VIA’s marketing team have put together a really nice short video presenting the Nanobook. Its soooooo much nicer to see a UMPC in situ rather than covered in fingerprints sitting on a rotating presentation stand.

The video makes me wonder whether we’ll get a new generation of UMPC-owning literary types sitting in darks corners of old bars with their favorite drink. I’ll have to watch myself when I do my Solar UMPC tour!

Engadget are reporting about the Compal UMD that Kornel posted about here the other day. I don’t know what to think because, as a design, its very nice. The processor is also a fairly capable number. The RAM available is also really good. The only problem we’ve got here is WM5.

4.3″ and 800×480. Possibly pocketable!

Interestingly its a 5W device which kind of proves that when you smother high end ARM processors in the same clothing as a UMPC, you end up with very little gain in the energy efficiency department. The Intel Menlow x86 version of this prototype is said to be targeting a sub 4W power drain level!

Like the Sharp EM-One, this is an interesting hardware platform. I would have liked to see the Nokia N800 in that format. If Opera’s next browser pulls out all the stops, (or if Firefox’s Minimo gets a full release) then maybe we’ll see the first ARM-based device worthy of being called a UMPC.

Are there any ARM experts out there that can tell be exactly how powerful the Freescale processor is? Are we looking at advanced ARM architectures here? Built-in co-processors/accelerators?

Via Engadget. Source.

The T-Swivel is one we’ve seen before but if you watch the second half of the video, you’ll get a few seconds of a UMPC with a removable keyboard frame. The design reminds me of another product but I can’t get a name out of my head. A smartphone perhaps.

Video via JKKmobile. Technorati tags: umpc

I’m convinced, as are most Vista UMPC owners, that a standard install of Vista on a UMPC is not optimal. I’ve seen it and so have many others. Its torture. Especially if you’re used to a relatively spritely windows XP installation so here’s my top 13 tips for optimizing Vista on UMPCs. Most of these I have tried myself. Others came as tips from third parties. If you have more tips, let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

1. Disable Windows sidebar. Well known to take processing power.
2. Disable on-screen mouse. Learn how to use the mouse without the on-screen version. Saves memory and processing power.
3. Disable indexing. This tends to keep the disk working overtime. Highly recommended.
4. Reduce screen candy. Go to Performance Settings and change the setting to “Adjust for best performance” and then re-enable visual styles.
5. Disable Windows Defender. Its a security hit but personally, I think its worth it.
6. Get all current Windows updates and then turn off auto update download (switch to notification only.)
7. Disable anti-phising filter in IE7. This is a killer.
8. Switch to 16-bit screen. I always use 16 bit if I remember. It saves a lot of screen memory and if you’re browsing, you rarely notice it.
9. Optimize your power settings. If you need performance, make sure your CPU is free to run up to full speed. Max battery settings tend to lock the CPU down to lower speeds. (600Mhz on a Pentium-M, 400Mhz on a Via C7-M)
10. Pre-fetch/Super-fetch hacks. This is a tip from Origamiproject forums. I have tried it and I liked it! See here for more info.
11. Test out readyboost. Its not one I can recommend personally as I’ve never tried it and I’ve also seen reports of people trying it out and seeing no benefit. You need to test it out.
12. Consider disabling handwriting learning. Its a service that takes memory and processing power.
13. Remove background tasks. As you install software you’ll always get a build up of unwanted services and processes. Real, Logitech, Adobe and all anti virus packages put software in the background that at the minimum take memory but in the worst case take CPU and Internet bandwidth. If you’re on a limited 3G plan, the last thing you want is Firefox downloading 2MB of program file in the background. There are tools around to clean these processes up so its advised to use them.
14. [added 29th Oct 2007] Disable the touch input panel on-screen tab (left or right of the screen) as this can interfere with Video performance.
15. [added 02 December 2007] Install this Microsoft patch. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941649 which was proved to save almost 10% battery life on the HTC Shift. Note that this may be rolled up into updates or service packs so its possible that this could already be installed on your system. Thanks to The Niles for this tip.

One additional element that should be considered for devices with keyboards is disabling tablet functionality services. Its drastic and controversial but if all you use the touchscreen for is as a mouse then why not! I haven’t done it myself so I can’t advise on how to do it but its an options worth investigating.

One month ago I posted an article entitled “Goodbye RISC, UMPCPortal going x86” where I put the case forward that so far there hasn’t been a single RISC/ARM based ‘umpc’ that has really delivered the goods. I said that I would sideline the RISC devices out of the main UMPC list in order to ensure that what guests here see as UMPCs, really are devices capable of delivering the full Internet experience (something that I’m going to attempt to define in a near-future post.) The browser is central to the Ultra Mobile PC and if it doesn’t work properly then I don’t think I can recommend those devices as Ultra Mobile PC’s.

As I said before, this doesn’t mean that RISC/ARM based devices are bad. It just means that they are not currently capable of the full Internet experience. The N800 is close. The E90 appears to be close too. The Sharp EM-One and the iPhone might even be close but that’s not good enough. If you’re looking for an Ultra Mobile PC, you need a full x86-based browser based on IE7, Firefox or the Safari engine and enough processing power to deliver the content that appears in it.

I’m hoping that this will change in the future. I would like to see ARM-based devices with rich browsers in order to bring more competition to the market but in the meantime, I’ve moved them into a new list called Sub-UMPCs where I intent to look after them. I might even start adding uber-smartphones like the Glofish and Toshiba models and the Cowon Q5 and Archos WIFI PMPs. In fact, if anyone fancies helping manage and grow this list, please get in touch. Maybe we could break out a new blog section or even a new sub-site and grow it. With VIA promising x86 smartphones in 2008, it might be that this Sub-UMPC segment becomes very important in a few years. 3.5-4.5″ x86 smartphones and high-powered ARM will be a big battleground. Pocketable too, unlike the OQO Model 02.

In the Kohjinsha website forums, someone has been kind enough to paste the text of a Betanews story about the Kohjinsha K600. Translating it results in the usual madness but there’s a few things that can be reliably pulled from it.

• 2.5″ 5400 RPM Drive (good for upgrades to big drives, fast drives and SSD.)
• 7″ Samsung LCD. (Good possibility that its the same as in the Q1 ultra.)
• 1.3MP Camera
• 3.5 hour with standard battery. 7 hours with an extended battery.
• 990g with standard battery.
• BT 2.0
• 802.11b/g
• A possible 29th June launch.
• SD and CF slot.

This is going to be a very interesting machine for digital photographers. With the card slot options and the 7″ 1024×600 screen (possibly 300nits LED backlit) there’s nothing else on the market that can match it. If they’ve sorted out the keyboard (it certainly looks different) then I want one and I will cancel my Q1 ultra order for it if its available in the next month. I won’t run Vista on it though!

Details are being updated in the Kohjinsha K600 specification page.

Haven’t we seen this one before? Oh yes, that’s the same form factor as the Menlow UMPC prototype. This one  however has a Freescale CPU, HSDPA, 255MB RAM, 512MB flash memory, WiFi+Bluetooth, a 1.3MP Cam, mini SD card slot and WIndows CE. Shame, as it is really nice looking and only weighs 280g. The device does appear to have a nice GUI, so perhaps all is not lost…

Via Pocketables. (Click for more pictures)

Remember when we told you last week that General Dynamics was planning a Flipstart-like device? Well its now official, and has the (uber-creative) name of GoBook MR-1. 

The MR-1 has a 1.2GHz Intel Core Solo processor, and an 80GB hard drive with 16GB and 32GB SSD options offered. Also available by year’s end will be integrated WWAN options.  The device meets MIL-STD 810F specifications for temperature, drop and vibration tests, and also IP-54 specifications for dust and humidity. Unfortunately the price, a steep $4,450, is high enough to even scare away people like Hugo Ortega (and he owns over 17 tablets and UMPCS!).

Don’t worry if you want one though, you’ve got till September to save up as that’s when the device becomes available.