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UMPC Cast Episode #2 Up


[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/tinycontent/images/umpccastlogo.jpg[/img]

The ultra mobile PC Cast #2 is now live!

In this podcast Roy and Matt continue their discussion about Ultra Mobile PCs and delve into the potential pitfalls of the first generation devices. They have a conversation about the new accessories and partnerships then talk about the growing Origami Portal community and the ultra mobile PC Contest.

The direct RSS feed is located [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/podcast.rss]here[/url]

The iTunes feed is [url=http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=130040126&s=143441]here[/url]

or download the MP3 directly [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/podcasts/OrigamiPortal_-_UMPC_Cast_2.mp3]here[/url]

And as always the Archives of all of the shows can be found in our [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=1]Podcast Section[/url] Read the full story

The Screen Size Debate


[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/ipodumpccompare.jpg[/img]

There has been a lot of talk lately about how the Ultra Mobile PC devices that have been shown are too big. Some have been asking, “Why can’t it be small like an iPod so I can carry it around in my pocket?”. Or, “This device is so big it could bludgeon people to death.”

Well, these are good points so I started thinking, “has the ultra mobile PC lost its ultra mobileness?” After a while I came to the conclusion that if it was much smaller then it is then it would be too hard to use and in the end everyone would hate it.

Now stay with me here while I explain this. I know that the OQO is 4.9 inches across and the Nokia 770 is like 5.5 inches and the Samsung is almost a whopping 9 inches! The ultra mobile PC devices are almost double the size. And believe me I want to put the thing in my pocket as much as the next guy. And this pic from [url=http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1493&page=5&pp=10]internettablettalk.coms forum[/url] shows exactly how much bigger this thing really is.

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/nokiaumpc.jpg[/img]

Pics like this may make me change my mind and realize small is good. But, Otto posted over on [url=http://origamiproject.com/blogs/team_blog/archive/2006/03/15/1934.aspx]OrigamiProject.com[/url] that the reason they went with a 7 inch display is because that was the size of portable DVD players and I realized that Microsoft had a plan.

And so that brings me to the first point about the screen size. Obviously this device is being marketed as a media playing device. Microsoft has partnered with MovieLink to bring downloadable movies to the device.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this article. That is an almost to scale picture showing the difference between Apple’s video iPod and the Samsung Q1.

Now the thing I hate about the video iPod is that it is so small. and not only is it small but the videos downloaded for it have to be to a certain scale so you have to convert your video streams if you rip them. You have to go through all of the effort of not only getting it the right size but also all of the effort of actually watching it on such a small screen. And I know people who can actually watch whole movies this way.

I go through this same problem with my PSP. the screen is definitely bigger than a video iPod but the converting is still a pain.

Story continued below … Read the full story

Gartner report negative about Origami products.


They’re saying a lot of whats already been said but it carries a fair bit of weight when Gartner says it.

[url=http://www.gottabemobile.com/GartnerPublishesTheirAnalysisOnTheUMPC.aspx]gottabemobile[/url] highlighted the Gartner report today where they talk about sub $400 pricing and 8 hour battery life. :-o

Take a look at the report which should still be available [url=http://www.gartner.com/resources/138500/138574/umpc_has_promise_but_is_far__138574.pdf]at the gartner website.[/url]

[quote]Today, we believe it isn’t possible to produce compelling ultra mobile PC products — just “proofs of concept.” The low battery life, high price and non-Vista operating system will likely hurt the UMPC’s market acceptance in this first go-round, and the negative backlash could damage its future chances. For these reasons, we question the timing of this launch: Why rush this to market
before it is ready to succeed? Despite the promise of this device category, the ultra mobile PC as currently conceived will fail to achieve mainstream success — defined as unit sales in the millions rather than the thousands — by 2009 (0.8 probability).[/quote]

It may be a bit too early to market but its good that someones had the courage to do it on a bigger scale. Its stirred every manufacturer up in the ultra mobile PC space and we’re going to see better devices sooner because of it.

Read the full story

Microsoft Mobile PC Manager updates Origami Project


[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/microsoftbirdlogo2.jpg[/img]

Dustin Hubbard, Microsoft Mobile PC manager, has returned from CeBIT and answered a lot of Origami/ultra mobile PC related questions on the OrigamiProject.com blog. Check out the whole article [url=http://origamiproject.com/blogs/team_blog/archive/2006/03/14/1908.aspx]here[/url].

Here is a sampling of some key points from the question and answer session:

[b]Does the origami have instant on?[/b]

* The resume from standby is quite good and fast
* The Samsung Q1 has 2 boot modes on a 3 way power switch (On, Off, AVS Multimedia)
* AVS Multimedia allows near instant on

[b]Release dates[/b]

* Realistically, Samsung will be the first available in the US, most likely in April

[b]Voice Recognition[/b]

* XP Tablet PC Edition has built-in speech recognition
* Should work well with the Samsung array microphone

[b]Apple has better design[/b]

* Microsoft is working on taking a more active role with OEMs on their hardware

[b]Is there any kind of sleep mode[/b]

* Not yet, but SlideShow in Vista could take advantage of this

[b]Will Vista run well on the UMPC?[/b]

* Dustin’s group will be doing testing to see how Vista runs in the upcoming months

Thanks again to Dustin for taking the time to answer some questions. I think it bodes well for the Origami devices to have such a dedicated team that interacts with the fans. They are like the [url=http://www.blogmaverick.com]Mark Cuban[/url] of Microsoft (and look how well the Mavericks are doing lately). Read the full story

Intel vs. Via for UMPC/Origami CPU Dominance


[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/boxing.jpg[/img]

Steve Paine, our friendly moderator known as chippy, has written an excellent report comparing the Intel and VIA chipsets that are vying for Ultra-Mobile PC supremecy. Intel checks in with the Pentium-M and Celeron-M low-voltage CPU’s while VIA steps up with the C7-M ultra-low-voltage (ulv) CPUs.

[b]The 1st-Gen UMPC/Origami devices have already chosen sides:[/b]
In Intel’s corner: Asus R2H, Founder Mininote, Samsung Q1, ECS H70
In VIA’s corner: PaceBlade SmartCaddie, TabletKiosk V-700

Please check out the [url=http://blog.carrypad.com/2006/03/origami-cpu-overview.html]whole article on Steve’s ‘Time for the Carrypad?’ blog[/url].

[b]Here are some interesting excerpts:[/b]

…The Celeron-M devices are Pentium-M devices with a reduced L2 cache and importantly, speed-stepping removed. They are offered as a lower cost alternative to the Pentiums saving something in the region of $80 in component costs to the manufacturers…

…Via’s offering is the VN800 and VT8237 combination as its solution. It has a 400/533 or 800mhz FSB, supports 4GB of RAM and graphics is provided by the Unicrome pro graphics processor. Via also include the Via vinyl hi-def audio solution a TV encoder, hardware-assisted MPEG2 decoding and de-interlacing…

…On the face of it, VIA looks to have a strong offering for ultra mobile PC devices. With their lower power, faster speed-stepping and integrated MPEG and TV outputs theres some significant advantages. On the other hand, the Intel Pentium CPU is going to be the more powerful choice. The Celeron is going to be cheap but with its lack of speed-stepping, is going to be probably the most power-hungry of the CPU’s…

Now, we can all sit back and see who comes out on top in this battle of the chips. Read the full story

ECS H70 new UMPC (not Origami?)


[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/ecs_h70.jpg[/img]

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) introduced their Ultra-Mobile Tablet PC, the H70, at CeBIT recently. I’m not sure if the device just looks identical to the [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/xcgal/thumbnails.php?album=5]Founder Mininote[/url] or the actual display H70 was replaced with the Founder at some point ([url=http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/001629.html]as PC World is reporting[/url]).

Interestingly enough, in the same article ECS specialist David Chang says the H70 is not an Origami device. I’m not sure what baseline Origami specifications the H70 didn’t meet, but perhaps its not including all the Touch Pack improvements?

More details on the specs below: Read the full story

Origami CPU overview.


Both VIA and Intel have developed ranges of ultra low-power CPU’s and some of these CPU’s are now being used in devices coming out of the Origami project. Here’s my technical overview of the CPU’s and chipsets.

Intel are offering the Pentium-M and Celeron-M low-voltage CPU’s. The devices that run at the 1Ghz mark have thermal design power (TDP) requirements of 5-7 watts. TDP roughly equates to ‘maximum power needed.’ The Celeron-M devices are Pentium-M devices with a reduced L2 cache and importantly, speed-stepping removed. They are offered as a lower cost alternative to the Pentiums saving something in the region of $80 in component costs to the manufacturers. In real terms, it means that the Celeron uses more power than the Pentium and that it could be slower in some operations.

VIA are offering the C7-M ultra low voltage (ulv) CPUs. The devices run at 1Ghz have a TDP figure of 3.5-5 watts. The C7-M is starting to appear in laptop products now but the version to be used in the Origami devices is the ULV version (ultra low voltage.) and as its such a new part there are no products out yet and no test results available. The SmartCaddy ultra mobile PC is the first product that will use the C7-M ulv processor.

Historically, the VIA devices have underperformed in comparison to the Intel devices and it looks like it will be the same with the C7-M. Via state “15% more powerful per Watt than an Intel Pentium M inch which, because of the lower power of the device, translates to it having around 75-80% of the power. In general use that might not really be noticeable and in addition, the VIA CPU has a few tricks. Firstly, it has an extremely low minimum power requirement of 0.1 watt. One can imagine that this is only used in standby operations or certain sleep modes so it might not translate to better battery life when in use. The second feature is dual phase locked loop (PLL) clocks. This allows the CPU to set up one clock while the other is still being used to drive the processor speed and then rapidly switch from one clock speed to the other. Other processors with speed stepping functionality usually have to wait for the clock rate to adjust before resuming operations. I have read that this can reach up to 15,000 clock cycles a noticeable pause. Finally, VIA has incorporated the ‘Padlock’ co-processor which can generate random numbers and help with AES encrpytion. This isn’t really going to help much for the average user although it could help if one wanted to run an encrypted hard drive.

The supporting chipsets.
A PC architecture is made up of a number of chipsets, not just the CPU. The ‘northbridge’ and ‘southbridge’ chips are common to x86 architectures and these do a lot of work in controlling main and video memory (northbridge) and peripheral devices and busses (southbridge.) The northbridge is sometimes combined with a graphics co-processor and these can be very power hungry devices. In all ultra mobile PC devices so far, the northbridge has an intergrated graphics co-processor.

Intel offer a number of chipset solutions. The one that we’re seeing in the Origami devices is the 915GMS chipset. This chipset has a 400mhz front side bus, supports 2GB Ram, integrated GMA900 graphics, high definition audio, usb2.0.


Via’s offering is the VN800 and VT8237 combination as its solution. It has a 400/533 or 800mhz FSB, supports 4GB of RAM and graphics is provided by the Unicrome pro graphics processor. Via also include the Via vinyl hi-def audio solution a TV encoder, hardware-assisted MPEG2 decoding and de-interlacing. A version of the chip also supports MPEG-4 decoding and recently announced is a combined package containing the two chips in one device. This should enable further miniaturization.

There’s very little to choose between these two chipsets. They are both ‘low-power’ and thats the most important consideration for the Origami devices in my opinion. There will of course be small performance differences and possibly the VIA chipset has an advantage where video is concerned with its decoding capability and TV-out capability. Graphics power is going to be very dependant on how the software is written and we’ll have to see how the test results come out in a month or so.

Via or Intel CPU?
On the face of it, VIA looks to have a strong offering for ultra mobile PC devices. With their lower power, faster speed-stepping and integrated MPEG and TV outputs theres some significant advantages. On the other hand, the Intel Pentium CPU is going to be the more powerful choice. The Celeron is going to be cheap but with its lack of speed-stepping, is going to be probably the most power-hungry of the CPU’s.
You can probably get a feel for my personal favorite from this report. I’ve been a supporter and user of VIA products for a few years now and have always been impressed at their effort to reduce power while others were fighting a pointless battle between 2 and 3Ghz. I have been running a ‘quiet’ PVR on a C3 1Ghz processor for the last couple of years and its been perfect for the job.

In my next report i’ll be looking further into power-useage on ultra mobile PC devices.

[update: the ultra mobile PC power report has been published and is available here]

Keywords: umpc, carrypad, intel, via
V1.0. 14th March 2006.

Pace Blade Opens SmartCaddie Site


[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/smartcaddielady.jpg[/img]

Paceblade Japan or PBJ for short (As I like to call them) just opened a new website for it’s SmartCaddie device at http://www.smartcaddie.jp/

And like all good things ultra mobile PC the site tells us nothing except that it is To Be Continued… I thought we already knew everything about the SmartCaddie, but apparently there’s enough we don’t know to warrant a ‘to be continued’ message. (Either that, or they forgot to finish the site.)

There was also a nice little picture of the Smart Caddie included.
[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/smartcaddie2.gif[/img]

The only other bit of info they have released is a pdf news release in Japanese. Available [url=http://www.pbj-inc.co.jp/news/pdf-file/SC_NR01_K3.pdf]here[/url]. That is where the picture of the woman above came from, which clearly shows her having a better time with a SmartCaddie then she would have had otherwise.

So I can not read anything on any of these websites, so I am assuming this device is only being released in Japan as it is hard to market to Americans in Japanese and without english and anime characters.

[b]Edit 03-14-2005 11:20 AM:[/b]

[img]https://www.umpcportal.com/origami/images/smartcaddiebox.gif[/img]

While I was defending the fact that we really do go to the manufacturers site to find info and don’t steal stuff from other sites I went over to smartcaddie.jp and noticed they put up a new image of what I assume is the Smart Caddie box opening. wow that thing must be bright.
Read the full story

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