I can’t really let the day finish without mentioning the Techcrunch Crunchpad. Although it’s a relatively  big and non-mobile tablet, there’s a few things to mention.

Mike Arrington’s original focus for the design was web activities so it’s not suprising he’s gone for a PC-based solution. Web-based activities are getting to be some of the most CPU-intensive daily tasks that people do so a strong CPU is a must-have. The VIA Nano is, clock-for-clock, likely to be much more powerful than an Atom so a  good choice for processing power but with it’s relatively high thermal power rating, it’s going to need some cooling. That means fans and airflow space in the chassis. Not a good sign for bedtime browsers! Having said that, the low-end of the VIA Nano range at 1Ghz might be just right and I’m sure there’s scope for lowering it further if necessary. This would be a nice win for VIA if they can pull it off.

Why didn’t Techcrunch go for an ARM-based solution? It would allow for a much smaller and longer-battery life design. Maybe it’s because the high-end of ARM isn’t quite up to performing at the sort of levels that consumers expect? 5-10 seconds per web page load is probably just out of the reach of one of the latest ARM-based platforms.

The battery life is going to be a problem too. With a 4-cell, 2200mah-per-cell (a high-end, heavy-sounding  2p2s 7.2v) battery pack he’ll be looking at the  4-hour range with that huge screen. The backlighting budget will probably run to 5W and I’m sure that when you’ve added the relatively high-end CPU in and connected it to a Wifi hotspot, you’ll be draining 10-12 watts average. Possibly more when you’ve got flash content taking up CPU cycles. As many others have commented today, it might be better to settle with a 1024×600 8.9″ screen and maybe reduce the battery capacity to  save weight. It wouldn’t be perfect in portrait mode but landscape mode would be fine and you’d probably save 2W in backlighting and 300gm in weight. Overall though, you would probably lose battery life. It’s a tough balancing act.

Aesthetics play an important role but as we can all remember from ‘Origami’ in 2006, so do keyboards. I could write for hours about that but I’ll just say that if you need sales numbers, you’ll probably want to think carefully about the form factor and include,somehow, a  physical keyboard. The T91 or T101H from ASUS might bite Techcrunch in the bum unless they can get excelent on-screen keyboard software and some good early reviews about it.

All in all I think Techcrunch have set themselves tough targets for the device. While not impossible, I suspect it will be more expensive than planned, will have so-so battery life and could be a little too heavy for most people. They’ll need to convince an investor that they can sell hundreds and hundreds of thousands in order to hit the parts budget and that convertible netbooks or MIDs won’t be a threat.

Fingers crossed for Techcrunch though. I’m enjoying watching the project, am hoping it tends towards a 9″ device and I and wish Techcrunch and VIA every success with it.

Looking for a PC solution for your mobile home? Perhaps an MP3 for that mobile disco business? Or perhaps just something for the kids? Plug in a USB keyboard on this one and you’re in business. Grab and go without worrying about knocks and spills.

The RT7V is designed to meet the IP54 international standards for liquid and dust protection. The RT7V magnesium case protects the system’s components from damage due to drop. The tablets IO ports and connectors are all sealed to protect them from damage. The tablet comes standard with a 7 inch WVGA sunlight readable touch screen LCD and supports up to 1920 X 1080 external video resolution. The RT7V’s “fanless design inch allows for extended battery life and the most efficient data processing possible. The Durabook RT7V, the fully rugged tablet workplace solution.

Not recommended for the coffee-shop or for looking up the last bus home when with your lady friend.

The 1Ghz VIA C7 (fanless) will give you a basic Windows XP experience although you’ll be able to store plenty of movies and audio on the included 2500GB 7200RPM drive.

More details here.

The word ‘concept’ is not an easy word to write here. I want to say ‘product coming’ instead!

This image is from Pocketables.net who have a few more that you should take a look at. I have a feeling that by using the best available display technology and platforms like Menlow designers could come up with some incredible umpcs and e-reader devices. And when I say connected e-reader devices I mean everything from locally stored ebooks and PDFs to live webpages. The modern-day newspaper. I’m imagining a slick UI and a capacitive touchscreen and an OS and hardware that offers the normal desktop PC experience. MmmmmID-Tastic!

Check out Pocketables for more pics.

Maemo.org has just released the first Pre-Alpha of Maemo 5 (AKA Freemantle) which is the OS that will support the new OMAP 3 platform expected to be used in the next Nokia Tablet.

The new release includes a lot of new features including support for cellular data, high-def cameras, hardware-based graphics and the clutter user interface (also planned for Moblin 2 in spring 2009)

Demo of a Clutter-based user interface

It’s important to note that this is a Pre-Alpha release and not even ready for 3rd-party devs to build their apps on yet so we’re obviously months away from a new Nokia Tablet launch. As Maemo 5 progresses though, expect to see deadlines appear which would indicate hardware launch timeframes. Also note that there’s an Intel build. Is this X86 or the old intel Xscale hardware we wonder? Anyone got info?

maemo.org – announcements: First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers.

Following Apple’s moves is a complex but fun and stimulating activity so here’s my take on the big, crazy, risky business of predicting where Apple will move. I think they will move up the Ipod chain rather than down the notebook chain and here’s why.

Netbooks are cheap and in my head, I just can’t get past that simple thought. Apple can’t make a netbook as it would seriously risk de-valuing every other product in their portfolio and, due to the required sales numbers and relative complexity of OS X, could screw their global support operations.  An $899 10″ mini-note is possible, I agree, but despite sizing similarities, it wouldn’t be a netbook would it. Mind you, you can guarantee that every netbook web site will cover it like there’s no tomorrow! I will end that argument against netbooks there but they do play a part as I get to the details of my prediction below.

There are three other options that I see for Apple. The first is one of incremental change. Small improvements all-round. The problem with that is that the last Apple event felt like just the same and losing momentum right now could be an issue. Then again, major production-line investment for a new product could also be risky but given the fact that Apple have plenty of cash and that there are probably production lines out there just begging for a large production run, maybe that’s not the risk it could be.

The second option is some sort of 7″ notebook or tablet. While I, and many of you, like this style of device, we have to be honest and say that the productive ultra-mobility market is probably too niche for Apple. There’s a chance of a simple, slim 7″ iPod touch and a push into e-books, sofa surfing, sofa-gaming and turn-by-turn navigation on the existing iPod Touch hardware and software engine but while interesting and, to me, quite exciting, I don’t see a 7″ Apple tablet happening as again, it could be too niche.

The third option, and more likely in my opinion is a 5″ iPod Plus

Filling the hole that will eventually be left by dwindling MP3 player sales [Yes, Christmas iPod sales are buzzing along but in general, I see the dedicated MP3 player market dropping away over the next few years] providing some of the features of the above, 7″ device, retaining mobility and building on the money-making app audio and video-store is the key which indicates to me that a slightly larger iPod touch with better storage, video, navigation, ebook, web experience and perhaps data-only 3G would be a more attractive and solid base to build on for the future.

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Dynamism kindly provided us with an Asus R50A [Portal page] to take a look at. It is a slate ultra mobile PC with a 32GB SSD, 5.6″ screen, 1GB of RAM, 3G connectivity, and the less power hungry 1.3GHz Z520 Atom CPU. Will the R50A cut it as a quality UMPC? You’ll have to wait for the full review to find out. For now have a look at the unboxing below and read some initial impressions.

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If you weren’t aware that TechCrunch are planning to make a cheap tablet-style internet browsing device, a MID if you like, you might wonder what the hell the author of this anti-netbook article is talking about. In my opinion, it’s a rather hopeless attempt at putting down netbooks in order to prepare some space for a new web-browser product they are planning. it’s terribly off-target and badly-researched – "A typical Netbook has a 7 inch screen, an Intel Atom or Via Nano processor" (There hasn’t been a 7" netbook hit the blogosphere for months and as for the Nano-powered devices, we’d like Mike Arrington to show us one!) and "iPhone or iPod Touch, with a tiny 3.5 inch screen, has a vastly better browsing experience than any Netbook (it’s faster too)."  Give the article a read here.

I’m all for the TechCrunch tablet and MIDs like it but now that I’ve seen how badly educated TechCrunch are about the computer hardware market, it gives me more reason to believe that they don’t understand exactly what hurdles they are up against with their MID. I’ll never forget what TechCrunch put in writing before: “If all you are doing is running Firefox and Skype, you don’t need a lot of hardware horsepower, which will keep the cost way down.”

I just choked on my cuppa! Euro 1450 for the ASUS R50a is a shocking price. Even more so when you know that Vista isn’t very spritely on the 1.3Ghz Silverthorne processor. The R50a is said to have a fairly fast SSD which will help a lot but still… Maybe this video will help you decide yourself. I’m off to wipe my screen down!

All R50 links, specs and resources in the product page.

Via JKKMobile.