It’s well-known by now that the Samsung Q1b out-performs other versions of the Q1 in battery life tests. jkOnTheRun did a Battery Eater test not long back which proved without any question that the VIA-based device wins on battery life. They also gave some figures from Notebook Hardware Control which I thought I’d expand on today in a bit more detail. Update 2025: Laptops can now run browser based work, while connected, in 1.6W of power. I have the Q1b and Q1p devices in front of me now (both 1GB […]

I’ve just had a nice conversation with my energy advisors, Select Solar, about some of the issues I’ve seen with the tests I’ve done so far.  The main problem being that Li-Ion batteries will not trickle charge. They require a certain level of stable voltage/current before they start to charge and this wastes the possibility of charging a battery at lower sun power. In fact, on a hazy day or with light cloud cover, the sun power might not actually go above 70% and you have no chance to charge […]

Last Friday I did something stupid. I exercised! I exercised too hard. It was too hard and too soon in my Solar ultra mobile PC training schedule and as a result I hurt my back. I spent the next three days either laying down or hobbling round like a on old man and finally today, I’m able to sit at my desk for short periods. [Excuse me while I go and get another cup of tea – I need to move about you understand.] During the time on my back […]

Brighthand are getting very excited about a new device from Palm [previous story] that we might hear more about next week. They’re calling it the Hawk after Jeff Hawkins, one of Palms founders and many of the Brighthand team have posted their thoughts on what it will be. The general opinion seems to be that it will be an UMPC-sized Internet focused device of some sort. A mobile Internet device which I guess is a fair bet these days!

It will need to have some distinguishing features if its going to compete in the consumer or business mobile Internet device market. Location based services perhaps? Instant-on full browser would be nice. Bundled cellular service with subsidised purchase plan. Or maybe just a lower price.

If Palm come to market before Linux-based MID devices then they better make it perfect or the RedFlag and Ubuntu guys are going to have a lot of great input for their development teams.

There are a many many cases of child abduction around the world every day. This is one case that’s fairly close to home for me so please think about taking 30 seconds to watch this video. Especially if you are in Europe. Thanks. Steve.

If you have any information please call Portuguese Police direct on 00351
282 405 400 or call Crimestoppers on (UK) 0800 555 111.

Por favor ajudem-nos a encontrar esta menina. Se têm informações por favor contactem
00 351 282 405 400
Nos ayuden a encontrar a esta niña. Se tienen informaciones, contacten el
00 351 282 405 400

I didn’t expect to see people getting hold of the Fujitsu so soon but I was wrong.  They say nothing except….’the review is coming’

Keep an eye on Akihabara.com

Fujitsu FMV-U8240 specs here.

Geekset.com has a nice video demonstration of the differences between a touchscreen and an active digitizer screen.

Its also worth noting that there are different types of touchscreen. A heavy-touch version which is good for writing with a stylus and avoiding errors (vectoring) caused by other parts of your hand touching the screen, or a light-touch version which is nice to use with fingers.

My personal favorite is the soft touchscreen as UMPCs are generally small enough that you don’t have to worry about other parts of your hand touching the screen. I’m also a believer that writing text with a stylus on UMPCs is not something most people in the mainstream markets would be interested in. Especially the markets where the lower-end and smaller devices are heading. For UMPCs, a soft touch screen will gain far more fans than ‘palm-rejection’ touchscreens.

Information on the types of screens that the various UMPCs have is in the product portal now. There are some devices that I don’t have the details for but most are covered now.

Who would have thought right?  After running some tests, and installing a game or two, it is possible to run games on a UMPC.  Using my Samsung Q1, I put it through several tests, all of which came out to be satisfactory.  The tests that I ran were 3dMark 2001se, 3dMark 2003, and then I decided to go ahead and try several different games.

Starting with 3dMark 2001se, the frames that I was getting were right around the 30fps mark.  Though this is acceptable, its not great.  Some of the more graphical intensive tests, really pushed my Q1 to its limits.  The score that I managed to get was not bad however:

As you can see from this, 3051 3DMarks!  This is using DX 8.1 technology though.  So if you have some older games you want to try and throw on here, they will work just fine!

Using 3d Mark2003, the scores that I got were not as good.  The ability of this machine to run games that use DX9.0, is not as good.  You can see this from the scores:

The FPS for most of the tests were extremly low.  Trying to run this benchmark on high showed where this system is lagging.

Now, for those of you who want a little nastgalia in your life…forget it.  DOS Based games will not work on this machine.  I think this might be due to a resolution switching issue.  Same goes for a few other games I tried to throw at this.  Even on my main machine, I wasn’t able to get those old DOS based games to run properly due to issues with device drivers.

What I was able to do was to create an ISO of MegaMan X8 (2Disk), using Alchohol 120%, and move the images to my Q1.  Doing so I was able to install them using a virtual drive.  I was worried about whether or not the Q1 would be able to handle the game as the requirements called for a 1GHz PIII, 256MB RAM, and a 64MB 3D Card.  I gave it a go anyway…

As you can see…I got the game to run.  Surprisingly enough it worked great!  Just as good as it does on my main machine.  What is the catch?

At first I used my Logitech dual action game pad.  Game play was smooth, and easy.  What is my problem with this?  Its not really a truly portable solution.  I went ahead and remapped the controls to work using the buttons on the Q1.  Sadly, there are not enough controls for this game to work to its fullest.  So advancing to the higher levels will be almost impossible…

Here is a link to a video of MegaMan X8 in action on a Samsung Q1.

If you purchase a UMPC that has more buttons then what is on the Q1, then gaming can become more of a reality.

Final Verdict:

Although gaming on a UMPC is possible, it is just not probable.  Without the use of added accesories such as a USB game pad, or a mouse and keyboard, I just do not see it as becoming a reality.  I would also like to note that games were not designed to run at these resolutions, and they were not designed to be run on a UMPC.  The hardware is almost there to run some games, however not all.  Modern games could probably be run on a higher end UMPC, though very laggy.  I have seen WarCraft III being played on these though the frame rates were not there to make the game enjoyable.