This is going to come across a bit negative but its just the way that the latest Flipstart ‘a Paul Allen company’ press release was worded that got me all worked up about it. Gear Diary has posted a copy of the Press release. I like the concept of the Flipstart and I applaud all attempts at bringing products into the UMPC market but Vulcan, I can’t read your press release without feeling patronized.

Here’s a quote from the press release.

“When people get their hands on the Flipstart device, they just get it. It has a remarkably innovative design that makes it the most usable compact PC on the market,” said Dr. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., vice president and chief analyst, Mobile and Wireless at Frost and Sullivan, a world leader in helping companies achieve growth.

Compare this to comments given at a Frost and Sullivan sponsored conference where the Flipstart was shown:

“I think it’s going to be a couple of years before we know where this kind of device fits,” said Kerry Sedwick, director of technical architecture at American Express Technologies. [from here]

And then the press release talks about typing speeds:

Independent research reveals that people’s typing speeds on Flipstart are 16 to 26% faster and accuracy is 40 to 45% better than on similar products by competitors. 

That’s the sort of cheap advertising you find on morning TV, not in press releases for a product targeted at professional people. One can only assume that they are talking about a speed comparison with the Sony UX which has an extremely poor typing rate. 16 to 20% faster than 35% of normal typing speed isn’t much to talk about. My own independent typing speed tests are here. If anyone gets hold of a Flipstart, drop me a line with your test figures and I’ll add them to the table.

Come on Flipstart. You’re talking to professional people. Give them honest, intelligent information for goodness sake. Drop the big flash-crap-heavy website and drop the cheap marketing talk.

Way, way back in the early days of Vista testing, Kevin Tofel highlighted the problem of WDDM drivers for the Intel 915 chipset which would result in a reduced Vista experience for UMPC users. Although the 915 chipset was old at that time, it was a core component of nearly all Intel-based UMPCs. People moaned. People even campaigned for the problems to be fixed but neither Intel or Microsoft saw fit to modify anything that would enable WDDM drivers…

It never hurts to ask, and thats what a potential Gigabyte U60 UMPC customer did this week on a Gigabyte website. What he got back wasn’t really the answer he was looking but for but it did reveal something interesting. A new UMPC. We’ve got copy of the roadmap this user was sent and if you look along the bottom right hand side, it shows a new U62 Intel-based UMPC.

There’s no image and no information. Only a weight, which is the same as the U60. Could Arima be modifying the ULV650 to include an Intel CPU? Could it be based on the McCaslin CPU?

Info on the U60 can be found on the Medion RIM 1000 datasheet as its effectively the same device.