While I was at CeBIT I didn’t even notice that user registrations had stopped. I apologize. Anyone that tried to register as a user since the new site went live will probably not have got a confirmation email. I’ve fixed it now so if you tried to register, please try again now.

I’m also trying to implement the ‘remember me’ function that was in the old portal. I’m finding it very annoying having to log in all the time and i’m sure you are too! I’m working on it.

Steve.

Being a Kohjinsha owner myself (currently sitting in a waiting room and using it to type this) I know that the rotating screen on it is almost useless without the touchscreen. I am currently on the lookout for an alternative. V33i, V5, P1610, US702 and the ASUS seen at CeBIT are on the list but there’s one more to consider now.

Icube is reporting that a touchscreen version of the Kohji is in the works for April and now that I’ve heard this rumor twice from different sources, its time to take it seriously. Lets hope that they are not just dropping a new screen in but are taking the time to 1) reconsider the sub-standard keyboard and 2) looking at the LX900 (600Mhz) Geode processor. 

Via Pocketables.

Trains are great. I’m having some quality thinking time here. Having just mused over the price of the Q1 Ultra, its time to move on to the 7″ ASUS UMPC with the VIA chipset.

I had 15 minutes with one of the sales managers from ASUS’ IPC division (Industrial PC) about the device and about its future. Maybe it was because of the press badge I had on that I got a different answer to everyone else because there appeared to be no intention of putting the consumer version of the device into production unless a big requirement came along. We talked a little about pricing around the $1000 mark and about battery life (6 hours he said…a little ambitious if you ask me) but that was about it. I’ll be following up with them of course. Having read some reports of availability I need to challenge them a bit to get the right answer.

One thing is for sure though, if this model comes out with the VIA C7, a touchscreen and 6 hours battery life I’ll be upgrading from the Kohjinsha for my mobile reporting. Unless, of course, the beautiful US702 comes out first.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion about Q1 Ultra pricing and having some time in the train right now has allowed me to distill some thoughts.

In the press conference for the launch, Samsung said they were aiming for the same price as the Q1. Then, a follow up comment by Samsung was something like ‘In Germany the price of the Q1 is around 1200 Euro’

I then asked a question about repositioning of the Q1, Q1b and Q1P which wasn’t answered properly. All I got was a rather fuzzy answer about the Q1P which is understood as meaning that at least the Q1P would stay in the market. Subsequent chit chats lead me to believe that all the Q1 range will continue although re-positioning will occur.

So where does that leave us? a little confused! Let me think this though aloud a little bit more…

The average price for the Q1’s around the world has dropped recently. In the US the Q1B is now sitting at $799 minimum. The Q1 at $899 and Q1P (Vista) at $1200. Price drops have also occurred in Europe. The Q1 Ultra has to sit above the Q1P Vista right?  This gives us a minimum price of, say, $1300 but what is stopping the price from going higher? There are no competing products at the moment so its going to be a decision based on what the customer will tolerate. Considering the Flipstart is $2000 there’s a lot of room for play but also consider that this is a consumer-focused product.

Other websites and publications have been talking about prices of $1500 but these seem to be direct currency conversions from the $1200 Euro price mentioned in the press meeting. Direct currency conversion would be the wrong thing to do here.

My best deduction at the moment is that it will launch for something near the $1300 mark. This is a lifestyle product aimed at consumers, not professionals, so the price has to be kept close to $1000. If we see more movement on the Q1 pricing in the next four weeks then we could be looking at $1200 but I don’t think it would go much lower. In Europe it translates to around 1200 Euro with the usual premium in the UK. (add 10-15% to the Euro price.)  

Is it good value at that price? Are there other variables to consider? I think yes and yes! It is confirmed that on April 18th there will be four more McCaslin-based UMPCs announced. There could be direct competition amongst them.

Over the CeBIT period I had a number of chances to play with the Arima/Medion/Gigabyte UMPC and also had a meeting with the Medion UMPC product managers.

From the Medion side it looks like they are getting close to being able to ship the first units. This is expected at the beginning of April although there are still a few software issues to be sorted out. What I’m pleased to hear from Medion and other suppliers (Asus, TabletKiosk) is that it looks like VIA are working on Vista drivers for the C7 and VX700. Remember that so far, no one has seen video working very well under VIsta on this platform. I had some time with the Medion UMPC during my meeting and can at least say that Vista is running.

My feelings about the device have changed slightly since I saw the first specifications and its mainly down to the keyboard and the thumbpad. The keyboard layout and size is good but the physics of the keys is bad. The pressure required to ‘click’ is about the same as on the Pepper Pad but because the keys on the Pepper Pad are separated by 1mm or so, there is no risk of hitting another key. On the Medion, all the keys are together so this heavy click approach doesn’t work. It should have been softer. I estimate the typing ratio to be around 30%. The second disappointment was the mousepad. I’ve used many mousepads and mouse sticks and I always choose a synaptics pointer. Take the Kohjinsha as an example. It has a synaptics pad and mouse button. The pad is just a fingers-width away from the keyboard but I still use the mouse button.

On the positive side, the RIM 1000 feels really good in your hand. Its light and the 6.5″ screen works well at 800×480. The processor feels strong enough with Vista and if VIA sort out drivers that (finally) exploit the video hardware then video is going to work well. On the back of the device there’s a unique feature that sets the Medion apart from all other UMPCs – a mini-USB port underneath the stand. You can unclip the stand and fit modules directly on to the back of the device. This is how the DVB and GPS solutions work. They are not options that can be built into the device, they come as snap-on modules that replace (and also function as) the stand. The DVB-T module will be available in the 2nd quarter and the GPS module later in the year along with GPS software developed by their existing navigation software partner. I like this modular approach.

Medion showed me the docking station (a real docking station with VGA-out as opposed to the USB port solution that is provided with the Q1 Ultra) that will be offered as an accessory and they are working on a really nice leather portfolio case. The prototype looked good.

All in all I’m a little bit disappointed. The keyboard is SO important that when its sub-standard, you have to consider it a big issue. Design-wise its nice if not the highest quality build. If I would be responsible for giving it a price, it would be $1000 WITH the docking station and $900 without. At its current $1000 asking price, the Q1 bundle with the organiser and the keyboard is too appealing an alternative.

More information on the Medion UMPC is available on the product datasheet.

Here are some enhanced images an a video of one of the Intel McCaslin based UMPC that is likely to be one of the four new UMPCS announced on the 18th April. The device is basaed on a prototype that has been seen before and includes a twist screen feature.

The thumboard has a nice feel to it and because the thumboard width is thinner than the screen, you get a combination of relatively wide screen but useable width thumboard. It much easier to use than the Samsung Q1 Ultra. The mouse button and keys appear at the bottom of the keyboard but when the keyboard is rotated away, the mouse button protrudes from the side.

You’ll see stereo speakers and a rotating cam, a surprising number of buttons and the pen silo underneath the mousepad area. There’s also a docking port.

Of the three devices I played with, this was my favorite. I wasn’t a fan of the twist design before but having played with it now I think it makes a better two-handed UMPC than the Q1 Ultra. It also has a real mouse button rather than the silly sliding one on the Q1 Ultra.

In the Intel Mobility conference, the device was shown running Windows XP with Yahoo Go software on top. Its not known if this will be released as a Vista or XP based device but if its using the same architecture as the Samsung Q1 Ultra, there should be no reason why it doesn’t ship with Vista.

High quallity (1mbps WMV9) version available here or watch the YouTube version below.

More info on the new McCaslin-based UMPCs here.. The information from the Intel Mobile Press Conference is here.

This is HUGE news for UMPCs in general. Very exciting.

Today, Intel announced that they will make a dedicated CPU / Chipset platform for the UMPC that, combined with advanced screen tech and low power radio components will get the average power of a UMPC down to SUB 4-Watt. The platform will be ready in 2008 and will mark the start of a massive push by Intel and its partners to bring not just 5 or 6 devices new devices to the market but tens of new devices.

Intel are obviously working on the silicon themselves (from previous news, I assume the CPU will be ‘Steeley’) and the low-power screen component looks like it will come from Samsung who have developed, specifically for UMPCs, a 7″ screen that drains just 0.6Watt. That’s about 30% of what today’s screens typically take.

4W average drain is amazing. It means that a 2006 UMPC that ran for 3 hours could potentially run for 9 hours. It also enables smaller devices to be built. It means that x86 architecture is becoming so efficient that RISC/ARM based tech loses a lot of its advantage. No wonder they sold Xscale!

A dedicated UMPC platform. Just think about it. This isn’t just a ULV notebook processor re-engineered, this isn’t screen tech taken from the automotive industry, this is a CPU manufacturer prepared to put hundreds of millions of dollars into new CPU/GPU and screen components being made for UMPCs. This step speaks volumes about where they think the UMPC is going. In fact, its really more important news than the announcement of 4 new UMPCs today. UMPC’s just became very serious business today.

I have just come out of a meeting with Pankaj Kedia, the head of the UMPC Global Ecosystem Progam for Ultra Mobile Platforms.

Lets go straight to the fantastic news. On 18th April, at the IDF in Beijing, there will be 4 new Intel based UMPCs launched. These will all be based on the Intel McCaslin architecture. McCaslin is an architecture that uses a NEW CPU (optimised purely for UMPC use) along with the GMA950 GPU. (Aero-Capable.) This is the same architecture that is used on the Q1 Ultra.

The first device is focused towards navigation capabilities. It has an 800×480 screen an slide out keyboard. Its will have GPS on board and its got a 4.3″ (not 100% confirmed) screen. This is the prototype of the device. The device will be launched by an unknown brand. I have a short video HERE but will post a longer one later.

The second device is the twist-screen model that has been seen before. The screen is 4.8″ (again, unconfirmed) and again 800×480. The keyboard is bigger and much more useable than the ‘navi’ UMPC above.

Again I have a video of this that I’ll post later.

The other two devices that will be launched are unknown but we already know that the semi-rugged school-focused UMPC is one of the devices that have often been seen alongside the two above. I guess that its one of the four. The fourth could be based on this, a prototype that I haven’t ever seen before. Its got a removable Bluetooth thumboard.

Detailed specifications on the devices are unknown. Prices are also, understandably, under wraps.

More info from the Intel Mobile conference and the meeting, in later posts.