There are two excellent reports from well-respected mobile device bloggers out today and both tests focus on performance. Along with the input speed tests, the Hugo meter and the umpc buyers guide these should be on the list of essential reading for anyone new into the UMPC scene.

First up, browser speed testing. Jenn of Pocketables took a clutch of 8 mobile devices and put the browser through speed tests on a number of sites. Not only did she look at UMPCs but she took an iPhone, Mylo,  Pepper Pad 3, Archos and and and… The results are interesting. Take a look at the dedicated sub-UMPC devices and you’ll see that the Pepper Pad 3 really shines. Its the only one that’s running on an X86 platform. (I’ll say no more!) You can see the full set of results and explanation at Pocketables. I will run through a few more of these tests and send the results to Jenn so that she can add to the table. I’ll test the Everun (AMD LX900), Nokia E90 (Ti OMAP 2420), Q1b (VIA C7) and Kohjinsha SH6 (Intel A100.) next week.

Which brings me nicely on to the next test. Frank has taken four mobile x86 processors and put them through a performance test.  I think its a floating point test which is not exactly the VIA C7’s forte but it gives some idea of the relative performance of each CPU. As expected, the….no I won’t give the game away. Pop over to UltraMobilePC-Tips to have a look. Again, I’ll try and contribute to Franks results with the AMD LX900, Intel A100 and Pentium-M at 1.2Ghz results on Tuesday or Wednesday next week although sometimes these results can be misleading. For example, I doubt there’s much floating point mathematics going on in a browser page-rendering engine. (Although someone is bound to prove me wrong in the comments below!!)

In the meantime, here’s another comparison. That’s a normal size notebook PC there!

Its only a one-liner in a VIA news item over at Digitimes but its good news! They report that VIA will release a VX800 chipset later this year. There’s no more details but if I were a betting man I’d say its based on the VN896 Dx9 and Vista-certified GPU and VT8237 southbridge.

VIA have long been knocked over their lack of progress in the GPU area. The Current Unichrome GPU can only perform DirectX-7 in hardware so its well due for an update and Direct-X 9 should help a lot with applications like Google Earth and games. The GPU also contains Mpeg2/4/WMV9 hardware acceleration as in the existing VX700 chipset. If they manage to slot this into the Mobile-ITX standard then things get really exciting for UMPC designers next year.

The rest of the news item talks about a 500Mhz processor at 1W. Very Interesting for MID-type browser devices at the consumer end of the market.

VIA Introduces 1W Eden @ Digitimes.

My poor Q1b HSDPA is sitting in pieces on my desk right now. Naked, stripped of all traces of wireless wan hardware and feeling decidedly the Un-Mobile PC. Its only recompense being that the Everun is now fully mobile and free of its hotspot chains.

The donated part was the Option GTM351E 1.8mbps HSDPA PCI-Express Mini module. Taking it out of the Q1b wasn’t as easy as it could be as you have to remove the motherboard but fitting it in the Everun was straight forward. You can see that I’ve used a plastic stick-on antenna. Installing the software was fairly straight forward but I kept getting firmware errors when trying to search for a network. I tried everything from rebooting through re-installing and changing pretty much every option that was possible. In the end I gave up and chatted to the guys on IRC that where following the progress via UMPCPortal/live. Then someone mentioned the function buttons and hardware switches and I was demonstrating the LAN on/odd switch, the LCD on/off switch and the WAN on/off swi……Yes, you can guess what I had forgotten to do can’t you. After enabling the WAN through the WAN ON/OFF button (FN-F8 if you get stuck!) everything came up tutty fruity. To cover up my embarrassment I even did a little dance and JKK, being the nice fellow blogger that he is, has even edited and posted part of the Ustream video to show the relevant part. Thanks mate!! Rodfather has also posted it. I would blame James Kendrick but it was actually Rodfather that started this whole project as he admits in his post. Guilty!!!

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[Update: The coupons were all snapped up very quickly. Thanks everyone for your messages. I’ll speak to Dynamism about the possibility of releasing new coupons.]

I know that many of you reading this are in an absolute pickle over choosing a UMPC right now. If I was choosing one device, I would be struggling too because there’s some fantastic options around. One of the best options at the handheld/handtop end of the market is the Raon Digital Everun. I use it daily around the house and if I’m not planning any serious work, its my ‘must-take’ device when I leave home. I was so impressed with it that I even tried to sell it myself over on the Carrypad website. That little project is coming to an end now as I don’t feel too comfortable reporting on UMPCs with one hand and selling them on the other. I’m happier leaving this job to professionals like Dynamism. You don’t have to search too far into UMPC forums to find the good customer reports and I hope there will be some more soon because the UMPC sales and support experts have just given UMPCPortal a set of 5% discount coupons that can be used against the purchase of a Raon Digital Everun.

We have 25 coupons available and you can get one simply by adding your request to this forum topic in the official Raon Digital support forum (non-members can register here.) I’ll email you the code and you can go ahead and place the order with Dynamism. The Everun is starting to ship now. Small quantities have already shipped but the main shipments from South Korea will start on the 22nd August so if you order today you could be one of the first to have the device in your hand at the end of August.

If you need more information on the Everun, take a look at the Dynamism web page and the UMPCPortal full review with videos and image set. Any questions you have about the Everun will be answered in the Raon Digital forums so feel free to ask. If you buy one, don’t forget to let us all know how you get on!

Many many thanks to Dynamism for this offer.

JKK finds out that the SH6 has a fantastic screen. Not only is it a useful 1024×600 (which, you should be aware, reduces finger accuracy) but its usable outside. I’ve mentioned if before but again, its the best screen I’ve ever seen on a UMPC.

Keep an eye on JKK’s blog for a full video review but while you’re waiting, check his sunlight video demo.

More SH6 news today comes via Dabs.com (UK) who are now offering the SH6 branded as the Vye Computers S37. For £800 you get the 1GB / 100GB version with UK keyboard and Vista Home Premium (has touch support) Its due on the 27th August. If you can’t wait for the HTC Shift and you need mobility and productivity (and a huge dash of disk space) the SH6/S37 is the one to go for. In fact, for people that are heavily into digital photography, the SH6 makes a better choice than the HTC Shift due to the fast CF and SD slots.

Kohjinsha SH6 / Vye S37 model details here.

NEVER EVER take an E90 along with you to a family outing to the cinema. You’ll end up with a clip round the ear from your wife!! “Put that bloody thing down before I throw it in the bin.” (Combined with one of those looks.) Wow. I hadn’t realised I was pushing the limits. The E90 is a dangerous tool!

Apart from threatening to wreck the family, its also threatening to kill my two-device strategy of small feature-phone and UMPC and the main reason, I think, is the combination of advanced features in such a tiny package. The E90 gives me the feelings I had when I used to use a Psion 5. A feeling of excitement, adventure, freedom and confidence and if you add productivity on top, its easy to justify a purchase. (If not, just blame James Kendrick!)

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Update: I’ve just read a similar post over at GottabeMobile. It explains how OneNote is helping someone to create a paperless office.

Some of you tablet fans will have been doing this for years but today was the first time I used handwriting on a UMPC touchscreen for anything other than testing or demonstrating.

Thanks to Warner Crocker’s (GottaBeMobile) twittering a few days ago I finally sorted out a cheap paperless process for my accountant. All the documents that go to my accountant at the beginning of every month are scanned (if they are in paper form) and then ‘printed’ into PDF’s using FreePDF. Using the recent offer on PDF Annotator software though,  I’m now able to mark up the PDF’s with notes on my UMPC, re-save them and send them off to my accountant. Its saving quite a few phone calls to explain all the PDF’s.

An interesting afterthought was that I didn’t have any vectoring issues. I used a Q1b (softtouch screen) so I guess I was leaning my palm on the frame. 

Next week: Chippy discovers the touch input panel  ;-)

First we had the U8240, then the U1010 and now the US version has been launched as the U810. Thanks Fujitsu for making it nice and easy to maintain the UMPC database ;-)

The press release today confirms the launch timeframe (Sept) and the price ($999) but LaptopMag appear to have a bit of extra news saying that the U810 will launch start shipping in Sept 18th and that an HSDPA version will launch in the first quarter of 2008 for $1300.

The U810 follows the Fujitsu tradition of pen-friendly tablets with its heavy touch screen and I think this is going to make a lot of OneNote fans very happy indeed. More comments here and full U810 specifications here.

Via GottaBeMobile