Paceblade Easybook P7 UMPC Review

Over the last week we’ve been fortunate enough to have one of the first Microsoft Origami-based UMPC’s to arrive in Europe. Its an Easybook P7 from Paceblade, a VIA C7-M based device.

We’ve lived with the device and put it though some typical useage scenarios. Its certainly mobile and certainly very easy to use as it run a standard Microsoft Windows XP operating system with Tablet (touch screen) extensions.

There’s no hardware keyboard and only 800×480 pixels to play with it – is it really enough to be useful? Read on.

Microsoft announced the ‘Origami’ ultra mobile PC platform back in early March and the ‘buzz’ was big. Excitement was very high in the tech sector as people speculated about how the device might look and perform. When the device got into the hands of early adopters and reporters it should have been no surprise to hear confusion as to who might want one of these devices. As far as technical specifications go, there’s nothing new. As far as software specifications go, there’s nothing new and at first look you’ll see a small laptop with a low-speed processor, tiny screen, no keyboard and high price. It takes either a careful bit of thinking or, as will often be the case with in these early days, someone to explain exactly why you might need or where you might get an advantage for such a device. The Paceblade Easybook P7 was the first Origami ultra mobile PC to be available to customers in Europe and over the last week, we’ve been able to test this new device to see how it might fit into both Microsoft’s market and other, more established, ultra-mobile PC markets.

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The first five minutes

I’ve heard marketing people talk about the first five minutes of ownership. Its the important part of the marketing process where the customer has already handed over the money but must be made to feel they have made the right choice. Its often nothing to do with how good the device is, rather, something to do with how the device and its packaging ‘look and feel’ During these moments the customer forms an important opinion about the brand and as it’s a memorable moment, often gets relayed by word of mouth (or via Internet if unboxing.com is anything to go by.)

Paceblade will need to put a little more effort into this area if they want to compete in the same market as the Samsung Q1.

Taking a look at the contents you’ll see the Easybook itself with it’s 7� screen, a rather brittle looking (but extremely useful � dont lose it) stand, the PSU, a yellow carry bag, combination headphones/mic, spare stylus the manuals and a good quality cleaning cloth.

Picking the device up it feels solid, well-built and well-balanced. The right thumb sits perfectly on the mouse-pointer and just like you would hold a book, it feels very natural. There’s no need to read the manual at this stage, just plug the PSU in, look for the on switch, slide it up for a second and watch the normal XP boot sequence. Take a few seconds to work out how the mouse works, set up the Wifi and click on explorer. And so it goes. A rather unexciting but quick and comfortable start.

 

From the outside.

Its not the most stylish of devices but it looks like the components are high quality. It feels and looks a little ‘industrial.’ High case quality is obviously an advantage for a mobile device. Having said that, I wouldn’t like to drop it and a case is the first accessory one should consider buying. Until they are available, a double-height 30 CD case with the envelopes removed makes a cheap and quick solution.

There are a number of configurable buttons on the case but during the 5 days I spent with the device, I had no desire to re-map any of them. They are well positioned and very usable. The mouse-pointer button is especially good and replaces a mouse quite succesfuly.

The screen quality is good and in the standard resolution and brightness setting, no-one should have any trouble reading text. When we used it in the evening, it wasannoying to find the brightness resetting to 50% after coming out of standby. Outside usage in sunlight will be difficult but this is a normal problem with LCD screens. The Easybook, like other Origami UMPC’s has the ability to switch into non-native resolutions using a hardware button and this really helps with applications that are not optimised for low resolutions. The quality of the non-native resolutions is surprisingly good. Native resolution is 800×480. Alternative resolutions are 800×600 and 1024×600. The device can drive external monitors at much higher resolutions but at the moment there is no way to access this facility because the VGA-out is through a special docking port. Docking ports accesories are planned but not yet available.

Speaking of docking, we found ourselves using the supplied plastic stand a lot. Its feels very brittle though so once its put together, leave it that way! A power-enabled docking station with VGA-out is going to be a must-have purchase and could replace the need for a desktop PC for a lot of people. A wall-mount would also be nice for the home.

As for interfaces, the Easybook has 2 USB2.0 ports (one on either side), a combination headphone/mic port, a power input socket and the docking port. Its a real shame one can’t access the full audio and video capabilities of the VIA chipset but if this is available on a reasonably priced docking station, this should be no problem.

The battery is a removable 26W/hr part and large-capacity batteries will be available soon. Speaking of battery life, there has been much internet commentary on the short battery life of the first run of the Tablet Kiosk eo. It turns out that there were faulty components on the board and the early battery life reports should be ignored. The Easybook tested didnt appear to suffer from the faulty component problems but there’s definitely more that could be done to improve the battery life. More about that later.

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From the inside.

The Paceblade is built around a 1Ghz VIA C7 processor and VIA chipset. The review device had 1GB memory and a 2.5� 40GB disk. The base-level model comes with 256Mb ram which is a little on the low side for windows XP. There is an option for 512MB RAM and an 80GB disk but this will depend on the reseller. The built-in Wifi module is compatible with 802.11b and 802.11g. Bluetooth is also built in and is of the BT2.0 type.

The VIA C7 is a good balance between processor power and efficiency. We’ve reported before that we think the C7 processors are currently the best solution for UMPC’s. When combined with good hardware, they have the potential to offer much better efficiency the the equivalent Intel processors. Intel have the Core Solo processor ready but the price for these will too high for UMPC’s for the short term.

Full specifications are in the product portal along with more pictures and links.

Operating system.

The system runs Windows XP tablet edition with the additional Microsoft ‘touch pack’ software. Paceblade have also provided full-screen keyboard software which is mapped to a ‘keyboard’ button on the Easybook. The tablet edition of Windows XP offers support for the touch screen under Windows XP. It is able to offer an input window when forms or input screens appear through which the user can ‘type’ or write with the supplied stylus. The ‘touch pack’ provides an additional input mechanism through an on-screen thumb-board known as dial-keys. It also provides a launcher application through which one can start programs as configured. Its an alternative to using the Windows XP interface for common tasks such as email, web browsing, video and audio.

If you’ve never used a touch-screen or pen interface before, you’ll need to take time to learn the tricks and short-cuts of this method. We found it to be useful to have multiple input mechanisms and each method was useful in specific situations. To write emails and documents though, a keyboard is needed. Its unfortunate that the Easybook P7 doesn’t have a hardware keyboard integrated or provided one as a stowable accessory because writing documents is no problem with the 7� screen at 800×480 resolution. A portable keyboard is really the second must-have purchase.

Apart from the touch capabilities, its standard windows XP all the way. Installation of software should be no problem at all. We had one sports-measurement application that failed to load due to a 1024×768 pre-requisite (although I assume one could install it when connected to an external monitor at 1024×768) and saw a few problems with dialogue boxes that were not optimised for such a small resolution.

We installed a range of software including skype, winamp, zoomplayer, need for speed, cubase, band-in-a-box, notebook hardware control, firefox, xvid codecs and BIAwin (health analysis software.) All functioned perfectly. We were even able to boot Linux from hard disk and from a Mini-SD card in a Nokia 6280 over USB. Support for touch screen is not common in linux distributions but there are a number of people that have run linux on Tablet PC’s and creating a distribution for UMPC’s should only be a matter of pulling together all the right packages.

We had one hardware problem with skype. The mic input didn’t seem to work. This is a known problem and software patches are already available.

Form Factor and Mobility

At Carrypad, we believe that there is a place for ultra mobile PC form factors in the market. We understand how one can use it and that the advantages don’t come from the hardware or software but the mobility. This will need explaining to a lot of people before they can work out if its good for them or not. There’s no doubt to us that if people were given these for free, users would find themselves using it more and more in ever different scenarios. It wouldn’t get left in a cupboard. This is something we found too. As time went by, we found scenarios where the Easybook was perfect. At home, the family were using it a lot and as time went by, it became the default computer of the house.

The Easybook was used in the car while connected to the Internet over a bluetooth connection to a 3G phone. It went over to the neighbours house where I was able to show a video played from a shared network drive. It was used as a newspaper, a paperback book, a map, an instant message device, video player and audio streamer. It was used as a Digital TV with a USB stick, an entertainment device and a browser. And this was all in and around the home. Some of these things are possible with mobile phones, pocket PCs and notebook PC’s but none of those devices are able to do all this. If it wasn’t for the lack of a keyboard, it would make the perfect family PC. In fact you’ll probably need more than one!

Having said all of that though, these device are not free. They are not even cheap, and justifying such a device for the family will be difficult unless they are already considering a new laptop or second desktop. One sector of the market that can justify high prices for mobile goods is the business market where saving 10 minutes per day could be worth much more than the purchase cost. Until the price drops (and you can be sure it will drop heavily as the market matures during the rest of 2006) the markets will be restricted to early adopters, business people and ‘vertical markets’

Another niche sector that might see advantages with the Easybook is the electronic music sector. The Easybook makes a great portable composition tool and midi sequencer. We tried Cubase VST (an older version of Cubase) and it worked fine. Plug in a USB-midi mini keyboard like the Edirol PCRM1 and you’re away. With an spdif output (hopefully available via a docking solution) it also makes a high quality music playback device. For smaller bands and mobile composers, the Easybook makes a great tool. Watch out for the loud but terrible sounding internal speaker and invest in a good pair of headphones though.

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Battery life.

Much has been written about battery life and to be honest, we also think that more battery life is needed. The Easybook ran for under 2 hours at 50% screen brightness with the Wifi on which needs to be better. We confirmed that the processor is not really being utilised optimally too. A well-know processor sleep-state bug is the main culprit and this needs to be fixed to provide battery life advantages. Software too needs to be optimized. While watching a DVB-T TV channel, the processor was working at 70%. This shouldn’t be that case as the VIA chipset includes hardware MPEG-2 decoding which was obviously not being used. The same is true for playing DVD’s via a USB-connected DVD drive. Some software is not optimised for the via chipset. With some more efficient components (LCD, wifi and hard drive) and some optimised drivers and software, the Easybook could provide another hour of use. But it doesn’t, and we would suggest that Paceblade carefully choose and include a free software bundle for DVD and video playback to avoid disappointments.

Battery drain figures obtained from Notebook Hardware Control were:

Wifi off, Screen brightness 50%	11,3W
Wifi off, screen brightness 100%	11,9W
Wifi off, screen brightness min	8.1W
USB devices disabled (through windows hardware control � disables Bluetooth and wifi) screen min	7.37W
Average of normal usage scenarios	approx 11.5W

In our (quite heavy) usage tests, we had to charge the device twice per day. In normal use we expect users to have to charge once per day. Standby start-up time was around 7 seconds. Its not instant-on but its usable.

Graphics support.

The VIA Unichrome graphics chipset wasn’t built for high-end gaming. We ran an older version of Need for Speed (Road Challenge) and it worked well but you won’t get the best out of newer graphics intensive games. The buttons aren’t really positioned for gaming either. The Easybook P7 is not a games machine. The chipset should be able to help with MPEG-2 decoding but most software doesn’t seem to support the VIA chipset. TV-out and S-Video out are also possible from the VIA chipset but not available through ports on the device itself. This may be available through a docking solution when it’s available.

Summary.

Microsoft are marketing their ultra mobile PC platform to the masses. At the moment, this is not going to happen. Prices, style and performance will need to be changed to achieve that. The Paceblade Easybook P7 does, however, have a place slightly outside Microsoft’s target market.

Its not a stylish device and its nothing new in terms of hardware or software but its short learning curve and fantastic mobility makes it really usable in a lot of scenarios. The Easybook P7 seems well built and the switch-gear is solid and very well placed. The ergonomics of the device are good. Battery life needs to be addressed and for a lot of people, the lack of keyboard may cause problems. Processing power is adequate for most tasks apart from 3D games and very high bit-rate videos. Connectivity options on board are good but a docking station is needed for VGA and other cabled connectivity. The additional on-screen software from Paceblade is a good addition and work well in certain scenarios.

Who should be interested in this device?

If you’re thinking of a second home PC, the ultra mobile PC might be a better fit than a laptop or second desktop PC. Its form factor is likely to attract female users that are often more practical with their choice of PC than men. Its a modern super-mini for everyday use, not a sports car for Sunday racers! Users that can understand the time-saving advantages of the short learning curve and mobility may also find that the price is no issue. On a train, bus or plane, it will be much more usable than a laptop for general computing activities. Composers and electronic musicians will find it a very usable form factor too.

Who should think carefully before buying this device?

People looking for a high-power portable computing solution won’t find much here. Gaming and high-end video is not really possible. If you’re very style concious it won’t satisfy you. And of course, if you’re not a mobile person, a laptop is cheaper for the same computing power. People needing to input a lot of text should also consider that there is no hardware keyboard on this device.

Full specifications are in the product portal along with more pictures and links.

The full image set can be viewed through our gallery.

Many thanks to Paceblade for the loan of the Easybook P7. If you have specific questions not answered in this review, either contact us and we’ll pass on the query or check out the list of distributors on their web page.