UMPC News catch-up.

Its time to go through my bloglines account and clear all the items I’ve marked for attention.
Things have really begun to pick up in the ultra mobile PC reporting space and I hope the resellers are seeing similar increases in activity. The Christmas promotional push coupled with pre-CES news and a set of new devices has sparked some long-needed attention.

First up on the list is the jkOnTheRun website. They reported on a very interesting bootable Windows Embedded method. this is supported in the new feature pack. I often use Damn Small Linux on a USB stick but it would be very nice to be able to use a Windows based method. I wonder what the licensing details of this are. When the Desktop OS moves to Vista, will they make XPe free? It would be a killer for all the Linux based embedded products out there. Another cool feature that they reported on was Ready Boost. This Vista-only technique allows you to add flash based memory via removable devices such as USB sticks and to allow it to be used as cache thus reducing the use of relatively slow — based cache and swap space. Its a great idea. My only question is, how does this affect the life of your flash cards. They used to only have a limited read/write capability. If you use one as cache you could kill it in a very short time. See the article for more. Finally from the jkOTR team, Kevin has done a video review of the very nice Flybook V33i. I did a text-based review and was impressed. Its a beautiful machine. Kevin is a knowledgeable chap and the video is worth watching although I don’t agree that the bag is nice. Sorry Kevin. Its nearly as bad as the yellow one provided with the Amtek T700!

More information on all the UMPCs mentioned here can be found on the Product pages

Craig Pringle and many others blogged about the Mac Tablet that Peter Green, a fellow Englishman, has Made. “Apple don’t make a tablet palmtop, so I made one for them…” he says. He’s done a superb job.

From GottaBeMobile we also have some nice reports. Matt Faulkner has produced a couple of ink shows that go over details of the ASUS R2H that he bought. They have also done a head to head inkshow with the i7210 and Q1 SSD. I haven’t watched this but I’m very interested to see anything about the lack of mouse pointer on the Q1. For me, its a significant shortfall. The Pepperpad 3 I am writing this on (while kicked-back on the sofa) also has the same issue. When i need to select something on the screen I have to balance nearly 1Kg of leverage in one hand.

Frank of Ultramobile PC Tips reports on the availability of Mugen Power batteries including a big capacity 9-cell unit. He also links to a nice photo album of the i7209, a device that gets overshadowed by the i7210 but represents the cheapest UMPC+dock solution. I’d like to test the i7209 and i7210 side by side to see what difference it makes. As my i7210 is nearly always idling down at 600Mhz, i might have been better off saving a few hundred and getting the i7209.

In the Origamiproject forums, the rate of new posts is rising again and owners are bringing in good ideas and tips. One post that I highlighted was this one from chbarthe who owns both the Q1 and the R2H. He mentions issues with the wifi and GPS and is disappointed with the performance despite clearing up the process list. At the end of the posting though he says that if he had to keep just one of them he would keep the R2H…if he could get the GPS working in his car. I wonder what car he has. Those with UV filters on the front screen block the GPS signal. Also on the forums was a great post from irvine_kyle about gaming on the i7210. I also published some info so I hope it helps others to get some gaming enjoyment out of the Intel UMPCs. Finally from the forums is one of the first owner reports of the Raon Digital Vega. The owner definitely seems happy.

So that about covers it for important news that I wasn’t able to relay at the time. Next week is going to be a good one. There are a few stories building that I hope will go public and I will also be getting an Eleksen fabric keyboard to run a long-term test on. You could call it a Carry-able Padded key-case!

Steve