Videos: Linux on UMPCs

Click through for an early UME test and a recent test of Linpus Lite.

I think it’s fair to say that a huge amount of work is going into user interface development for UMPCs right now. As the market matures and more products become available, especially in the consumer market, the UI will be incredibly important. Its the element that connects the user and it can make or break the first ten minutes of user experience. It will also be used as a key differentiator between similar devices. The Gigabyte, Aigo and A-Bit UMPC are good examples. All look very much the same on paper but have a very different look and feel. I have a video to post later that shows the Gigabyte interface in a bit more detail but for now, take a look at these links to community members who are working on UI projects right now.

First, there’s Dan, the Linux man, who’s just bought a Q1 Ultra so that he can install and test Ubuntu Mobile from Canonical, one of the companies that will be using Moblin to build a UMPC and MID-focused Linux distribution. He’s already installed a beta image so keep an eye on his blog for more info. The last time I tested it on a UMPC, it had a long way to go but I’m happy to say that it looks pretty slick on the MID demonstrators we was at CeBIT. Planned launch for Ubuntu Mobile is end of April and its the resason that I haven’t sold my Q1 Ultra yet.

The other thing to check out is Eee PC news forums (German) where Kai-HH has put together an ‘easy mode’ interface for XP on the Eee PC complete with skins.

Click to Play UMPCPortal and JKKMobile with a hands-on video of the ASUS R70a UMPC. Taken at CeBIT 2008. The R70a is an Intel Atom-based UMPC with a 7" screen and 120GB drive aimed at business users. Formats available: Windows Media (.wmv), Flash Video (.flv) Tags: umpc, mobile, internet

Two companies stand out as big players in the UMPC and Mobile internet device market right now. One is Gigabyte and the other is ASUS. The R70 is their ‘flagship’ UMPC and myself and JKKMobile made a hands-on video about the device at CeBIT. The R70 has a 120GB drive, GPS and HSDPA built-in, has a 7″ stylus-optimised, high brightness touchscreen, dual cameras (2mp, 0.3mp) and a DVB-T reciever. It runs Vista on an Intel Silverthorne processor with Poulsbo graphics. (Intel Atom platform) Full specifications are listed on the R70a product page. (UMPCPortal product database) Battery life on this pre-production model looks like about 4 hours which is a definite improvement over previous ASUS UMPC models. The device feels fairly light for its size and is an obvious competitor to the Q1 Ultra HSDPA. Vista was working but didn’t seem to be very responsive, possibly due to it being used for testing by CeBIT customers. The specifications list is looking really good. Quality screen, HSDPA, 3G, DVB-T, fingerprint reader and docking port. The mouse could have been better but all in all it was quite an impressive slate-style device. Pricing and availability details not known at this stage.

In the image above you see the Hyperthreading capability of Atom showing up in the device manager. JKKMobile has the YouTube video. A higher quality version is available via blip.tv right here.

Full specification are now in the UMPCPortal UMPC database.

The CeBIT round-up edition is long but full of good stuff! We talk about the Eee PC 900, go over the main points about Intel Atom, review the UMPC meeting (thanks VIA!) and a couple of new Gigabyte devices that we missed.

Ultra Mobile podcast #11 42 Minutes. 39MB.

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I’m working on a detailed report about Atom and the mobile computing market right now but its going to take a few more days to finish it so I wanted to put something brief out there for people interested in UMPCs. Many of you know that I have a wide-ranging definition of UMPCs but many, if not most others in the industry (and I might have to fall in line with this at some point) accept UMPCs as mobile desktop computers. Professional devices that give you the desktop operating system in a mini tablet or mini laptop form factor. In 2007, Intel talked about the Ultra Mobile market and introduced a mobile-optimised CPU aimed at enabling it. They also promised CPUs that would be designed from the ground up for mobile computing and introduced the term MID which was seen as a sub-UMPC by most people. The hope for many UMPC fans was that the new CPU would be much more powerful than ‘Stealey’ and would enable real Vista-capable ‘pro-mobile’ UMPCs. That was never really part of the plan for Menlow and after this week, its very clear where the focus is now. Menlow/Atom is a platform designed to be cheap and power-efficient above everything else. Cheap means small. Small means less space for transistors. Less transistors means less processing capability! 

The reason Atom needs to be cheap, small and power efficient is that it will be 1) going into tiny devices that need tiny motherboards and small batteries. 2) Will go into consumer electronics that won’t bear any increases in component cost. 3) Relies on millions and millions of sales to stimulate the device into being the de-facto solution for all consumer internet-capable appliances and gadgets, mobile or not.

UMPCs are not seen by Intel as consumer gadgets that sell multi-millions and therefore Atom is not designed for them. Atom will scale up to productivity devices but it won’t return any significant processing power advantages. The target for the Atom concept is the smartphone, not the 7″ Vista device. It might take another generation to get to the smartphone but that’s where they are heading with this.

If you’re a traditional Origami/UMPC follower looking for a more powerful, longer battery life device, you need to forget Atom and take encouragement from the devices appearing with the ULV laptop parts. Having played with the Q1 Ultra Premium and seen nearly 6 hours battery life after doing a video encoding exercise and knowing that it isn’t going to cost much more than the existing models I feel certain that as the new wave of processors from both Intel and VIA are engineered into lower clockrate, ultra low voltage parts, there’s going to be some very good opportunities to make UMPCs that are far more powerful and far more portable than the devices of 2006 and 2007.

JKK and I spent a lot of time hanging around the ASUS stand and the in the ASUS press conference earlier this week ad I swear, if ASUS had taken credit cards on the stage, JKK would have bought one at any price.  It’s certainly more appealing with a 1024×600 screen and the large touch-pad and the build quality, just like the 701, is fantastic. It certainly looks like it’s worth way more than 399 Euros!

Unfortunately, it’s still not for me. I had a 12GB Everun with me last week and after 3 days I was getting short on storage. I could have uploaded to an online storage service but I just didn’t have the time so for me, a mobile mini-note like this is going to have to have 20GB minimum free storage. It also needs the Bluetooth (for A2DP and file transfer from phone) HSDPA built-in and a touchscreen which I just can not live without these days. I would also like to take advantage of an Intel Atom processor which at 1.8Ghz would be as powerful but return much much better battery life. However, for its target market, the Eee PC has to be the best option out there right now. Hats off to ASUS for pushing the boundaries.

Anyway, the reason I started writing this post was because JKK has just written a great summary of everything he found out about the 900 at CeBIT through a number of conversations he had with senior people at ASUS. If you have any interest in the 900 at all, read it becuase there’s some good inside info there.

Eee PC 900 Specifications are in the database.

Unfortunately, my visit to the Acer stand at CeBIT returned very little in the way of UMPC or MID news but a press release made during the week reveals that there will be news later in the year. Here are a couple of excerpts from the announcement of the takeover of E-Ten.

“The worldwide smart phone market is estimated to grow by more than 30% by 2011”, added Gianfranco Lanci, President of Acer Inc. “Acer will enhance the competitiveness in the ultra mobile segment, by combining PC and communication technologies”.

Sounds good!

The acquisition of E-TEN will allow Acer to play a key role in the development of the dynamic, fast-evolving market of smart handheld devices as well as ultra mobile devices in the future and will help bring Acer’s cutting edge mobile solutions to an even wider audience.

The E-Ten takeover is expected to be complete in Q3 2008.

Press release.

Here’s a fantastic demonstration of how energy-efficient a system designed around an Intel Atom processor can be and it’s one of the first demonstrations I’ve seen that really highlights what an Atom processor could bring to a pro-mobility build.

Clevo, who you might have seen in some UMPC and mini-notebook related CeBIT reports, have designed a 7″ convertible mini-laptop that they are showing off at CeBIT. They’re looking for a customer to sell and market the design and based on what I saw at CeBIT, I’d say it won’t be hard to find one because this SH8 look-alike has some very nice features indeed; 1.6Ghz Atom processor, external PCI-express slot, fingerprint reader, scroll-wheel, internal PCI-express slot (presumably the new Intel mini-mini PCI-express format) a 1024×600 touchscreen and a standard battery that will power this baby for up to 7 hours according to Clevo.

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