JKK uncovered something nice on his daily FCC rounds today. The U2010 that seems to be shooting up the UMPCPortal charts (#4 as I write this), is going to be available in the U.S. as the U820. Jkk reports that there doesn’t appear to be any differences in spec apart from an FM transmitter (for in-car audio transmission) and a good-to-see, XP Tablet Edition option. Bravo Fujitsu! Details: JKKMobile. Meanwhile, over at the UMPCFever offices, JOE has been doing some more testing with the U2010. He’s completed 2 battery life […]

Benq recently won a design award for their Aries 2 MID (that we’ve seen before) which prompted a few news releases, one of which included the line "BenQ also claimed that the new MID model would be launched in Europe this quarter." A businessweek article included the image above. It’s certainly looking attractive! Other snippets of info include a mention of the ‘shake’ interface where windows respond to a shaking action and a mention of an auto-rotate feature. Benq calls this the ‘Free Surf’ user interface. Obviously they’re making a […]

I need to get some email monitoring going on here because I just noticed that postfix had failed on my server (after wondering why no-one was registering in the forums.) After I kicked it, thousands of backed-up emails got sent out to people. Someone even emailed me saying they got 70 comment notification updates. Ooops! Big apologies to everyone who tried to register, entered comments and expected comment updates. Registration emails all went out I think but if you still have problems with the forum registration, contact me. Chippy.

I’m still tracking as much as I can in the Mobile Linux world to try and bring myself up to a point where I can report with a respectable level of knowledge. Everyone I talk to though, seems to have differing opinions. Its an incredibly fragmented sector and I completely understand those that are simply ignoring all the fuss going on at the core level and focusing on the high-level, OS-agnostic application development environments. Over the next three days we all have a good opportunity to learn more through the […]

The Q1 Ultra has been my main mobile device since I switched from the Raon Digital Everun some months ago. It has been a near-perfect solution for me and having the SSD, HSDPA mods and optimised Windows XP solution has elevated it above all the other UMPCs I’ve owned or tested. It’s even convinced me that a 7" Windows-based ultra mobile PC is more suited to my business needs than the 4.8" Carrypad device I wanted before. That’s a very significant change in my requirement that I’ve already started to […]

Engadget ran a story about an OQO / Palm phone rip-off on Sat. Its an interesting mix of brands. I’m not sure why the Chinese think that the OQO brand is going to play a positive effect in the phone sector! We checked with OQO just to make sure they know about this and as expected…"these are not our products and the manufacturer is not authorised by or affiliated with OQO in any way."

It takes some courage for a small company like VIA to go head to head with Intel so you have to hand it to VIA for putting this video out. Apart from the fighting-talk in the first 30 seconds, it shows the 1.3Ghz Nano (I have this confirmed) against the 1.6Ghz Intel Atom (Diamondville.) in a 1080p HD video test. I recognized the video being used (Try it – Robotica) and checked it out on my Akoya/Wind. Sure enough, it doesn’t play perfectly. Not surprising as it’s about 9Mbps of […]

How does a quality 7" 1024×600 ultra mobile PC for 385 Euro ($600) sound? If you’re a ultra mobile PC fan in Hong Kong right now you’re laughing because one of the best tablet-style UMPCs is now available in basic 800Mhz, Windows XP (Home) form for just 4690 of the local dollars. The Q1 U-C is part of a special promotion out there. For the U.S. readers, that might not sound too cheap but in Euro-land, that’s about as cheap as it gets. Sure, you could buy an MSI Wind […]