You’ve undoubtedly seen coverage of Viliv’s solid S5 [Portal page] and X70 [Portal page] UMPCs lately. They have been topping the popularity charts here at ultra mobile PC Portal over the last several weeks. Viliv seems to be on a roll, after churning out both the S5 and X70, Viliv is starting to push out the Viliv S5, a 7 inch tablet style UMPC.

Full specs, links, and details on the Viliv S7 Portal page.

The Korean version of their website has recently been updated with some content promoting the upcoming Viliv S7, and while a release date hasn’t yet been announced, it shouldn’t be too much longer before the S7 lands, judging by how quickly the S5 and X70 were released in relation to each other.

Viliv claims that the S7 will offer users 9.5 hours of basic computing, or 7 hours of video playback. The whole package will be under 800g making the S7 quite portable. There will be three different models of S7 (similar to the Asus Eee T91) which will all ship with Windows XP, a 1.33GHz Z520 Atom CPU, and 1GB of RAM. The three models will differ in little more than HDD/SSD option, and one with a DMB receiver. Those models are as follows:

• I-LOG HX: 60GB HDD ($583)
• I-LOG 3X: 32GB SSD ($639)
• D-LOG 3X: 32GB SSD / DMB receiver ($679)

*USD prices calculated from listed KRW price using current exchange rate.

Any of the three models can be equipped with WiBro (the Korean version of WiMax).

As for an international model: the English Viliv site shows the S7 as having all the same specs, though there will be a choice of WiMAX or HSDPA for 3G connectivity.

[Pocketables.net]

Update: Poll now closed, to see results head over to this post.

Just a quick poll to see which devices people are waiting for. There are seveal very nice devices that are still on their way to the market. See the following links below to review the devices before making your choice (also feel free to fill your own answer into the ‘other’ area). Please only vote once.

Crunchpad | Asus Eee T91 | Archos 9 | Always Innovating Touchbook

Trusted Reviews seems to have gotten some info from The Inquirer regarding the upcoming Archos 9 [Portal page] and potentially a new MID device coming after its release. TR says that the Archos 9 will run you £450 ($732 USD) for the 60GB HDD version, or £500 ($813 USD).

Another interesting bit is that there may be an Android powered device from Archos with a 5 inch screen. I’m going to imagine this would be a MID/PMP, and the first product that pops into my mind is something like the Viliv S5 [Portal page], maybe fitting considering how similar the Archos 9 is to the Viliv X70’s [Portal page] form factor.

[Engadget]

You’ve probably heard of the upcoming CrunchPad by now. Its a project started by Michael Arrington, and the goal of which is to bring a web tablet with easy to use functionality to market with a reasonable price.

A recent post on CrunchGear says that Arrington may be planning a CrunchPad event (presumably an official announcement/launch) at the end of this month, or perhaps early August. Additionally it looks like the final price of Intel Atom powered CrunchPad will still be under $300 which certainly seems reasonable as long as the device is adept at consuming web content.

The master of mobile modding, jkk, wastes no time tearing apart new gadgetry. Case-in-point, the brand new Viliv X70 [Portal page].

Good to know that someone is brave enough to break open a new piece of kit and post up some high resolution pictures so that we don’t have to do it ourselves! Swing by jkkmobile for additional images.

I’ve been giggling for the past hour. I just can’t work out if that portfolio case is a masterstroke or just plain silly but one thing’s for sure, it highlights how small this device is.

We got hold of the Kohjinsha SK3 a few hours ago and ripped straight into it with an unboxing video that you’ll find below. So far we’re impressed with the build-quality, the size and weight, the features, the bright and crisp screen and of course that portfolio case. We’re not so impressed with what looks to be low-end battery life (largely due to the tiny battery) and the Japanese language XP build (a nice challenge!) although the speed of the device seems to be good. XP is helping here. The keyboard is exactly the same as found on the SC3 so you’re limited to pecking on the desktop although thumbing and single hand-hold pecking is also possible. The screen mechanism is solid.

Full specifications for the Kohjinsha SK3 along with links to the new gallery, videos and other articles are in the product database.

We’ll be testing more over the weekend so watch out for a full hands-on early next week. A live session is tentatively planned for Monday evening (Central Europe time.)

Update: Archos 9 is now in the database with all the specs and links to the important news and videos.
Looks like some of the folks over at Cnet.uk had some time to ‘finger’ (their words, not mine) the recently unveiled Archos 9 UMPC. As you’ll recall, the Archos 9 is Archos’ first foray into the world of UMPCs, though they seem to have not realized that there have already been many device like this, and think they are being ‘innovative’ by removing the keyboard from the ‘netbook’ (am I the only one that can’t help but laugh at that?). Actually, let me quote directly from their press release before we move on:

What better innovation for a Netbook than to get rid of keyboards?

Ok, I’ll give you a minute to recover from you inevitable laughter. Got it? Good.

Well then, as I was saying, the folks at Cnet.uk seem to have gotten their hands on an early sample of the Archos 9 and while they didn’t have much time to test the unit for performance, they did snap some pictures for us to examine.

These are the good sides of the device. Be sure to check out the Cnet article for a few more images. After checking out the others, you may agree with me that it appears to be decidedly pre-production. I’m hoping the device will clean up nicely before launch.

One interesting thing to note is that the resistive touchscreen on the Archos 9 is apparently so responsive that the people playing with the unit actually mistook it for a capacitive screen, which is about the best news we can hear without it actually being capacitive. Cnet is actually checking for verification just to be sure that it is resistive as stated in the press release (linked above).

The Always Innovating Touchbook, which made a decent amount of buzz several months ago, should be seeing its first batch of devices released next month, in July. The device is quite unique as the screen can be removed from the keyboard and run as a standalone slate tablet.

Always Innovating just released some new info stating that the first batch would be out in July, however the software isn’t yet finalized:

We are very excited to have nearly finalized the Touch Book hardware. As you know, we are at the cutting edge of innovation with a new processor, a new architecture, a new design and new applications. The Touch Book Operating System will continue to be a work-in-progress over the next few months. As beta software (and not beta à la Google News), you should not expect a flawless experience by July. But don’t worry, we will be here to provide support, and we intend to push frequent updates so as to continue improving the user experience. With your feedback, we will be able to test, refine, and prepare for a final software release later this year.

It is an interesting situation that they have essentially finished the hardware before the software and will now be pushing units out to get feedback from early-adopters. We should be receiving a Touchbook from the July batch, so stay tuned for coverage. Full device specs below:

• Texas Instruments OMAP3530 with Micron 256MB (RAM) + 256MB (NAND) Memory
• 8.9 inch 1024×600 A+ screen
• Main storage: 8GB SD card — we decided to change from Micro SD to standard SD, so that you can easily upgrade it
• Internal USB wifi 802.11 b/g/n powered by a Ralink 3070 chipset
• Internal USB bluetooth class 2.1
• FCC, CE, UL-certified, 5V, 3.5A power adapter
• 8.9 inch pressure sensitive touch screen
• US Qwerty 24cm-large keyboard — around 95% of the size of a standard keyboard
• Cirque Touchpad
• Two Owolff high-quality internal stereo speakers
• 3D accelerometer
• Two internal batteries 6000 and 12000mAh — it can be replaced with a screw driver
• 7 USB ports: three external, four internal, three of them may be reserved for wifi, bluetooth and keyboard
• Bi-color silver/black case — see photos — with a beautiful dark-red back cover (we decided to go only for red for the first batch as it really jumps out, you won’t regret it).
• Secured attachment system of tablet into keyboard
• Independent magnet system for the tablet — we don’t want your Touch Book to un-magnetize all your credit cards while carrying it in your bag!

I bolded ‘pressure sensitive’ in the touchscreen spec above as I’m not 100% sure what they are trying to imply. One could say that all resistive touchscreens are ‘pressure sensitive’ because they sense a certain pressure on the screen and translate that to input. However, the specific denotation of ‘pressure sensitivity’ in these specs almost seems to imply that it will have several layers of pressure sensitivity, like that of a graphics tablet. While I think it is unlikely that is the case, it would be quite interesting to have several levels of pressure sensitivity in a small slate unit.

The new info also lists the software that will be shipping with the early units as well as software that is on its way:

• Linux 2.6.29 with all the required drivers
• Xfce 4.4 desktop environment
• A unique 3D interface for starting applications with your finger
• Firefox 3.0 and Fennec beta 2
• Youtube and daily motion support
• A video and music player
• Abiword and Gnumeric
• A chat manager, Pidgin
• Mypaint 5.1
• An ebook reader, Fbreader
• A printer manager, Cups
• All usual accessories (zip, picture viewer, dictionary…)
• Support for most standard USB accessories
• Java support

Good to see that Fennec is going to be on the device. If you’ll recall, Fennec is a mobile version of Mozilla’s Firefox which focuses on touch input. See our short video demo of it here.

There is also some upcoming software improvements which they hope to bring to the 1.0 release. Those include the following:

• Skype compatible application
• OpenOffice 3.1
• A full Adobe Flash solution
• Recognition of the Touch Book by iTunes to synchronize your music and video
• A Google-maps-based application with GPS support (GPS USB not included)
• Some 3D accelerometer-based iPhone games

The ‘iPhone’ games mention is a bit iffy. I’m doubting that they are talking about having actual iPhone games on the phone, but instead probably some accelerometer based games, and maybe some based on existing iPhone games.

I suppose we’ll find out the answer to our questions in July when we get our hands on one.