Does this mean goodbye to my solar panel, my 1KG lead-acid battery and the box full of cables I have? Does these mean that you won’t have to spend over $1000 on a Solar UMPC kit now? iUnika have announced a range of very low end, low-cost netbooks which include one with a solar-panel on the back. The price: $260. 700gm 8″, 800×480 400Mhz MIPS CPU It’s eco friendly too “..the system body’s is made from bioplastics and other biodegradable materials derived from starch and cellulose” [source] Here’s my take. […]

Considering the SmartDevices Q7 isn’t a true ultra mobile PC and it’s going to be a relatively slow browsing device, it’s getting a lot of coverage on UMPCPortal this week.

My Smart Q7 should ship from China on Friday so it’s interesting to see more live images of the device to try and get a feel for what’s going to turn up next week. Three things strike me from the pics. Firstly, it’s thicker than expected. Aesthetically that’s not good and I question the 250gm weight having seen this. The second thing to notice is that there is no obvious battery compartment. It could be sealed. Finally, it’s nice to see a stand. More details and links available in the […]

ZDnet posted some information about a rumored ‘Chassis 1′ specification for Windows 7 mobile phones yesterday and although it’s great to see, it looks like a list of the hardware that many of us in the ultra mobile PC and MID community have been been talking about for the last few years. It’s basically a list of currently available mobile technology and includes ARMV6+ processor, 800×480 multi-touch, 3MP cam, compass, accelerometer, light Sensor, high speed USB, BT2.1 and fast SSD. The other interesting spec is a screen size of 3.5 […]

If the Viliv S5 Full Review isn’t enough for you today, then check out the Viliv S5 running Windows 7. As with my Gigabyte Touchnote, the floating TIP and other tablet features aren’t enabled but JKK is reporting a full and stable working device. Although I didn’t see him demonstrate it in the video (I skipped across a lot of it, sorry JKK!) this W7 upgrade should have enabled very high performance H.264 decoding meaning hi-res and CPU power savings. Check out JKK’s video here. Links to all Viliv S5 […]

After many months of wondering if the S5 was going to be as good as we first imagined it to be, it’s time to review the final retail version and make some conclusions. The Viliv S5 is one of the smallest tablet PC’s in the world. It includes a full PC hardware architecture and Windows XP software. The manufacturer has used a mature design from it’s PMP range and the end result is a solid, well-built pocketable device aimed at media, web browsing and, due to the built-in GPS, navigation.

Time draws closer to the event in which Apple is rumored to unveil a new, larger, touch oriented device. Let’s call it the iPod Plus (as Chippy coined it) essentially a device based around the concepts of the iPhone/iPod Touch (simple touch navigated software) but with less focus on the phone aspect and more focus on media and web interaction. No one knows for sure yet but people are imagining a small slate style device with a highly touch friendly OS with a screen ranging from 5-8 inch. Being a […]

The $189 Smart Devices Q7 web-pad story gets more exciting today as we’ve received some live pics of the device. ElectroWorld, the strange looking Chinese website that many of us would probably avoid, have come up trumps after we contacted them for a purchase. They also tell us they will have a device ‘next week.’  We assume this will be a sample which could mean a 1-2 month wait for the first production run. We hope we’re wrong but we’ll check it out and get back to you. At $180, […]