Update: Lots of testing notes in the comments below.
A big thanks to Mobilx. Within 24 hours of them receiving a sample (not a retail version) Wibrain i1, they’ve shipped it out to us. It’s just arrived. I’ve taken it out of it’s wrapping to have a quick look and I think we’re luckier than expected. The HSDPA switch, antenna and SIM slot are there which indicates it’s an HSDPA version. I can’t turn it on yet to confirm 3G or processor type as it’s still cold from overnight transport and I don’t want to risk any condensation problems. I’ll give it an hour and go for it. [Will post anything significant via Twitter]
It’s an exciting product because it’s the first time we’ve been able to get an XP / Menlow device for detailed testing. While we’ve been calling for XP on Menlow, none of the devices that we expected to be available now have surfaced. It’s ironic that the Dell Mini 12 is now available with XP. No-one appears to have tested that version yet so not only will we be able to test the i1 as a device in it’s own right but it could give us a good idea about battery life, general performance and video performance with the Silverthorne CPU and Poulsbo U15 chipset that we should see in MIDs and netbooks next year. If you’re interested in the new MSI Winds, stay tuned for performance details!
I’ll be running a live session later where you can ask questions and watch me do some testing. The live session is planned for 2000 CET, Germany (11am Pacific, US.) I’ll be doing a live overview (10 minutes) for YouTube and then going over the device in more detail. See you on the ‘live’ channel later.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Wibrain i1 / Menlow testing notes on the comments in this article. So far–very very good! Me want keep! http://is.gd/c7Xw
December 17th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
http://www.mobilx.hu/wibrain-i1-xp-home-angol-umpc-hsdpa.html
????
not confirmed to be even released but they are advertising it here and taking preorders?
December 17th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Yup.
New news from Wibrain this morning was that they are still planning it for Q1 2009.
Steve
December 17th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Confirmed:
1.33ghz Menow
1GB ram
HSDPA (Siemens HC25)
60Gb drive (noisy Samsung!!)
Ater 5 minutes wifi on, full brigthness i’m seeing 5hrs battery life.
Vastly improved keyboard click too.
So far, she’s flying!
December 17th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Noise and heat is better that b1 so far (B1 would have been hot and noisy after 10 mins. This is quiet and cool.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
First page loads: (No cache, wifi, )
Google news page load: 7 seconds
Engadget page load: 11 seconds
UMPCPortal: 10 seconds
So: fast!
Now switching to power save mode. Turning Wifi off, screen to 50%….
over 6hrs when idle. Remember, this is a two-cell 30wh battery.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Video performance looking excelent. 6.5mbps Divx perfect. No hardware decoding enabled. (THis is expected as there are no codecs installed yet.)
December 17th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
HDD max read/write 33/31MB/s Fast enough but a fast SSD would make this one soar.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Interesting. XP doesnt see hyperthreading. CPU driver problem I wonder.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
First crystalmark test – 15000
Results let down by very poor graphics scores.
Compared to Wibrain b1, CPU and MEM scores around DOUBLE!
HDD slightly slower than B1. Not much slower though.
In general it feels faster than B1 but slower than Intel netbooks (not suprisingly!)
Now to test HSDPA….
December 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
50 mins – no fan noise. No heat.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Standby not working…..
Beta drivers?
December 17th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Battery from B1 is exactly the same.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Its ridiculously easy to get into the net via 3G.
Speedtest.net coming up….
December 17th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Speedtest.net
Antenna up/down not making much difference here (2 bars)
Speedtest: 500 down, 360 up.
MP3 download from U.S. 1mbps down average. (Vodafone HSDPA, Germany)
I would expect a max 2mbps here but reception in house seems good.
Now……looks like theres a little easter egg here…..give me 5 minutes.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
How is the battery so far? What does the battery indicator say?
December 17th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Sounds very interesting. Noise has always been a big factor for me, and this is looking good….
December 17th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I thought the 3G Aigo was quite expensive from Mobilx at 676 Euros. This is listed at 766 Euros!
December 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Its certainly not cheap compared to netbooks but compared to OQO, Samsung, Everun solutions, its in a good price bracket.
In my hands i’m seeing a very good product from a technical and operational standpoint.
Style needs work though although i’m actually excited to see so much battery life, 3G and Xp in one, easy-to-use package.
Steve
December 17th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
It does sounds great.
Put it in an Aigo/M528 shell and I’d be pretty much sold (after quizzing you more on noise).
December 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Fan still hasn’t come on once yet and i’ve been thrashing it.
However, the device is starting to warm up. Its as warm in 4 hours of use as the B1 is in 10 minutes! Also note that maybe they havent implemented the fan control yet.
Steve
December 17th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Fan just started for the first time.
Not exactly a nice quiet one either!
It came on as I was charging/using the device at the same time.
Unplugging the mains almost instantly stops the fan.
Steve
December 17th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Battery life is HUGE.
I’m seeing 5hrs indicated while online, full power, full screen brightness.
Over 6hrs with Wifi off.
It was expected but to see it under relaxed testing conditions is fantastic.
Steve.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Regarding that easter-egg. The software enables voice dialling but its *not working* despite attempting to dial out.False alarm (at the moment!)
December 17th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Can you test, please, quality of graphics for external monitors and projectors in various resolution?
December 17th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I’ve been advised not to use any B1 accessories at the moment. That means the VGA adaptor cable too :-(
S
December 17th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Hey steve,
It would be interested to see if the GPS car mount works with it.If it does it would be great!
December 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Wow it’s looking great, keep the info coming
Any chance of testing some games, say half-life 2 demo http://www.gamershell.com/download_7886.shtml or similar?
What’s the crystalmark comparison vs Wibrain B1 specifically on graphics, better or worse?
Thanks for the preview chippy, can’t wait for the live session :D
December 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Games is going to be a non starter on this due to low-end graphics and early drivers.
See above for CM results. CPU and MEM about double in CM.
Feels snappier than B1 but not by much, probably because of drive.
Fast SSD would really set this free although as it is, it’s not a problem at all.
Steve
December 17th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Interesting experiment with ustream and the built in cam!
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/981604
December 17th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Just completed a skype call.
No problems.
Even video worked although a but jerky.
Steve
December 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
LIve session is in less than an hour right? I think I’m in CET +1 but just in case
December 17th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Live session in starts in 90 minutes from this comment.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
comments look like they are one hour out. Very helpful!
December 17th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Please send the Crystalmark details. Mostly I am interested in the cpu’s ALU and FPU results.
Thank you.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I’m seeing 2940 on ALU, 2834 on FPU.
Expect 1.33/1.6 * the scores you see on netbooks ;-) so around 3000 is about right.
Steve
December 18th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Just to confirm the battery life, I used the i1 for well over 5hrs on the live session tonight with many different scenarios (representing a normal, active PC user) and it lasted a real 5.5hrs. VERY impressive.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:08 am
WOW! Great! When and where will be available??? I’m hurry to get it. I had a sadly and costly HTC Shift X9501 after 1 hour and 11 minutes, battery empty! Now the graphic card is dead also!… Wibrain it’s a Wii for the great brains! There Champion of all. Thanks for your great report.
February 17th, 2009 at 12:58 am
…We will be in March 2009 in a week…and no sight of i1 !! When available? Where? They forgotten us! Tell me to buy it, from: musicalcd@hotmail.com
December 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Any chance to check yesterday’s live session? I couldn’t get in time to watch it online so it would be wonderful see what happened even though not live
December 18th, 2008 at 10:38 am
There are some video clips of yesterdays session here.
http://www.ustream.tv/chippy/videos
Steve
December 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
thanks, I’ll check them out now :D
December 18th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Great vids, really in depth, thanks a lot!
Chippy, any chance of running 3dmark 2001 on the I1? Also, what GDI, OGL and D2D numbers did it got in crystalmark?
does the stylus fit better now on the back to hold it in 45 degrees position? with the B1 it kept falling everytime I moved it :(
Thanks again for all the info
December 18th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Still falls out!
Regarding 3dmark, I could, but I won’t at the moment.
Honestly, 3D scores and real-life experience is the worst i’ve ever seen on a UMPC! Everun Note is the one for gaming.
Glas you enjoyed the vids!
Steve
December 19th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I think it would be because of the immature XP support than the hardware of the Poulsbo graphics itself. Still, whether we’ll ever get to confirm that is to be determined.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Another couple of updates.
I went to bed at 0200 last night and slotted a full battery into the i1, turned off standby and hibernation and left it on. The Wibrain was still running at 12:30 with 1:5hrs left! Thats 12hrs screen-off, wifi off.
Tested voice dialling. It made a voice call! It doesn’t receive calls though and the audio isnt physically routed onto the soundcard on this model. With such a long standby time, you could use this with a BT headset as a voice phone! GSM-on, BT-on, screen off will return about 6.5hrs of idle.
Occasional crashing observed. BIOS loses settings too. This is obviously a pre-release problem.
My wife said this morning ‘Oh, it looks like you really like that one’ … as I was lazing around on the sofa doing my email and rss ‘work’ !!
Steve.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Last note. I have to put the i1 to one side until the weekend now as i’ve got a few commitments over the next 48hrs.
Testing will resume over the weekend.
Steve
December 18th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Has anyone noticed that Mobilx has a stock date of Feb 20th 2009? I don’t remember seeing that on there yesterday…
http://www.mobilx.hu/wibrain-i1-xp-home-angol-umpc-hsdpa.html
December 19th, 2008 at 10:16 am
They tell this date since mid November ;-) And i still don’t believe it until i see the first one shipped.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
There’s no real ship date yet.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Wow. How extremely sad that I never saw that until just the other day. I’ll go crawl back under my rock now. The light is bright out here and it scares me…
December 20th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Well, this does it for me. I will be putting my SC3 up for sale asap. I only used it about six times. I will be ordering this wibrain i1.
December 20th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Chippy, what’s the color spec on the display? Is it 16m (32 bit) or 247k (16bit)…
December 20th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Switching the display from 32bit to 16 bit degrades the viewable quality so its obviously more than 16 bit. As there are only 16 and 32 bit settings available, id estimate that it was a 32bit screen.
In practical terms, it’s gorgeous!!
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I’ve just seen the video for Wibrain I1 UMPC. It’s so awesome!! I thought the design looked a bit iffy in the beginning but when its on its actually not bad. 5-6 hour battery life with 30WHr is what a good design Menlow should reach.
Though I must say Viliv is pretty convincing too :D.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Viliv looks better but the lack of keyboard is a problem for me. Wibrain is really great. Im considering it better than the m528 for me at the moment due to processing power and battery life.
Steve
December 24th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Test result: 3G on, full screen brightness, Browsing. Battery life 5hrs. (Posted at 140km/h)
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Wibrain i1 ?
it is named Eking in china.
In the end is made in China or Korea ?
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Eking is the wibrain i1.
[img]http://news.mydrivers.com/img/20081224/03402092.jpg[/img]
March 11th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Has anybody bought i1?
March 24th, 2009 at 4:14 am
hi,stevechippy
i’m looking for the i1.
how can i get the i1?
can u sell the il to me?
if so, please please sell it to me!
April 6th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Hi,
Is there any chance this Eking/Wibrain i1 runs games such as Guild Wars smoothly?
Ergonomics look perfectly adequate.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:21 am
I’he got an offer (Eking i1, 650$). Is it good price?
What is the difference bitween wibrain and eking?
Please, let me know.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
The only thing i still wait to buy is not the price, is the ABSENCE of 3G (simm slot) inside and the GPS not inside. I’m awaiting for, even price is more, it’s better than to travel with UMPC, + GPS + 3G USB key. Better all inside, is marvelous to go restaurant, traveling or outside. Phone me when GPS and 3G inside (onboard). I’ll buy it right there. 514-461-1117 Look when available tanks a lot. From a real great geek!