With a launch obviously timed to coincide with Computex next week and positioned to take advantage of the incredible growth in the low-cost mobile notebook market, the OpenBook Mini-Note, on first look, seems to be a much better product opportunity than the Nanobook was. While the Nanobook and Eee PC launched together one year ago, it was the Eee PC that stole the show based largely on price indicators but also on looks. With the OpenBook Mini-Note, VIA appeared to have attended to the important issue of aesthetics and using […]

Its Nanobook version II! Bigger, more powerful, more stylish, using an open-source hardware design and aimed right where Intel have left a gap. The VIA Openbook reference design that you might recognise as the Cloudbook Max, has just been launched. The VIA OpenBook mini-note reference design introduces a host of new innovations, including the next generation of VIA Ultra Mobile Platform, based on the VIA C7®-M ULV processor and the new all-in-one VIA VX800 digital media IGP chipset. Together, this ultra compact, power efficient platform delivers richer computing and multimedia […]

Doody, A nickname I feel I’ve mentioned before in the last few weeks, has been testing the MSI Wind and logged the whole series of tests in the MSI-Wind forums. The tests results include a hard-disk test, PCMark 05, 3D Mark 03 and a battery life test. The hard disk transfer speeds look very good in comparison to devices with 1.8" drives and that means that with XP, application load-times should be fairly swift. The battery life was measured while doing all the benchmarking and represents an extreme scenario. 2 […]

Following the introduction of what appeared to be a value-pack in the UK where the 600Mhz non-bluetooth Q1 Ultra was being packaged with the keyboard and organiser pack for 500 pounds [aff link] , it appears Samsung Germany are dropping prices too. The price for the 800Mhz Q1 Ultra, 60GB, 1GB with XP at Amazon.de has just dropped from 1100 to 899 which brings it nearer to the 850 price of the R2E. The HSDPA version is steady at 1200 which is very expensive in comparison now. 200 Euros is […]

Xmangerm, a Fuji U810 owner, did exactly what you’re supposed to do with a ultra mobile PC at the weekend and that is work wherever you want to! Today is a wonderful day therefore I have decided to hang out on my balcony with my handy dandy UMPC. The screen is only 5.6 inches but it handles everything I throw at it. I am a happy camper. We’re running little UMPC-on-holiday photo competition in the UMPCPortal forums over the next quarter so if you take your ultra mobile PC on […]

Unrelated to the earlier story about a possible MID platform from NVidia is this story that first surfaced about a month ago through Digitimes. They reported on an agreement between VIA and NVidia to co-operate on a low-cost notebook platform and according to research presented by EeePCNews last month, the VN platform would combine a ‘C8’ Isaiah and an Nvidia chipset to form a low-cost notebook platform. According to an Nvidia-sourced slide it looks like the initial aim is a Vista-capable netbook. While a screemer of an XP machine would […]

There’s not a whole lot of detail in this article by Charlie Demerjian of the Inquirer today but it does give us a few nice hints about a MID-capable ARM platform. The CSX 600/650 platform looks like its aimed right into Atom space [I like that expression!] A second platform, the Tegra APX 2500 looks like it’s ideal for Android Handsets. Expect more info from us as we get it. Launch is expected on June 3rd at Computex which is the same day that many of the Intel Atom-based products […]

I’ve just about finished installing a high-speed 8GB SSD drive to my Q1 Ultra XP and have been doing some tests. Overall the device is far more responsive (faster than my Q1 Pentium to start up applications) and I can now boot from power-switch to Google News in 37 seconds where my Q1P (Pentium) takes a minimum of 60 seconds. The advantages are clear and the cost, at 120 Euros for the card and adaptor, was worth it but I’ve lost a whole lot of storage. To me its not […]