UMPCPortal, the site that I started as Carrypad.com in Feb 2006, survives! It’s full of mobile computing history that needs to be preserved. Maybe in another 10 years we’ll be able to look back at the equipment and wonder how we ever survived. Here’s 2007, for example. Crazy! You’ll notice that most ads and plugins and bells and whistles are now gone so the site is faster and hopefully more stable.  You might also notice that the sites Ultrabooknews and Chromebookworld are gone. They were out of date and needed […]

Hades Canyon NUC If you’re looking for a mobile PC for high-end work such as gaming, video editing or live video production then this Hades Canyon NUC8i7HVK is the most powerful solution you can find today. In 1300 grams, lighter than most laptops, you’ll find a Kaby Lake G Quad Core i7 CPU package with a TDP of 100W. That huge TDP figure is because Intel have dropped an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH on to the package. It’s an incredibly powerful solution and will compete with Nvidia GTX […]

Intel has launched the Hades Canyon NUC, a quad-core high-end mini PC in the style of the Skull Canyon NUC that I’ve personally been close to buying several times after I tested it for NotebookCheck. It’s aimed at gaming and graphics-heavy processing including video editing and I tip this to be quite the hot product for the new generation of multi-camera live streaming systems based on NDI (video over IP) standards.

The Mobile PC. Always On, Always Connected.  Qualcomm and Microsoft have today officially launched Windows 10 on ARM products from ASUS, HP and Lenovo. These long-battery-life PCs will be available starting in 2018. It’s exciting, but tt feels like we’ve done this before and it didn’t work back then. In 2012 Intel launched the Clovertrail SoC platform based around the Intel Atom architecture.  Along with Windows 8 it offered Connected Standby, which worked, but never became a mainstream feature. Modern Standby, the Windows 10 version, works today with a range […]

Someone got hands-on with the Gemini PDA and now I’m all excited. If you had a Psion 5 Like I did, you’ll find this Android clamshell very interesting. https://jmcomms.com/2017/11/29/gemini-pda-20-years-on-meet-the-all-new-psion-series-5/

Ultra Mobile video production was never easy but over the last year I’ve been experimenting with a 360-degree camera and I’m now 100% sure that you’ll find journalists, social media and YouTubers bringing this into mainstream use in 2018. Its too simple to fail. Record everything, hands-off, and edit later. Take a look at the video below. In March this year I had the opportunity to join a Land Rover Discovery 90 cross-country dash in Germany and, as any decent video producer would do, had to decide which equipment to […]

Windows 10 S, an optimized and tightened-up version of the Windows operating system has launched, along with an Ultrabook – the Microsoft Surface Laptop. Windows 10 S is also aimed at the education market and Acer is using Windows 10 S to (re)launch the TravelMate Spin B1  a low-cost students laptop with digitizer, touch and full HD 11.6 inch convertible screen. Don’t be worried. Windows 10 S is not Windows RT. It supports Win32 desktop apps, can be upgraded and one assumes that it also runs on ARM hardware. Windows 10 S is a […]

I was at Mobile World Congress last week and during my last hours on the show floor I took some time to meet with Ricoh who have just launched the Ricoh R development kit for 360-degree live-streaming. I spent a good hour at the booth, mainly because of the mobile streaming rig they had put together.     

The ASUS Zenbook UX3410UA. Ultrabook, subnotebook, whatever you want to call it, if it’s under 1.3 KG  / 3 pounds and it’s got a screen as good as this, I’m interested. I’ve just completed a video review for Notebookcheck (video below) and now I’m torn between three great ultrabook options. The Dell XPS 13 is a recommendation; That goes without saying. The Lenovo Ideapad 710S Plus that I did a video review for yesterday, also worth considering. This ASUS Zenbook though has such a great screen and such good battery life…and […]

What can you pack into an Ultrabook-sized laptop that weighs 1.1 KG? PC gaming? Yes. I’ve just been testing the Lenovo Ideapad 710S Plus and not only is it a great Ultrabook (without a touchscreen) but there’s an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX that will double the graphics power over a standard Ultrabook. I managed to play Rise of the Tomb Raider, a recent and heavyweight game at low settings with an acceptable 30 FPS. Battery life? Well over 5 hrs.

It’s a long way off from being a default option on Chromebooks but some models are now getting the Google Play Store which means Android app integration. Summary: Millions of local Android apps will come to Chromebooks. It breaks the browser-only model and is a somewhat negative sign for HTML5 apps but for some classes of user it’s going to bring an exciting new option to the notebook and laptop space.

At just 8 months old my son made the right choice for us. He chose ‘laptop’ and pushed the tablet to one side. Why? They’re better of course. It’s a video that I just have to re-post here in 2017 when we’re all getting distracted and, to be honest, bogged-down by the tablet touchscreen. We’re getting lazier and less efficient. Here I am sitting on my bum in front of a laptop and I’m doing real work rather than messing around with Candy, sending smiley faces to ‘friends’ or getting […]

Windows’ mobile problem is well know. Apps. Will an alternative processor architecture help? It’s great to see ARM in the space, but it won’t fix the problem. There are two mobile-related Windows problems. The first is the close-down of the Lumia brand. It was the first big indicator that the Universal Windows Program wasn’t attracting the developer hours that were so badly needed. They were needed to bring Windows, and not just Windows Mobile, to a point where Win32 / desktop apps could be ignored in favour of mobile apps. Under UWP […]

Welcome to 2017? This mini PC by GraalPhone reminds us of 2006! The idea of a multi-mode mobile PC is far from new but GraalPhone is taking a shot at building something that’s not only multi-mode but also multi-OS system. It’s something we would have been very excited about 10 years ago but given the number of failures in this multimode mobile PC market over the last 10 years it’s hard to get excited now. Having said that, we must now consider the smartphone-as-a-core option. This ‘4 in 1’ design uses the […]