If you’re living in city that gets affected by the Carnival week leading up to Ash Wednesday, it’s likely that you won’t have even considered PC’s in the last few days. Karneval has been in full swing here in the Cologne area and although I was having a few days holiday in the less Karneval-crazy south of Germany, I didn’t escape the madness. When I got back, everyone was still partying so I felt obliged to join in (see right.) It wasnt all play though as I did some good moblogging tests (and beat my height and speed record for blogging – 1100m and 155km/h) I’m back at my desk now, filtering through thousands, of RSS-based posts trying to see if anything major has happened in the last 5 days. It doesn’t appear so but there are a few bits of interesting news to go through. Firstly though, I’m glad to see that some of you enjoyed, or at least got some value, from the CPU overview article. It was read over 1300 times in 5 days! [read more after the jump]
Staying with the CPU theme then, a few blogs have reported that Intel will give details about Silverthorne at ISSCC this week. Yes, this is expected and is being discussed at length by some very knowledgeable people in the UMPCPortal forums. (Note that I haven’t posted much in the thread as it goes way beyond my basic knowledge of processor technology!) The thread, which has notched up 133 replies, is active here and I’m sure the discussion will heat up even more when we get details of Silverthorne. For me, the key points that I’m trying to confirm are 1) How much LESS powerful than an A110 will it be. 2) What will the GPU be 3) What power-drain should we expect in total from devices built on Menlow.
Otto Berkes has a new blog and in his second post he’s talking about the Eee PC which has barged into the pricing space that the Origami devices were aimed at. “The Eee adheres to some of the core tenets of the ultra-mobile PC a low-cost, highly mobile, full-fidelity companion computer.” I agree. Origami didn’t die. The concepts of the Origami project are being realised right before our very eyes. [Via JKKMobile]
Opera 9.5 and Skyfire. I have been waiting to get more information about Skyfire before I write about it. I was sure that it was a proxied service, just as the PocketSurfer browser and Opera-Mini are but didn’t have any proof until now. An article by Brighthand confirms my thoughts. According to the article, the page is sent as an ‘image’ from a server which is what Silverlight (Microsoft) does. By image, I mean that the browser is not talking http and not receiving html content. Its a composite of images, text and very refined product-specific code. I don’t like the idea myself. I’m quite a purist when it comes to the Internet and I don’t want anything to get in my way of viewing the original images, links and even advertising and I don’t like giving people permission to store, log, modify and even inject content into my stream. But if it does the job quickly and efficiently, not many people are going to moan. I’m using the S60 browser on my N82 but even though its a traditional ‘pure’ browser, my data contract isn’t. It’s a proxied http service which, as I said, I don’t like but as it’s 1/5th of the cost of an ‘open’ Internet plan, I’m using it for now. It does the job! Funnily enough though, this data plan prevents me from using OperaMini, Skyfire and Silverlight! Prices for ‘pure’ Internet are coming down though (see below) and the efficiencies of running a proxy farm will fade away when the user numbers get bigger. Look what happened to AOL when they tried to continue that model! There’s also another browser solution in the news that will go very well with a pure Internet connection and it’s one that I’m far more interested in than Silverlight or Skyfire. Its Opera mobile 9.5. This is the desktop-style browser for small-screen devices and it looks like it will have some very nice features indeed. Obviously it’s taken cues from Safari on the iPhone/iPod but I bet it’s going to be far more flexible. I can see nearly all WM users switching to this when it’s out, even though it’s not going to be free. I hope it arrives on my Archos 605 Wifi software updates too as I’m really enjoying lazing in my sofa with the IR mini keyboard driving Opera on my TV through the Archos DVR station. (More about this soon on Carrypad.) I will try and get a browser summary article written soon because the number of choices are increasing. [Pocketables has some comment, a video and a link to the press release.]
A lot of Cloudbook talk. This is too be expected I guess. I’ll be honest, I don’t think the Cloudbook has any chance in beating Eee PC sales. The Eee PC has become loved as the peoples-pc and no amount of discounting is going to bring the, rather ugly in my opinion, Cloudbook into the lead. You’ll never see articles in the paper about the second PC into the cheap 7″ category and you’ll probably never hear the average punter mention the Cloudbook in the pub! Still, its not about being #1 for Everex. Its about generating profits and the Cloudbook still has a good chance of doing that. Something that the Everex marketing team will be very happy about are the reported EeePC delays. This is apparently due to 8GB flash problems. [source: Digitimes] More Cloudbook info here.
Vodafone UK mobile broadband price cuts. Good news is coming through for people in the UK. It seems a mobile Internet pricing war is breaking out and Vodafone are getting creative with their pricing and offerings. Not only have they halved the monthly rate for a 3GB contract but they have also introduced options for daily usage, roaming and introduced a no-contract option. The prices don’t seem to have reached mainland Europe yet but I’m excepting them to filter through. I bet they launch something for Germany before CeBIT but for me, T-Mobile is still the way to go due to their very strong position in the hotspot market. They bundle hotspot access with their HSDPA contracts. One thing is becoming clear though with all these new plans – it’s getting harder to choose a solution. Smartphones don’t just do broswing and support for SIP, SSH, VPNs FTP and other protocols is important. Is it proxied or unproxied? Is there a website blacklist? Are you allowed to drop the SIM card into a PC. Or a MID? [Source]
Q1Ultra Premium in three versions. JKKMobile reports that the Q1 Ultra Premium will come in many flavors. I’m happy to see XP in the options list and I’m even more happy to see HSDPA there too. There’s no pricing but you can bet that these will be aimed at the ‘pro’ market.
WiBrain video tests. Ctitanic ran some video performance tests on the WiBrain and was happy with the results (Link) His results tally well with mine. In general, the Wibrain can handle all common online media files (Feb 2008!) and does very well with all locally stored, sub-HD content. I’m going to be trying to turn my WiBrain into a mini media centre for the bedroom soon so watch out for posts on that (after I finally write-up the full review on the WiBrain though!) More WiBrain info here.
Archos 605 Wifi. I have to write a little about this. Its got nothing to do with UMPCs but it’s been distracting me all day. In fact the Archos 605 and the Nokia N82 are proving to be the most fun gadgets I’ve had for a very long time. I got the DVR station for the Archos 605 Wifi, a non-contender in the MID market but a very interesting, good value and easy device that allows you to add Internet and PC-based media to your TV and then grab-and-go if you need to travel. For users wanting portable Internet, portable media and the ability to expand the system into a full PVR-capable home media station, its flexibility is unmatched. I’ll write some more about it on Carrypad when I finally put down the remote control but if you’re interested, there’s already some links on the Archos 605 Wifi product page.
That just about covers it for important news I think. If there’s something you think I’ve missed, tip me here.
