It looks like this test is over now. The TabletKiosk MP3400 blew up on me. This morning, everything was going well. The MP3400 was charging well from the Sunlinq… …but later in the day, when I was charging the Q1 Ultra from the MP3400, it all went wrong. The MP3400 overheated in a big way… I had left the Q1 Ultra connected to the MP3400 in the boot/trunk of the car while I went out to pick up some beer and when I came back the unit was incredibly hot. […]

Last week I posted some tips on how to squeeze 3 hrs browsing time out of the Kohjinsha SC3. The method was a bit of a trick as it utilised a mobile phone data connection over Bluetooth but it was the only way to achieve 3 hours on the 20wh battery. It equates to an average 7W drain which is, even in ultra mobile PC terms, very efficient but it’s not as good as I hoped from a Z-series Atom-based system. The reason why it’s not as good as I […]

Jenn, now a Willcom D4 owner as well as an SC3 owner, has her first impressions up. As expected, the battery life isn’t good at all with the tiny standard battery returning 1.5 hours of use. Its efficient of course, but that’s not really enough is it. I really don’t understand how any OEM could convince themselves that it’s acceptable to expect people to buy a second battery. Apart from that, the device seems to be performing well enough with Vista on the 1.33Ghz CPU. The Willcom D4 never felt […]

Meet the Vye S41 (Portal page for full specs). This is a mini-tablet / ultra mobile PC touting a 7 inch screen. Some of you may notice that it looks an awful lot like the Kohjinsha SR8. You would be correct in that observation; the S41 and SR8 are actually the same computer, Vye has adapted the S41 to be sold outside of Japan. The S41’s most unique feature is its built in DVD burner. It is very surprising to see the drive in such a small computer. Though the […]

I’m going camping over the next four days. Here’s the kit that’s going to keep me productive. [The Wife and little-one have planned a last-minute camping trip together and I was due to stay home and work but I’ve decided to go along and make a working holiday of it. Dads – this is the beauty of Ultra Mobile PC’s!!!]   That’s a Samsung Q1 Ultra being charged from a Tablet Kiosk MP3400 which will be charged using a Sunlinq 25W solar panel. Also included are the Nokia N82 and […]

One year ago (see this post for details of the 2007 Solar UMPC tour kit,) I was using the setup below for my mobile blogging and tracking. This year, its a lot simpler. And a lot more powerful. Notice how the phone, GPS tracker and Camera have merged into one device. Yes, the N82 is a real boon. The N82 camera is not as good as the S2  (as expected) but the ability to auto-tag while tracking and then post the images directly to a server over the Internet is […]

Many of us have been anxiously waiting for news about the VIA Nano (formerly Isaiah) processor from VIA. Previous leaked info indicated a 2-4x improvement in processing power for a similar power drain over the older VIA C7 processors and with the Atom processors barely improving on the previous platform in terms of processing power, pro-mobile users were looking for something to fill the high-end gap. Eeepcnews.de have been testing, (yes, they had one in their hands!) a 1.8Ghz version of the Nano CPU which isn’t the CPU we’d be […]

Check this out. Engadget received a photo of an ASUS presentation slide showing 23 Eee models. Note the ‘Touch’ and ‘Slim and Light’ expressions. Also note that the ASUS R50 and R70 aren’t part of the range. Looks like they still see tablets as niche devices that don’t fit into the EEE profile. New models to look out for are the S101, S91, T101. I wonder if we’ll finally see a version of the T83. (image left.)It was a popular device on the portal last year but probably needs an […]