No, it wasn’t a brand new OQO device (Boo!) but its nearly as good because OQO have finally upgraded the Model E2 (that’s the non-US version of the OQO Model 02) to include a 3.5G HSDPA modem (Hurrah!) Simon Dale of ‘Have That’ is at the event and is in contact with UMPCPortal:

19:40 – “HSDPA with same spec. Dennis Moore speaking now. Open SIM. Triband. edge/ gprs.” [Simon]

20:40 – Expansys have the HSDPA models on their site. Looks like a 175 pound (250 Euro) additional price for the HSDPA. [Steve]

21:00 No more info coming from the event as they’ve been asked to hold back on reporting it. Ooops!

The official press release is in a few days.

What’s the most disappointing aspect of the HTC Shift? Poor battery life perhaps? In the tests I’ve done with my production sample device (watch the video) I’ve been seeing around 10.5w average drain when browsing which gives about 2 hours life. In terms of efficiency its quite good and in comparison with a notebook PC its amazing but its still not class-leading and could (should?) be better.

Craig Pringle thinks he’s uncovered GPS hardware on the HTC Shift. This is an interesting development.

I started up the debugging tool.  There is a dropdown box with Com Ports listed.  By default it was on COM4.  I clicked on Open and low and behold I started seeing GPS strings in the output window.  I changed it to a different COM port and clicked open – and I got an error saying it could not find a GPS device.  Clearly the tool actually thinks there is a GPS in there.

I saw this tool and also saw the messages when I played with it but I was unable to get any ‘lock’ or 100% confirmation that the GPS hardware was actually working. The frustrating thing now is that I haven’t been able to use SnapVue since I trashed it and HTC haven’t been bale to get a fix to me yet. If I get SnapVue back before I have to send the device back, i’ll certainly investigate further on this.

Full post at Craig’s blog here.

Compal are a Taiwanese computer design company that have been responsible for a number of big-brand products over a 20 year period. Dell use them, HP use them and Intel themselves used them to design and make a Menlow-based MID prototype that got many many people excited about the future for mobile Internet devices. Its very very interesting to hear that the worlds second largest laptop manufacturer has decided to create a dedicated team to design MIDs. The company observes that the focus on ultra-mobility, handheld, and Internet services found […]

The Boy Genius Report got hold of a WiBrain UMPC and is reporting on the unboxing and first impressions experience.

No video or real review yet but there are a few comments… "it took some getting used to, but the buttons were placed and sized nicely, with awesome tactile feedback"  for example… and a lot of nice pics. I’m still having an issue with the style of the design myself but I have no doubt that its going to be a productive device.

BGR WiBrain unboxing

More Wibrain links and info.

Compal are a Taiwanese computer design company that have been responsible for a number of big-brand products over a 20 year period. Dell use them, HP use them and Intel themselves used them to design and make a Menlow-based MID prototype that got many many people excited about the future for mobile Internet devices. Its very very interesting to hear that the worlds second largest laptop manufacturer has decided to create a dedicated team to design MIDs.

The company observes that the focus on ultra-mobility, handheld, and Internet services found in MID products puts them in a separate market from current notebooks and ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs). The company expects the MID market to see fast growth in 2008.

With Intel, Google, Compal, VIA, Nokia, Ubuntu and Apple pushing a lot of resources into this area, do we need any more hints that the 5" mobile Internet device segment is going to be huge? So far, Microsoft is nowhere to be seen. They have a position in the mobile handset market and a position in the larger, Vista-capable UMPC market but so far, in this new sector, they are nowhere to be seen. I feel pretty sure that Mr Gates is going to have something to say in Jan though. Especially as the Windows Mobile update rumors are getting stronger.

Source: Digitimes

Craig Pringle, a popular tablet PC and mobile PC blogger has been testing the HTC Shift this weekend and he’s made three good posts about the device. In the first, he gives us a tour of the device and shows the three modes of operation. In the second, he asks the question, ‘How useful is the Shift’ and draws a comparison with a Leatherman, multi tool. In the most recent post, there’s an overview of the SnapVue mode where he also has a video of the Control Panel.

I think, like me, Craig is really enjoying the Shift!

More info, including a good collection of videos, on the HTC Shift information page.

[Written using LiveWriter on the HTC Shift]