Bravo Nokia! Nearly a year before I started writing about ultra mobile devices, Nokia had launched the 770 Internet tablet. It was the 2nd device I ever mentioned over 2 years ago on what was then the Carrypad journal. Nokia 770. I got very excited about this device to start with. The screen and connectivity options looked perfect. Until you find out that its got a rather weak ARm-compatible Ti-Omap that doesnt look like it will get about 500kbps of divx, let alone the 1mbps needed for a reasonable 320×240 […]

This very brief bit of info from Current in Australia could be read one of two ways. Either you read it that ASUS is launching a new, tablet version of the Eee PC and you get excited about the prospect of a new sub-$400 ultra mobile PC or you take a wider view and consider that ASUS already have 3 versions of the R2 touchscreen devices already on low-power platforms, one that never launched and another two devices launching with Atom. [Click on images about for details.] The current R2E […]

The news broke a few days through Digitimes that VIA are set to migrate their CPU’s to 45nm production by late 2009. Moving to a smaller production process means watt usage should decrease or that processing power can be increased without increasing watt usage. This move is remarkable because their first 65nm CPU (Isaiah architecture) is yet to ship. The Isaiah CPU is said to be introduced with a 2Ghz clock speed which makes it unlikely this will be a ULV CPU, as we already speculated before. When a ULV […]

One of the great features of a ultra mobile PC is it’s ability to provide multiple and flexible input methods. You get the choice of a totally personal computer tailored to how you want to work, where you want to work. Combining touchscreens, thumboards and keyboard accessories in multiple ways is why UMPCs can go from desktop to car to bed to garden to bus and provide you new ways and new places to be entertained, productive and a comfortable and efficient manner. Along with battery life, weight and processing […]

Its great to read this article. Samsung are going to continue developing the Q1 in the ultra mobile PC market and are aiming to have a refresh available for early 2009. According to the first in a series of articles over at TechRadar, Samsung sold 100,000 units in 2007 and are apparently happy with this result considering that the device is in a category that "put simply, many just aren’t convinced by." I’m convinced and I hope others will be too because with a refresh, the Q1 Ultra that I […]

Most, if not all of you reading this will have heard of the Firefox browser and many of you will have tried Firefox 3.0 beta. I held back from using it for a long time because it was beta software but the latest release candidate seems stable and has me converted on all platforms now. Firefox 3.0 is fast. Firefox 3.0 is memory efficient. Firefox 3.0 has great features and overall its a clear winner on ultra mobile PC and netbook platforms, especially when using online applications. Like Safari, it […]

Sony Ericsson today released the second revision of the XPERIA X1 White Paper (PDF) detailing many technical aspects of the upcoming XPERIA X1 (hands-on preview here). The document covers the X1i and X1a models. Here is a partial list of changes from the first version of the paper according to inxperia.com — Quad-band EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz Tri-band HSPA: X1a: (850/1900/2100 MHz) X1i: (900/1900/2100 MHz) X1a model supports MPEG4, H.263 24fps encoding at QVGA only and not H.264 Size: 110.5 x 52.6 x 17 mm (formerly 110 x 53 x 16.7 […]

The pricing game in the cheap notebook category getting rather silly. I’m seeing a lot of ‘tricks’ being used that will make it very difficult for consumers to sort the wheat from the chaff. The low-end Alpha 400 from Bestlink, a RISC-based Eee-a-like is another example. I’m not going to spend any time reporting details of the device (see LinuxDevices for that) or discuss whether it’s a good choice or not but I will report exactly what came into my mind when I read the news about it. Devices like […]