I made a big mistake when I was reviewing and testing video and gaming on the U560 yesterday. The experience was good but it turns out I had the device locked to max-battery setting. That means I was using the device at 600Mhz instead of 800Mhz. I re-did the tests this evening and increasing the processing power by 33% has made a rather impressive difference to both the video playback and gaming performance. Check out some of these video playback figures.
- Windows HD WMV 720 ‘Coral Reef’ demo – Perfect (6mbps)
- 1mbps H.264 – Perfect (30% cpu utilisation)
- YouTube full screen – Perfect.
- 4mbps Divx – 35% cpu.
- Joost – Working (That’s the first time I’ve seen it working on a UMPC)
- Stage6 streaming HQ Divx videos – Working.
DivxDVD VOB files – Working
Video after the jump….
The screen on the U560 is stunning with hi-res videos and because it’s got the stand and a 4.8″ screen diagonal, it works very nicely at seat-table distance (up to 50cm away.) For a demo, watch this WMV file (756kbps.) (Download link)
All this video performance and 3 hours of video playback battery life (up to 4hrs for the lower bitrate files.) Why can’t the Q1 Ultra with Vista do it I wonder. Its got the same platform but it can’t reach these video performance figures. Vista simply kills it!
Can the Archos devices reach this level of video playback performance?
More info, specs on the U560 including my unboxing and first impressions.