This is an article we’ve been waiting to see since MWC started on Monday; Hands-on with the UMID M1. The video (below) gives you a good idea of the size and form-factor, there’s a set of images and there are some interesting comments on usability. we tried typing and found that, with the limited key travel and minimal spacing in-between, it’s tough to do much more than peck out emails the touchscreen – which is a mere 4.8-inches – is tough on the eyes at 1024 x 600 and it […]

It’s been a significant week for Intel. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, they announced that they are entering the phone market. Quite significant if you ask me! Actually I think the rather significant news got drowned out by the amount of news coming out of MWC, the fact that it wasn’t accompanied by any images of prototypes (always gets the bloggers excited!) and that it’s something planned for 2010 rather than something we can see happening soon.  There’s also a little bit of confusion as to whether the […]

Update 01/04/09 : Officially launched as the Samsung Mondi A surprise from Samsung at their Mobile World Congress WiMax display. The SWD-M100 MID running Windows Mobile indicating that they’ve chosen an ARM processor for the system. The fact that Opera is also highlighted tells us that this one is more than a prototype. I suspect it’s not a voice device based on the ‘MID’ tagging but there’s no technical reason that it can’t support voice. 4.3 inch touchscreen Wimax, Wifi and Bluetooth Dual cams ( 3M + 0.3M pixels ) […]

Vye Computers in the UK have long had a relationship with KJS/Inventec who design and manufacture the Kohjinsha range of Ultra Mobile PCs and netbooks but they have now decided to tighten that relationship by becoming a direct distributor of the KJS devices in the UK. We’ve spoken to Vye and picked up information on their first offerings under the Kohjinsha brand prior to their launch next week. The first devices will be the SC3 and SX4, 7″ and 9″ convertibles. While these might be known models (I have an […]

While it’s very exciting to be thinking about OMAP 4 and Sparrow, they are a long, long way away from being a reality in a device. More interesting today are the Cortex A8-based products. Texas Instruments have the OMAP3 platform which includes a Cortex A8 core and you can find it in a number of leading-edge computing products like Open Pandora, the BeagleBoard and, when it launches, the Palm Pre. As these and other OMAP34xx devices reach the market, Ti will be feeding in a new range of OMAP3 platforms […]

I’ve been pondering this question for a long time and have never come up with a decisive answer. Ever since the iPhone came out, people have been criticizing it for not providing the ‘full internet experience’, citing the lack of true flash support. I just don’t get it though, where is the demand? Several years ago it seems like having a full flash website was all the rage, but since then lots of great web technologies (javascript, ajax, etc.) have been utilized to make highly interactive websites that often outperform […]

With an even bigger WVGA screen than the HTC Touch Pro2 that we highlighted earlier today, the Acer M900 Tempo is going to be another high-end smartphone to consider if you need a consolidated device. Its got a similar high-capacity battery to the Pro2, GPS and a higher resolution camera. The processor is still an ARM11 device though so once again, the form factor is good but the CPU isn’t quite there. I can also hear the simultaneous cheers and boo’s for Windows Mobile!   Full specifications: Operating system: Genuine […]

I’m looking at something I haven’t seen for a long long time here. A ultra mobile PC is number 1 on the product portal rankings. This hasn’t happened since the netbooks took over from the HTC Shift as the #1 viewed device in mid-2008. Not only do we have the Viliv S5 at #1 but there’s another ultra mobile PC at #3. The UMID M1. Viliv S5 popularity graph. (Updated daily)   Lets hope that when we finally get to test them, they stay high in the charts! You can […]