I’ve been having a look (or should that be listen) to the music capabilities of the BenQ S6 MID device. With a stereo headphone socket and a music player as part of the built in software, the device can be used as a portable music player. But is it any good?

Here’s a 10-minute overview of the Compal MID showing most of the software applications. Hope you enjoy it and feel free to ask questions below. Also available at YouTube and the higher-resolution WMV original is available at Blip.tv

I think I made a mistake by doing air today and water yesterday, given the weather. But no matter, it’s just a challenge for the Intel MID devices to rise to. Mid Moves (Ewan) – Day 3… Air from Ewan Spence on Vimeo. I’ve switched away from the Compal now to the BenQ S6, a tablet only implementation with only a software keyboard and touch screen for input. How will it handle the stresses of being my MP3 player on a cramped bus going to Glasgow, and a visit to […]

I really want to test out the BenQ S6. There’s no keyboard on it but its by far the cheapest 3G-enabled MID available. 299 Euros for a 3G, Wifi, Firefox MID is great value. Unfortunately it’s only available in Italy which is why I haven’t had hands-on yet. Ewan Spence at MIDMoves, has unboxed one and is using it for two days as part of his MIDMoves tour. The unboxing video is up already but keep checking for updates on Ewans stream at MIDMoves. Unboxing the S6.

At MBC09 last week I had the chance to talk to Sarik Weber of Cellity. [twitter, website] Cellity is an ‘addressbook 2.0’ and because of its nature, integrating with many web-based services, it has a big focus on mobiliy. I asked Sarik what he thought about the MIDs and you’ll hear the answer to that and a few other questions in the audio recording below. MBC09  interview with Sarik The audio recording was made using a Samson Q1U USB mic plugged into a Wibrain i1 running Windows XP and the […]

Over at UMPCPortal I’ve been tracking MIDs for a long time. What you see here is a list of all the production (or production-ready) Intel MIDs along with links to information at UMPCPortal. Designs range from mini tablets to convertible mini notebooks. Click the image for a comparison overview or view individual device details below. USI MID-160 Lluon Mobbit Gigabyte M528 Viliv S5 ASUS R50A Sharp Willcom D4 Lenovo Ideapad U8 Fujistsu U2010 Viliv S7 Digifriends MID Wibrain i1 UMID M1 As me move into 2009, we’re going to be […]

So, Mobiln is now focusing on netbooks. It’s a huge setback for MIDs to learn that Moblin for MIDs won’t be ready until 2010 but clearly there’s a business case there to focus on netbooks first. I tried the build briefly on a Medion Akoya Mini and here’s what happened…  

ABI research are expecting 35 million netbooks to be shipped in 2009 and 139 Million in 2011. Their definition of a netbook is not stated. The source is unknown too as the press release points to their Q4 2008 review of the mobile market. My prediction is less than half that in 2009, based on the traditional definition of a netbook. 139 million seems to high for the traditional netbook market but if they’re including all the devices that are creeping up in price, features and size then why not. […]