On Saturday at the Mobile Dev Camp in Munich I’ll be talking about the subject of device categorisation with a bunch of devs to try and stimulate some discussion on the subject. Do we really believe that everything should be converged into a 24/7 pocketable device or are their opportunities to improve the experience for the customer and to break out into small, but significant, niches. Does everything hinge on the mobile OS and it’s success in primary markets?

A UMD, as defined by ABI Research, is a netbook, MID, ultra mobile PC or mobile consumer electronics device. I like that definition as it’s almost exactly the scope of the devices we cover on UMPCPortal, MIDMoves, and Meet:Mobility. 385 Million is a big number and ABI’s marketing flyer for their latest report doesn’t give any indication as to how that breaks down but based on netbook figures of about 45 million predicted for 2012 (Intel) , there’s a lot of other devices in that number. Clearly ‘Mobile consumer electronics’ […]

It appears that ARM have reached a milestone with the Archos 5 Internet Tablet that all mobile web fans should take note of. It’s not the FIE but it’s very, very close. Read-on to see how close…

It is rather interesting that a number of new slate style tablet devices seem to be warring even before they are officially launched, or even proven exist. The two most frequently rumored are definitely the CrunchPad and the even more elusive Apple Tablet. While the Apple Tablet may or may not even exist, we’ve at least seen offical prototypes of the CrunchPad, and it seemed to be generally near completion until all any new info surrounding its release has halted in the last few months. The CrunchPad shot up the […]

Over at Meet:Mobility, Sascha, JKK and I have just posted podcast 34. A half-hour of netbook, MID, smartphone and UMPC discussion with a focus on IDF, the N900 and the rush of tablet-style devices hitting the market at the moment.

Eeek! The Kohnjinsha ultra mobile PC isn’t going to do the ultra mobile PC segment any favors if it  turns up looking like that, for over $800! I’m usually very positive about any ultra mobile PC entering the market but I’m finding it very difficult with this one. Mouse pointer and stereo speakers are nice but surely there’s a prettier way to do it? Via: Kohjinsha PA series available in November.Source: Wow-Pow

The Boy Genius Report has their hands on a pre-production version of the Motorola Droid, and has a pretty thorough preview of the device which is running Android 2.0. Sounds like 2.0 brings some much desired improvements, and it’s good to hear that Verizon won’t be touching the Droid in terms of software. I still have nightmares of terrible proprietary Verizon interfaces locking down functions that a phone was supposed to supposed to support (cough*bluetooth*cough), though I still squirm a bit seeing that ugly Verizon branding. I don’t find the […]

Ebooks are a big, complex topic and it seems to me that the whole ebook industry is so splintered that it may never get itself together. I have no idea how many ebook formats there are out there but there are enough to create a problem for anyone thinking about trying out electronic books. The hardware choice is wide too. In this article I look at UMPCs in the light of the recent Amazon Kindle for PC announcement.