Thanks to Expansys last week, the UK prices and specs for the MSI Wind were revealed but the only US prices we had until now were import prices. Today, LAPTOP magazine has revealed the US-local specs and pricing and rather than charging similar prices for both the Linux and Windows versions of the Wind as in the UK, the MSI US marketing team are choosing to offer an Eee PC 900 12G (Linux) competitor at $399 with the 80GB drive, 512MB and Novell SUSE Linux. If you want XP you’ll […]

Opera Mini usage overtook use of the slow S60 browser on my N82 a long time ago due to its easy to use features and the way it renders pages but mostly, because of it’s speed. It uses a man-in-the-middle server to provide cached and optimised versions of pages that are transmitted using proprietary technology, not HTTP, to the client. Its not perfect but it works well for the average ‘browsing’ session. Version 4.1 has just been released and it brings a feature that I was missing from the S60 […]

One of my….no, let me start that again. My favourite UMPC, the Q1 Ultra Premium with its 1.3Ghz Intel Core processor and 6-hour battery life running XP Tablet Edition in its sub-2lb package, is coming to the UK and Europe via Expansys. Final specifications aren’t 100% clear yet but it looks like it will ship with the docking station (which is actually just a battery charger and USB hub) and the superb Samsung mobile keyboard which beats the Eee PC keyboard hands-down in desktop scenarios. Its not clear if the […]

If you read the article earlier about the US$1450 MID that’s for sale in Australia, you should read this as, following our article, the price has come down some 20% since we had our moan and now sits at around US$1100. That price might still sound shocking but for me it’s in the consideration-zone because it now translates to something like $750 in the U.S. Here’s why. The cost of electronic goods in Australia is expensive compared to the US. Less demand, less competition and higher transportation costs means that […]

Update. It appears that we might have stirred the sales and marketing groups into a re-think. The M528 3G pricing has dropped to 1199 AUD overnight which is a much more accpeptable pre-order, early adopter, Australian market price. Update 2. There’s some back-pedalling going on with pricing following our story. Gigabyte say they haven’t agreed any pricing yet. Details here. Interested in mobile Internet devices? You know, the ones aimed at the consumer with consumer features and consumer pricing? Then read on… Tegatech, a well-respected ultra mobile PC retailer in […]

Fact: Vista is not the right choice for a Ultra Mobile PCs unless you need handwriting recognition. Fact: Linux is not an option for pro-mobile users. Fact: Ultra Low Cost PC’s focus on cost and not mobility features. Fact: XP is the best choice of operating system for a pro-mobile device. So when Microsoft prevents OEM’s from shipping a standard build of XP with a ultra mobile PC and then makes an exception for ULCPC’s it kind of stinks. When they then offer discounts to ULCPC OEMs and specifically block-out […]

Mainstream book publishers are starting to get onto the mobile Internet bandwagon but its almost shocking to see how far progressed they think the mainstream customer is. I don’t argue that they are wrong as for most people, the mobile Internet really does start with someone showing them that there’s a browser on their mobile phone. Mobile Internet For Dummies explains how the Mobile Internet differs from the garden-variety Internet. I dare say that there’s not a single mention of Mobile Internet Devices or Ultra Mobile PC’s in this book […]

MWg (Mobile and Wireless group,) a Singapore-based company formed from the old O2 Asia company is coming to Europe with a new ‘connected’ Vista-based mobile device to be released in Q4 2008. MWg’s entrance into the European market is backed by Expansys and was launched [PDF] last week in London where Modaco was present to capture the roadmap on video. They picked up on a Windows Mobile 7 device which could be interesting but the one that caught my eye was the MWg Walk which is supposed to be a […]