The top 5 UMPCs on UMPCPortal look more like a line-up of notebook PC’s than of the UMPC tablet style of 2006. 4 of them are notebook form-factor devices, 4 of them are running the Intel UMP 2007 (McCaslin) platform. Only the Nanobook is missing from this list of ultra mobile notebooks and it looks like this is where potential customers feel most comfortable. In fact, in the top 13 viewed devices on the portal (at the time of writing) only two don’t have keyboards and they are both variants of the ever-popular ASUS R2H UMPC. Keyboards are in and notebook style UMPCs pique the most interest it seems. As for sales figures, well, that’s a different matter. Only 3 of the top 5 are for sale and in fact, only one is widely available.

The HTC Shift is the one we’re all waiting for though isn’t it. Its holding up everything and I’m sure the HTC marketing people know exactly what they are doing, the cunning devils. But they can’t hold on too long as the summer break is nearly over and the jostling for Christmas positioning will start soon. If the Shift comes in at $1200 without HSDPA (as I guess it will) then I think it will wipe out the Fujitsu. The Fujitsu is sitting rather uncomfortably with its 1024×600 5.6″ screen and the Shift’s extra productivity (I’m assuming the keyboard is good, the screen is 1024×600 and the battery life is over 3 hours) will tip the balance away from the U1010. If Kohjinsha sort out the battery life on the SH6 then I think it still has a good chance of survival as a low-end productivity solution with some price cuts at around $1000. The If the HTC Shift comes in at $1500 or less with HSDPA then the OQO and Sony UX have a problem and I think the Shift could set a new quality standard. But it won’t affect the sub-$1000 traditional UMPC market and if devices like the Q1b, T770 and Everun continue to drive prices down below $800 then people might start looking closer at them. The Shift could attract eyes into the UMPC market which is a good thing.

As for the EeePC well I think its just an attractive sideshow at the moment. Its will have a different customer profile than the typical UMPC customer and its only the price that is attracting attention. When people realise how much it will cost to increase storage and battery life then it won’t be as attractive after all. Again though, its good to have it in the market as it brings eyes towards the ultra mobile device segment.

The UMPC charts change daily on UMPCPortal and are only a reflection of popularity within the portal so don’t place bets based on figures here but as site numbers go up (the product pages get way over 100,000 page views per month) its becoming an interesting barometer of UMPC interest. If only we had sales figures too!

The UMPC product portal is here and currently lists nearly 70 different UMPC models. In addition, we have the Sub-UMPC list here.

That turns the N800 into one of the most capable (albeit slow) web browsing devices that exist. You have the Opera Engine, the Mozilla Engine and now the WebKit engine as found on Safari and the S60 browser. If you can’t get your chosen web location working with the N800 then something is seriously wrong with the website, not the N800!

Origyn on the N800.

LinuxDevices published the news and have also published an article from Pleyo, company that is running the project. The browser is called Origyn (Origyn Web Browser, OWB) and is an open source project aimed at embedded and mobile applications.  Origyn uses the Webkit engine and it comes with an abstraction layer which is aimed at simplifying the job of integrating the browser into different platforms. The N800 port is just one of many that are possible from set top boxes, phones and even web tablets. Quite what the advantages are over the Mozilla engine (Opera is not open-source) weren’t clear to me so I turned to Pleyo for an answer. CTO Jean-Charles Verdie was kind enough to answer my email and highlighted a number of reasons why they went for the Webkit engine rather than Mozilla engine.

• The licensing model
• Footprint and CPU usage
• A clean source organisation which helped in fast porting.
• A better standard support (acid2, …)
• Benchmarks on low powered machines reported better performances at the time we began (Mozilla has improved its results since that time)

I guess the other reason is that MiniMo (Mozilla for the small-screen) is already a project in motion and it wouldn’t make sense to duplicate that work. As far as users are concerned, well, standards are not always the best. If most web development goes on in the Microsoft IE world then whatever they do is what the user needs to follow and that means having an Internet Explore browser. Fortunately, developers generally test for compatibility under Safari (Webkit), Firefox (Mozilla) and IE7. The only thing the user needs to choose between is cost and speed of browser.

Keep an eye on Pleyo and Sand-labs.org the site that is hosting the Origyn browser development.

Grrrr. I know that its a good place to launch new products and features but each time something appears as U.S.-only I can’t help geting a little more mad each time. This traffic estimation feature that Google have just added to their maps application is a prime example. Traffic features don’t appear in Bonn, Ipswich or even London, Paris or Amsterdam. But have no fear my Euro-friends because I think I have an answer…

Luckily for me, Mapfactor’s PC Navigator 7 arrived in the post this morning and it appears to work a treat on The Q1b and Everun. Way way better than Streets and Trips/Autoroute. It has a nice finger-based interface, POI database, pedestrain mode and it even has a speed camera database and TMC support (traffic data broadcast over FM radio.) I tested it briefly in the car and it worked smoothly but I need to give it a full test before I make my mind up on it. If it works well its going to be perfect on the Everun.

PC Navigator 7 is available with EU maps or U.S + Canada Maps. for around Euro 110 making it very good value. You can even buy one country for 80 Euro. Mapfactor, a Prague-based company, have an online shop here. Watch out for a review within the next week.

This isn’t new news but its kind of relevant to me today as I labor over the idea of either keeping the SH6 or selling it on. The issues I have at the moment are: HSDPA, battery life, processor speed.

If I could get hold of one of these Softbank C01SI HSDPA CF cards then I’d be much happier about the SH6. Nacker, from the handtops forums asked the same question – Does anyone know how to get hold of these?

Original news via Slashphone. (Oct 2006)

Kohjinsha are pushing forward hard and fast in the UMPC notebook market. The latest in the range is an SSD-equipped SH6KPS3ABX (nice name!) which is basically the SH6KP10A (nice name!) with the 100Gb HDD swapped out for a 32GB SSD. Akihabara News have the info and say that Geekstuff4u will have it available for pre-order tomorrow so we should find out what price premium its going to have. [update: Local pricing looks to be double the base model.]

The SH6 is sooooo close to my ideal mobile productivity device that it just hurts. SSD just makes it worse because what I’d really like to see is an 800Mhz A110 processor and a fix for the battery life issue.

My SH6 first impressions and intro video is here. Full specs here.

The company behind the Solpi UMPC were kind enough to send us specifications for the device after we re-published the CAD images from Lazion last month.  Before looking at the specs though, take a look at the mock-up shown over at Lazion today. (Originally from UPMania at Cafe.naver.com) Its a portly looking handheld isn’t it!

More images at Lazion.com (translation)

But the specs and prices look pretty good apart from a lack of BT. I hope that’s a mistake. Take note of the transflective TFT screen (good for outdoor use) and the S/PDIF input.

• OS:Win CE, XP,Vista
• Processor: VIA C7 1.2GHz NanoBGA2
• Chipset: VIA VX700 Unified Digital Media IGP Chipset
• System Memory: 512/1GB
• VGA:Integrated VIA UniChrome Pro II 3D/2D AGP graphics with WMV9 decoding acceleration
• Screen: 5.6″SVGA widescreen TFT-LCD Transreflective touch screen(1024 X 600) OR (4.8″WXGA(800*480)
  HDD: 30 / 60GB(1.8″)
• Connectivity: Ethernet LAN, 1 VGA port, USB 1 port, Wireless LAN, DMB,GPS navigation(option)/3D accelerated, HSDPA / Wibro(option) USB 2.0 2ports,TV out /Mic-in, S/PDIF in,Stereo Speakers,Audio out
• Battery: 7600mAh(standard)

That battery is probably a single cell battery at 3.8v giving a reasonable 28W/hr and the possibility of 3-4 hours battery life under Windows XP. Pricing could be competitive with expected entry level pricing around the $700 bracket and going up to the $1000 level.

Doesn’t it look like it was designed by the same person that did the Fujitsu U1010 Stormtrooper?

A few people have asked whether SlingPlayer works on the Everun. I don’t have a Slingbox myself but SteveNYC, a member here, offered his Slingbox up for testing and set me up an account. After an initial problem (user error) it  worked really really well. I’m impressed both with the Everun and the Slingbox. Thanks SteveNYC! Here’s a video of the experience.

HQ (640×480 750kbps) WMV Version at Blip.TV.