Yesterday’s news refresh about HTC’s Dream has spurred me into taking a wider view on the device again. We heard about the HTC Dream last November and I speculated, based on some publicised ID features, that it might be based on an Intel prototype. The sizing was similar and that swivel screen that HTC talked about matches up well. It was a bit of a long-shot, yes, but I think the odds have shortened somewhat since we heard that HTC is working on a MID with call capabilities. Mash those two stories up and one of the theories that drops out is a very interesting possibility that Intel could be pushing the Atom/MID/Moblin concept into the Open Handset Alliance and that the Dream could be an Intel Atom-based Android smartphone.

What if Intel are contributing the Moblin Kernel to the OHA/Android and enabling an Atom-enabled Android build? What if Dream is built on an Intel Atom processor and is both the rumored HTC MID and HTC Dream in one? According to the sizing rumors, Dream could quite easily be an Atom-based MID.

If Intel are contributing Atom-enabling software along with their Atom silicon, their flash memory silicon, their WiMax silicon and their MID ecosystem, to Android, it will be a HUGE step for Atom into the consumer Internet handset market. Considering that Intel aren’t exactly aligning themselves with Microsoft on this project and are trying to push Moblin out though as many distributors as possible, it makes at least some sense, especially when you consider that ARM aren’t part of the OHA. ARM licensees that are part of OHA might have something to say about it though and that’s the big crack in my theory at the moment.

IDF Shanghai is in a few weeks. Lets see what Anand has to say about ‘Enabling the best Internet Experience in your Pocket’ Will they announce a big new partner? The stage lights are already on Atom, will the OHA be there too?

Looking far more stylish and desirable than the Eee PC, if this one launches at the rumoured $500 price point it will definitely cause some issues for the Eee PC 900 but I don’t think that’s where this one is heading. I think as a Windows device with storage, a 10" screen and HSDPA it’s going to be a very good value option for those looking at the Sony TZ.  These images come from an article over at Pocket-Lint that was posted last week. More G10 specs and links here below.

Here I am, sitting at a table in the lounge with the Q1 Ultra and the Samsung keyboard enjoying an efficient cloud-computing moment on the Q1 Ultra 800Mhz and that damn Kevin Tofel keeps posting up news about the Q1 Ultra Premium! I’ve been impressed with the Premium ever since I had hands-on at CeBIT and have managed to keep myself happy by putting XP on my Q1 Ultra and dropping in a 6-cell battery and HSDPA module on top of the 2GB RAM module but when Kevin posted the CrystalMark scores yesterday, it made my Q1 Ultra feel very lowly indeed. 28000 isn’t a figure we haven’t seen before on a UMPC as the Sony UX has been in that arena since day-1 but its best-in-class and there’s something about the screen size, the ability to go to 2Gb, HSDPA upgrade path and of course, the 6-cell battery that returns a true 4-6 hour computing time that makes me wonder whether the Q1 Ultra Premium could be my single grab-and-go DESKTOP! Its certainly more than powerful enough for me because I’ve done a lot of desktop work with the i7210, a less powerful device and to put it into perspective, its returns a Crystal Mark result that’s as good as one of my desktop PC’s here at home. A 2003 Shuttle SS51 with a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4! OK, the spread of results isn’t quite the same as the SS51 has a crappy SiS on-board GPU but its certainly going to be powerful enough for my net-based computing tasks, for image editing, for low-end video editing and rendering (YouTube styley!,) for podcast recording via Samplitude Studio, Skype and the Samson Q1U mic. and for any sort of video watching, right up to HD quality.

The two main problems are: 1) No docking station. Yes there’s a ‘docking station’ available but its a horrible USB replicator thing and it costs over $200 which is crazy. 2) It’s not available in the EU. I’ve sent an email to the nice people over at Dynamism to see when they have one in stock.

Why don’t I just buy a 10″ laptop you might ask. If I can’t pocket the Q1 Ultra I have to take a bag which means I could drop in a ‘real’ notebook PC. Its true.  Yes I could but I wouldn’t have that book-like capability that you only understand when you’ve used a UMPC in the bathroom, the very interactive, useful and fun touchscreen capability, the modularity and, to be honest, the nice feeling of ‘leading edge uniqueness’ that one has when they use such a device in public.

As you might have seen yesterday, the U.S. version of the HTC Shift (X9000) was made public by Amazon which caused an interesting chain reaction of bloggers coming out from behind non-disclosure agreements. I don’t know how many HTC Shift devices HTC’s PR people have distributed to bloggers in the U.S. but it’s certainly more than they pushed out in Europe! I’ve been reading through the reviews from Matt Miller, James Kendrick, Lisa Gade and Mark Spoonauer (links below) and trying to work out the differences and extract the main points of the reviews and the first thing that smacks me right in the face is the price. $1500 is an extreme amount of money for the Shift. While it’s cheaper than the device in Europe by about 20%, it sits somewhat higher in the U.S. market than in the EU market. I think I know the reason why though. Mobile data.

If there’s one device I have been tracking in the US market (yes, I realise I’m a bit EU-focused some of the time!) it’s the HTC Shift. Pricing, specs and 3G capability have been my outstanding queries and thanks to Matt Miller over at ZDNet, the questions have been answered. He has been testing it the EVDO version!

As Matt says, Amazon let the cat out of the bag when they made it public on their site today so he’s decided to come clean on his secret 140 photos and imminent review. ‘The Long Awaited HTC Shift’ is quite the understatement but despite my frustration, i’m glad to see it’s arriving in the U.S. A joint Sprint / HTC Announcement will be made on Monday and the price at Amazon is $1,499.00 which I personally find a little high for the U.S. market. I was expecting $1200 and now hope that street prices reach this level quickly because at $1500 its too expensive for all but the rich pro-mobile set.

The photo-set doesn’t seem to be available right now so I can’t quite work out what he means by “Can’t remove leather case if you want to travel a bit lighter.” I’d advise to glue yourself to the Mobile Gadgeteer blog if you’ve any interest in the device!

Update: James Kendrick has one too.
Update: Laptop Magazine has a review.
Update: MobileTech review too!

Via GottaBeMobile on FriendFeed. More HTC Shift news, my review and image gallery via the HTC Shift product page.

Resellers that put up pre-order pages for prototype devices based on images and specs that have filtered through the blog channels might need to re-think their strategy. Its obvious why they do it as it attracts early links (as I did a few stories ago with the ECS G10) which often put them high on the Google search results. It also allows them to build a database of customers that they can do direct marketing to at a later date but as far as I’m concerned, it stalls the whole process of buying a device. Customers get distracted by new devices while they wait for prices and end up going on hold. It’s also totally clear that when a company puts up a device with no price and no dates and the information is nothing more than an info-scrape from the Internet, it’s obvious they don’t have good links to the manufacturer or the distributor.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, I’m off to edit a video of the ABit UMPC that I used at CeBIT. Later!

The desktop version of the popular mobile phone media ‘bridge’  Shozu, is now available for desktops. Actually it’s available as an Adobe Air application which means it should run on any PC that supports Adobe Air. (Windows, Mac and Linux in the future.) For desktop users, there are already a multitude of options available for uploading but I really like the way that Shozu makes it easier. In fact, I really like the idea that Smartphone applications can be ported ‘up’ to desktop use through the use of Air or similar software platforms because they are 1) Simple, and 2) Mobile-focused in a way that desktop app’s rarely are. Take a look at the video below as it might make it easier to understand what I mean. You’ll get a feel for the simplicity of the Shozu desktop app too.

This one has been on the cards for a while but this is the first time I’ve seen an official statement on it. The G10L will be based on Diamondville (Atom + i945 chipset) and include a tri-band  HSDPA /HSUPA modem for on-the-go action. Something that the 9″ Eee PC won’t be offering! It is slightly bigger than the Eee PC 900 though but maybe that’s because they will offer it with a 10.2″ screen. That could potentially be a 1280 screen making it interesting for productivity uses. Apart from that though, it seems to be a standard build with WiFi, Bluetooth, card reader and web-cam.  Storage will be either HDD or SSD.

I quite like the look of this one. Its slightly bigger all-round compared to the Eee PC 900 but its a lot thinner and it looks more stylish. Reminds me of the 10.6″ Averatec 1100 and LG C1. With the Diamondville processor though, I think they will be going for a budget price. Something like $800 sounds about right for an HSDPA-equipped 8.9″ device which sounds a lot but in reality, its cheap for a 3G notebook. I would expect this one to launch with Vista and achieve something in the region of 3 hours battery life with the standard battery.

Update: Clove Technology in the UK is taking pre-orders at 465 pounds (590 Euros) but I think its a link stunt. (which worked!) There’s also an official page at the ECS website which says that it’s an 8.2″ display, not 8.9″

I’ve added it to the database.

Details came from Digitimes.