Here’s a round-up of some news that I want to bring to you quickly. UK readers stay tuned. Students might want to buy an Envy 4 in the next 48 hours and Intel gives us more to think about on Ultrabook sales growth.

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Toshiba UK, operating independently from West Europe, North America and other regions have had specs, pricing and availability for the Toshiba Z830 available for a few weeks now but, for good measure, (or we suspect, a bit of timely fact regurgitation from The Register) the story is doing the rounds again today.

Toshiba UK already have model names, price and details available (details here) so all you’ll need to do is to wait for the first hands-on and then you can finally make your decision between the 4 Ultrabooks and the Ultrabook alternatives.

Interestingly, one large electronics retailer in Germany is convinced that the Z830 with be available on the 7th November [Conrad]. We’re trying to confirm this and are also looking forward to the Z830 as the first review device here on Ultrabooknews. More details on that in due course.

Via Pocket Lint

Following the discovery of two models of the Z830 in Europe yesterday we got a tip pointing us to the complete line-up at the Toshiba UK website. As we reported last week, the Z830 appears under both the Satellite and Portégé brands.

Lets get straight to the details.

SelectSolar in the UK have just emailed me to let me know that Voltaic have an improved Solar Bag solution. You might remember that I was considering a JuiceBag for the tour last year but in the end the idea was dropped because the wattage wasn’t high enough. This solution from Voltaic bumps the wattage up to 17W by using a monocrystalline panel.

The Voltaic Generator is the first solar bag powerful enough to charge a laptop. It uses high efficiency solar cells to generate maximum power in the limited space available. It includes a battery pack custom designed to efficiently store and convert the electricity generated. It can also charge cell phones and most other hand held electronics.

At a recommended price of $599 you won’t be buying one for the kids but for field-work this provides protection and charging in one neat solution.

SelectSolar will have these in stock soon.

I learned a long time ago that WiFi Internet access is not a truly mobile Internet access solution. Its a solution for multi-location access but not a full mobile solution. Fortunately the mobile telephone carriers offer Internet access too and it ‘aint bad!Its going to be the perfect solution for the Solar-UMPC tour.

In Europe, we use the GSM and UMTS (3G) methods of mobile phone communications and they are well advanced. 1.8Mbps is common in and around most cities and towns with 3.6Mbps being available in the most populated places. Even out on the fringes, a 384kbps connection is possible so in terms of availability, there are very few issues.

Issues arise, however, when you start looking at equipment and cost. In order to use a 3G data connection, you need to have a 3G data modem. There are three options. Either you buy a dedicated 3G modem that you can connect to your PC, you buy a PC or notebook or UMPC with a 3G modem integrated or, if your contract allows it, you use the modem that’s part of all 3G mobile phones. In this case you simply connect the phone via USB or Bluetooth and in general, its an easy few steps to get connected. It really solves the costs of hardware because in 2007 we’ve seen a number of high speed 3G-capable mobile phones hitting the market and with the normal contractual discounts, the costs is minimal.

It doesn’t solve the other cost though. The cost of the data. This has been a real issue for early adopters of this connectivity method. Costs of data can be shockingly high and for the average user its just wasn’t worth it. Until, that is, the advent of the data-focused contract. Nearly all the major cellphone carriers in Europe are offering data-oriented connectivity and costs are coming down extremely quickly. In the UK and Finland, 10-15 Euros per month is all it costs to get hundreds of megabytes, sometimes even up to 6GB) of data per month. For the average user that’s is using just a few hundred megabytes a month on their normal broadband connection, this is more than enough. In Germany, I have chosen the Vodafone Data Tariff. Vodafone, along with T-Mobile have the widest coverage of high-speed enabled cellular towers and a good selection of data tariffs. You can start with 30MB per month for 10 Euros and go as high as 50 Euro per month for 5GB of data. In the middle are a couple of attractive 200 and 400MB tariffs and the 200MB tariff is the one I’ve gone for the WebConnect L at 20 Euros per month. I could have got a cheaper tariff but if mobility is an important factor, cellular coverage has to be high on the list of requirements.

Insert SIM card for instant connectivity! Samsung Q1b HSDPA

Combined with the Samsung Q1b HSDPA I’ve got a ‘real’ ultra mobile solution in my hands. Vodafone have given me a second SIM card for the UMPC and with the built in HSDPA modem I’m online with broadband speeds within seconds of turning the UMPC on. This is how it should be!

Thanks to Select Solar UK I received a 15W P3 Solar panel this morning. As I write, it’s out in the garden with 660W/m2 of sun power beaming down on it! Temp in the shade is about 22 degrees.

P3 Folding Solar Panel

Its smaller and lighter than I expected too.

The first test was to measure the open circuit voltage and at about 450W/m2 sun power (I’m using this web site to give me my sun power reading – its very local to me.) it was over 20V. At 650w/m2, its open circuit voltage is about 28v which is higher than I expected.

I connected a AA battery charger with 2 AA batteries in it and it was charging straight away. With 4 batteries I had to wait until about 10:30. I also tried connecting the TabletKiosk PowerBank but it wouldn’t charge until the sun power reached about 650w/m2. I haven’t connected the Q1 yet because I’m missing a connector for a DC-DC converter I will use for protection.

Look at the graph below. Its the sun power from today and I’ve added some notes to it.

Click to enlarge.
A – 2 AA batteries. B – 4 AA Batteries. C – PowerBank

You can see by the wobbly graph that there’s a few clouds around today. Yesterday was perfect and using that part of the graph I can work out how much time there is for a given level of sun power. The sun is at or above the ‘C’ level for 6 hours a day for example. The area under the curve gives us the power too. I’m not going to get my integration maths book out right now but its fair to say that if the sun peaks at 800w/m2 (80% of Panel power) the average is something like 0.7 (RMS?) of (600+(800-600) for 6 hours. Tap tap tap. That’s 75% of 15W panel power for 6 hours….a possible 67W/hrs of power. (average 11w for 6 hours.)

67W/hrs of power is a full power bank or full Samsung Q1 extended battery which is what I think I need every day to keep me going. I might be able to get that down to 40W by being careful with the UMPC but if there are 2 days of clouds, I’ll be out of power.

This is just a preliminary test. I need to do more double checking on this. And don’t forget, its sunny today. The barometer dropped sharply this morning so tomorrow is going to be very different. It will be interesting to see if I can power anything under cloud cover.The other thing to consider is that I’ll be moving on the bike. There will be shady times! The big question is, do I take a risk and challenge and go with the 15W panel or do I take the next step up and go for a 24 or even 30W panel. Like I said, more testing needed!

I’ve put up a gallery of the P3 panel.

More testing going on today and tomorrow.

Thoughts. Should I take a simple sun meter? How much power will I lose through using a DC-DC converter? Should I buy a small multimeter to take with me?

Although you might find some value in what I’m posting on this blog, what you might not realise is that a lot of the posts are there for me! I’m a ‘list’ man you see, and I need to write everything down to get some order, detail and priority in my life that lasts for more than an hour. Call it bad memory if you like but I like my lists and I like writing things down. Doing it publicly like this also has the advantage that my mother can watch it and 1) Tell me not to be so stupid and 2) Correct my spilling!

So here’s the first one. Its the one that seeds all the other lovely lists that I’ll be writ….hey….pay attention at the back. You might learn something!

The main aims of the tour are:

• Have fun
• Demonstrate that UMPCs allow you to be productive while mobile.
• Demonstrate that UMPCs are very low power devices.
• Demonstrate that Internet access is available wherever you want to be.
• Get a little fitter.
• Learn about solar energy and how it applies to ultra efficient computers both now and in the future.
• Get contact with others working in this area of tech.
• Promote UMPCPortal.com and my sponsors.
• Have fun

You’ll notice I’ve got ‘sponsors’ listed there too. I’ve been very lucky with them to be honest. I assessed some companies, made a decision and sent an email to the two chosen companies. One is VIA who I chose because they currently have some of the most efficient UMPCs available and are well known for energy efficient computing. VIA will be my main sponsor. The other company I contacted was Solar Select in the UK.  In fact I contacted them some months back and we had a good chat about the technology and the possibilities. Solar Select will be my energy adviser and supplier of solar equipment for the tour. Many thanks in advance to both sponsors for helping me out on this project.

Next up on the blog will be….you guessed it…..another list. It will be my ToDo list.