. Always-on. Obviously with MeeGo it will compete in the consumer space and it’s totally obvious that this bouncing off the iPad hype. I can’t wait to see it because if they include AppUp, it becomes a more complete product than most of the Android slates we’ve seen so far. Expect to see the MeeGo handheld UI experience demonstrated tomorrow in the ultra-mobility presentation. We might even see it at the keynote this afternoon. More coming soon.
Completely screwing up any categorisation I ever used in the mobile computing space is the Wistron PurseBook (aka PBook and what we highlighted incorrectly as the ‘FirstBook’ last week.) Take a look at this video from Engadget and then consider some of the specs, especially the weight which comes in at an impressively light 800gm.
The 11.1” screen size is quite misleading as it’s a super-wide aspect meaning it would be something like 1024×480 resolution, less pixels than many 8.9” netbooks. Update: ‘Kola’ spotted a pic (see comments) that shows the resolution as 1280×545. My guess on the size is about 280x150x25. [See comparison image below] The processor isn’t going to give you netbook browsing speeds either but it’s going to be way better than we’re seeing on smartphones. 8hrs battery life with instant or ‘always-on’ means you’ll save time when opening it just to make a quick check on email or a web page and it also means you could leave IM, Skype, Tweetdeck running all the time.
Netbooknews.de have posted a video via (PDA.pl) from ARM that shows the Wistron Netbook, a thin, Sony Vaio-like netbook baed on the Quallcom Snapdragon CPU and running Linux. Jump to the action at 2:32
I really realy want to get my hands on a snapdragon-based device as soon as possible. I want to feed back to you all on the real-world browsing speed and capabilities.
More of a shout out to anyone at MWC reading Twitter than to regular readers, here’s a short excerpt from an ARM press release today:
Wistron Demonstration of two new products; a sleek 5” advanced Internet experience device and a new device called a P/Book with an 11.1” screen. Both are powered with ARM processors based on the ARMv7 architecture and will be available in 2009.
ARM v7 is the latest architecture and used in the Cortex (and other licensed) CPUs. The full press release also includes information we’ve reported on before.
If you’re at MWC, get on over to the ARM stand and check out the Wistron MID ASAP. Don’t forget your camera!
I’ve just stepped away from a tablet-fest. It’s like I’m partying in 2006, Origami style, here! The difference is that these devices are thin, look good and run from 9 to 12 inches.
