There are two choices open to you when you are confronted with a slate style UMPC. You can scratch your head and say, "there don’t be no keyboard here." Or you can ask yourself, "how well can I use this despite the absence of a keyboard?" I asked myself the latter question when first confronted with the R2. This wasn’t the review unit, the R2E, I had for two weeks recently but the original R2H that was shown as one of the very first ultra mobile PC devices nearly three […]

Someone should start a website that databases all the mobile Internet tariff’s because it’s getting very hard, even as a knowledgeable customer, to see what the latest deals are. There are three types of deal in Europe that are common. Add-on packages to voice contracts. Pay as you go options SIM-only data contracts Add-on packages tend to be the cheapest if all you need is mobile Internet on your handset. You can add a flat-rate proxied HTTP service for as little as 10-euro. In some countries the service isn’t even […]

I do enjoy a bit of Om Malik. He cuts through the crap well and has a great sense of humor. He also seems to like mobile computing. Both he and Stacey Higginbotham write good detailed mobile computing articles that you know they are passionate about. This morning I read an article from Om about netbooks and cloud computers. He’s not happy with the general design of netbooks. So far, all they have done is cram traditional notebooks into smaller, maybe-lighter-to-carry bodies. They’re neither good for computing nor for communication. […]

Android, in my opinion, is one of the leading lights for a mobile Internet operating system. Along with Moblin, WM7 and the iPhone OS, it’s in a race to become the de-facto choice and anyone could win. Apple has a great head start and will be happy to hear that Google’s Android OS wont arrive on handsets until the 4th Quarter, months behind the original planned dates. Almost all of the problems appear to be because carriers want their own apps and their own branding. They’re being old and stubborn […]

It looks like Engadget had a slow news day on Sunday as they highlighted the full-fat video presentation I’d prepared for the visitors here. “Gigabyte M704 unboxing video excites reviewer, may put you to sleep” was the title. The cheeky monkeys! Fortunately, people that are actually interested in UMPC’s appear to have got something out of it and see that it’s quite an interesting UMPC. The refresh over the U60 has turned this tiny 7″er into a rather useful and good-value device. Where the 1st-gen Gigabyte U60 had an 800×480 […]

I remember how I raved about the Gigabyte U60 and Medion UMPCs. The spec appeared to be spot-on. Slider keyboard. 6.5″ screen, good size, 3hr battery life, real mouse pointer and a docking station. When it came to hands-on however, something was missing. The price, at 1000 Euro, just didn’t match the build and experience and along with many others, I was left a bit disappointed. Fast forward to the refresh, the Gigabyte M704, and things are different. The 7″ LED backlit 1024×600 screen is top-notch, the bump up to […]

StreamMyGame is a fairly new service enables high end gaming on low end hardware by using a host computer to run the game then playing it remotely from another computer. The service, which offers a free and paid version, has been demonstrated as working well on the Eee PC among other netbooks and UMPCs. Today a news post on the StreamMyGame website says that a new version of their software has been released that targets UMPCs and netbooks, and claims compatibility with over 100 devices. Additionally they mention that similar […]

Its Friday, I have some cool beers n the fridge and a new ultra mobile PC to unbox. If you fancy joining me, asking questions or just watching the live video and chat from the sidelines I’m happy to host a live session. As I mentioned, I have the new Gigabyte M704 UMPC which has just arrived in Europe at Mobilx (aff.) and I also have Ubuntu Mobile Running on the Q1 Ultra UMPC. As usual, i’ll try and answer all your ultra mobile PC questions, just don’t leave it […]