This is an unconfirmed rumor but if it’s true, we might have another smartphone ‘MID’ on our hands here. 3G, 854×480 screen, GPS, Qwerty keyboard, slick design. No info on processor at the moment. I’ve never tried a sidekick as they’ve always looked like toys to me but I know some people that swear by them and rate the keyboard very highly indeed. The 3.2inch screen would be difficult to read at standard text sizes but if the zoom is smooth and quick it might not be a problem. More […]

I had a bit of fun with followers on FriendFeed this evening and unboxed the ClarionMiND live with photos going to Flickr. Flickr photos are here. Follow me on Friendfeed or Twitter to get notifications of other silly events like this. I’ll be doing an intro video and posting soon though so stay tuned here too! Transcript of the Friendfeed session: Images going up into my flickr stream (will appear in FF too) http://www.flickr.com/photos/u… – Steve ‘Chippy’ Paine Nice box. White. Guess what color the ClarionMiND is……white!! Argh! – Steve […]

The final day for myself on the road for this iteration of the Mid Moves tour. I’ve left myself one classical element to explore (Earth) and for the fourth mode of transport I’m turning to the Underground, specifically the Glasgow Underground.

The final day of my part of the Mid Moves tour, and I headed into central Glasgow on their Underground (with the final element being Earth I think the reason is obvious).

One of the big differences between the Compal MID and the BenQ S6 devices is what they expect the primary input mechanism to be. While both of them have touch screens, the design of the user interface shows one clear difference.

Yesterday’s news that Moblin V2 for MIDs is now delayed until 2010 has me thinking long and hard about what’s going to happen now. Have Intel put their MID plans to one side? Are they confident that Moblin V1 is enough for the current crop of devices? What will the OEMs think? Are they happy to refocus onto netbooks or are they simply waiting for Moorestown? Should I put UMPCPortal on ice and take a year’s holiday?

Whe I tested the Gigabyte M528 sample version of the Compal (codename, JAX10) MID back in July last year, I was looking at an extremely basic software stack. When I tested the Aigo MID version a few months ago, the situation was better but not impressive… The Aigo P8860 MID is a slightly unpolished, slightly locked-down, slightly thin-app, early-adopters Mobile Internet device. Almost everything in the application suite is underwhelming and after the initial unboxing high, the experience takes a sharp dive. When I tested the latest Compal Jax10 sample […]

Scottish Citylink run a regular service between Edinburgh and Glasgow (and other cities) and one of their attractions is that the buses are Wi-Fi enabled to let you carry on working while nipping across the central belt of Scotland. And it’s free for anyone taking the bus congratulations to Citylink for not trying to get another few pounds out of their customers!