At last. VIA have come up with an improved IGP for The C7-M CPUs used in UMPCs. This could really help a lot. According to a report at Epiacenter the new VN896 will include the Chromotion 3 core which  enables DirectX-9 support. WDDM drivers are already available and you know what that could means don’t you – Aero Glass, Movie Maker and DVD maker support. VIA VN896 with VIA Chrome9 IGP core supporting DirectX® 9.0 and Chromotionâ„¢ 3.0 offers rich visual Hi-Defâ„¢ experience for notebooks and ultra portable devices Don’t get too excited yet though. Its […]

Akihabara mentioned today that Samsung will be ready for Jan 30th Vista launch. I’m not sure what the source of that info is and what it really means. I’ve checked the Samsung website again and all I can find is this reference on the ultra mobile PC page. “Samsung recommends Windows Vista Business” In the specifications on the web page, the Q1 is still listed as having XP Tablet Edition! So there’s no upgrade program for the Q1’s (only Samsung PC’s with MCE or XP Pro are eligible apparently) and no […]

T-Mobile will sell it as the Ameo. Looks like a Euro release first but no timescale’s have been given. Specs look unchanged from the ones I have on the product portal. Somehow seeing it in portrait mode makes more sense. There’s no pricing info yet but I’m still guessing it will be around 950 Euro despite the rumors of 1200 Euro. At Pocketinfo.nl (Dutch) Via Engadget   Technorati tags: athena, Ameo, HTC, UMPC, Mobility View details of all Ultra Mobile devices in the ultra mobile PC product database. From N800 […]

A Chinese review of the Athena has turned up via PocketPcThoughts. The images aren’t that great and the translated text might as well have been left in Chinese but you can get an idea of size and usability. The removable keyboard is a nice idea but its not going to help in ‘two hands’ mode. The thumbboard would win hands down in this scenario. The other disappointing thing is that the 5″ screen is only VGA. Its a waste. Take a look at the N800. 800×480 on a 4.1″ screen. […]

Matt Propst got some news about the Origami Experience. An email he got from the Origami team says it will be available for download in……see Matts Blog. Steve. View details of all Ultra Mobile devices in the ultra mobile PC product database. From N800 to Flybook V5, its all there!

Just hours after I commented on JKontheRun that the Q1P didn’t have a LED backlit screen, Kevin runs a test and throws a statistic down that proves me wrong. Actually I’m not sure that he’s spotted it himself yet ;-) I knew the Q1P-SSD had the 280nits LED screen (as opposed to the 200 nits on the Q1) but that the Q1P has it too is news to me. And its important news too because Kevin ran Battery Eater and got 50% more battery life out of the Q1P than with the […]

News has just come on from Asus about the new U1F subnotebook (almost UMPC!) that will be shown at CeBit. While the U1F is an 11.1″ notebook and not really a UMPC, the technology used in it is Ultra Mobile focused. It will use a an Ultra Low Voltage Core Duo chip from Intel which must be the U2400 or U2500 that’s used in the Flybook V5 and LG C1 Note how all these devices are very high-end. They have to be. The components used in the core hardware (LED lighting, […]

Just in tome for the winter weather is the winter-white Kohjinsha SA1F00D. As Jenn at Pocketables points out – there’s a F00A and F00B but where is the F00C? Oh. I see now. Maybe that’s why. The specs are the same as the SA1-F00B and the local price is about $770, about $40 more than the base SA1-F00A. The SA1-F00A is also now available with a strange looking stand. I assume its a stand as there is no docking port on the Kohjinsha. (I have one sitting next to me right now […]