Its 20 minutes until the world cup starts here in Germany. Its 27 degrees, the roads are quite and the smell of Barbecues the sound of TV and garden parties fill the air.

So, here goes for a speed-post. Please ignore spelling mistakes!

VIA CoreFusion
President an CEO Wenchi Chen announced that the next in the Core-Fusion range of single chip CPU/Chipsets (Codenamed ‘John’) will be available before the end of the year. This is a great step for minaturisation as it combines the C7-ULV and the VX700 chipset (combined north/southbridge) on one package.

ASUS R2H in July.
Asus confirmed that they are aiming for a July launch for the R2H. No further confirmation (or denial) of pricing and specs. This will bring some competition in at the 900-1100 Euro mark.

Intel sub 1-watt processors.
Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher said that Intel will have a new Ultra-Low Voltage Core Duo CPU ready during the second half of this year that will consume “a median average” of just 0.75 watts. He also reported that HP, Dell and other vendors are already developing PCs which will use the chip. ‘Median average’ is a strange term to use and kind of gives the game away that the real average utilisation will be something above that 0.75Watt figure.

Epios development.
The Epios linux team showcased low-power VIA-based low-power PC’s. Significant is that they now have support for C7 and the related chipsets. I’m interested to know if they are working on small-screen GUI’s. If so, it could give via-based ultra mobile PC users a great alternative to Windows.

LCD power-reductions
The news came through that backlight technology on LCD’s could change by the end of the year bringing 30 minutes more to the battery life of existing UMPC’s. Anything that gives an extra 20% battery life is a good thing!

Pepperpad 3
Pepper computer announced the AMD-based Pepper Pad3 multimedia web-pad.

Averatec.
Averatec announced more details of the AHI ultra mobile PC including a challenging price-point. The device looks great and most other people seem to have made the same comment.

ECS H70
The ECS H70 (AKA Founder mininote) was displayed with a Pentium M CPU option. This would make it the first Origami ultra mobile PC to have a Pentium processor. Its an expensive part but ECS say they are aiming for a $900-$1100 price point.

And thats it! Kick off in 10 minutes.
Good luck to all teams taking part.
Fingers crossed for England of course!!

Steve / Chippy.

The inquirer has an interesting comment on ultra mobile PC battery life today.

They talk about the 7″ screens from the automotive world and they say that the backlight on these LCD screens is responsible for 30 minutes of battery life.

That equates to 2-3 watts which is about right I think based on our tests and predictions. In fact, in an idle ultra mobile PC (lets say for example, while e-book reading) the backlight would account for 30-40% of the power drain and would lengthen the battery life of the device by over an hour to 4 hours.

The best bit of the story is that they think that the power-hungry ‘Cold Cathode Fluorescent’ backlight, will be replaced by very low power LEDs before the end of the year. Sounds good to me! Every little bit helps to keep the ‘Carrypad’s Law’ of battery life on track.

power requirements of mobile devices will reduce by 20% a year – Carrypad.

This equates to the following max battery life figures:

• 2006 – Average ultra mobile PC life 4 hours
• 2007 – Average ultra mobile PC life 4.8 hours
• 2008 – Average ultra mobile PC life 5.75 hours
• 2009 – Average ultra mobile PC life 6.9 hours
• 2010 – Average ultra mobile PC life 8.3 hours.

Update. It’s 2015 now so let’s extend the prediction.

• 2011 – Average ultra mobile PC life 9.96 hours
• 2012 – Average ultra mobile PC life 12 hours
• 2013 – Average ultra mobile PC life 14 hours
• 2014 – Average ultra mobile PC life 17 hours

For more info on the predictions (and more LCD power-saving technology), see this article.

Regards
Steve / Chippy.

The ultra mobile PC product list contains UMPCs that range in price from about €350 to well over €2000,- euro and if you look at the functionality of these devices, there isn’t really much difference. They are all capable of performing the core ultra mobile PC functions like quality internet browsing, email retrieval and sending, video playing, audio playback and document creation.

We’ve just posted our latest review – the Sharp Zaurus S-CL3200/CL1000 – here on the Carrypad main page.

Yes, its been around for a while, but its an Ultra-Mobile PC we’ve been wanting to test and it was interesting to use this device directly after the using Paceblade Easybook P7. It proves how useful a keyboard option can be.

The review is here.
We’ve also put up a gallery here.

Thanks to Trisoft for the loan of the device and the great support.

Steve / Chippy.

Engadget have some new info on the Averatec AHI ultra mobile PC that was rumored.

There’s a tempting list of specs including the $800 price!

“optimized for VoIP, videoconferencing, viewing live TV and VOD, and apparently even gaming” – Engadget.

Like engadget say, its hard to believe the specs but we keep our fingers crossed.
We’ve changed the status of this device from ‘rumor’ to ‘planned’

Steve / Chippy.

At last i’ve managed to get some translation skills together (not mine!) and put together the bare bones of a German version of the Carrypad website.

If you’re English speaking, you can stop reading now!

Wenn sie Deutsch sind, probiermal das Carrypad Portal auf ihre sprache! Alle unser ‘reviews’ werde auf Deutsch ubersetzt und wir wollen auch anderer reports ubersetzen. Keep watching!

MFG.
Steve / Chippy.

[Update:- Its Official! Available for Pre-order now at Amazon.com. Available Aug 15th for $699. (Not $599) Check out the Pepperpad homepage for more info. Press release is here. Carrypad product page has been updated.]

Following up on some Pepperpad and AMD searches today, I think I might have stumbled across a little gem at Hanbits website.

Pepperpad licensed the design to Hanbit in South Korea earlier this year and it seems that Hanbit are nearly ready with something.

The PDF on their website show some new pictures and confirms that a smaller Pepperpad ‘pad 3’ is being planned with a 7″ 800X480 screen and a price target of $599.

There is a technical specification page too which confirms the use of an AMD LX800 processor. The list also shows support for Voice over IP, Windows DRM, consumer IR, instant message clients, and a whole lot more. Hardware includes Bluetooth 2, composite video out, 20 or 30Gb disks and b/g variants of Wifi.

It looks like the design will be marketed both through a Pepperpad brand and also via other branding. Samsung are one of their partners and they were also rumored to be looking at an AMD-based design. Could this be it?

Lets hope we hear from Pepperpad soon about where and when this device is going to be sold becuase if all this info is correct, the price-point and specs look very good for the home-user. [edit: We just heard from them! European distribution details are not finalised at the moment.]

Hanbit also look to be busy in the ultra mobile PC market. It looks like they already have UMPC’s in development.

I guess Hanbit are at the Computex exhibition in Taipei this week so we’ll see if we can get someone to fly-by the Hanbit stand.

Regards
Steve / Chippy

I’ve just published a short report on the Carrypad main portal about the AMD low-power processors with my opinion about how they could be utilised in ultra mobile PC devices. You can find the report here.

Regards
Steve / Chippy.