I’ve had a theory about web-page loading speed for about three years now. When a web page takes more than 12 seconds to load, a user considers it a slow experience. Anything less than 10-12 seconds and everything is in the green zone. Smartphones are now entering the green zone.

The mobile Internet experience needs to be compatible and quick and if either one of those elements fails, then the customers Internet experience fails.

In my search for the full internet experience in my pocket I’ve spent hundreds of hours testing, analyzing, questioning, discussing and writing about the subject and I have a very clear picture of what is satisfying for the end user. In Sept 2007 I wrote about the extremely poor ARM-based internet experience. Really, it was embarrassing. The best phones of the day were taking nearly twice as long as the slowest of X86-based platforms with small screen sizes and low-quality rendering adding to the overall disappointment.

In October 2009, 2 years after my ARM-bashing article, the ecosystem had moved forward a long way and we saw what was probably the fastest ARM-based browsing experience ever. The Archos 5 was even beating low-end UMPCs. The iPhone 3GS was doing well too. Take another 5 months step into the future to the present day and you now have smartphones beating low-end Ultra-Mobile PCs. Pocketables, always reliable for a good set of browsing speed test results, shows us that there are at least three phones out there that are in the green zone now with the Nexus one and iPhone 3GS breaking the 10-second barrier. If JKK’s excitement about the Milestone and the Android 2.1 upgrade is anything to go by, we can expect the Droid/Milestone to be in that category too. The HTC desire will be joining the club in just a few weeks and following closely will be the Dell Mini 5 and Sprint EvO.

Just to re-cap, that’s pocketable, always-on, fast-internet devices with mobile-focused operating systems, mobile photo and video cams, high speed 3G, GPS, sensors, touchscreen, multi-GB’s of storage and access to thousands of apps costing under 400 Euros.

Related: The Full Internet Experience of 2010

Related: ARM’s lock-in opportunity

It’s not just the CPU.

You might think that ARM and their silicon partners are responsible for the advance but fortunately for Intel, that’s not quite true because in the last 2 years we’ve seen some amazing progress in browser software performance. Javascript processing speed, delayed script processing and other tricks and optimisations mean we’re also seeing improvements on desktop browsers too. I haven’t had time to do a complete set of tests but after disabling Flash on my desktop browsers I’m seeing something like 20-30% speed improvements over results of two years ago.

I’m not going to sit here and defend X86 though because its the ARM ecosystem that deserves the praise here. The fact is that the ARM ecosystem of hardware and software developers has moved forward quickly and shows no signs of stopping. In fact, as ARM tablets and always-on netbooks enter the market, that momentum could increase. With Moorestown and MeeGo on the horizon for X86 there’s a ray of hope for X86 but if that hardware/software platform isn’t good enough (most of us in the industry agree that it needs to move on another generation before it’s ‘ripe’ for smartphones) and the speed of development and investment doesn’t ramp-up quickly enough, Intel will never be able to catch up with the smartphone market.

The flood continues as new mobile devices are released to the market this year, and those of you looking for a competitor to the pocket-sized Archos 5 Internet Tablet will be happy to see the entry from SMiT known as the MID-560.  The device sports a 4.8″ screen and is available now from a few online retailers (as well as for auction on eBay) for as low as $155 without GPS and $180 with included GPS.  A seperate 3G USB dongle can be purchased for an additional $35.  The little MID also supports Mobile TV and the Google Market right out of the box, which many of us wish our Archos 5ITs would do without using a firmware hack.  No word on when Android 2.0+ would be released or what type of screen the device has, but we will update this story as soon as the details roll in.  For now, check out this video of the device in action (actually filmed back in September 2009 by Charbax at ArmDevices.Net).

MID 560 4.8inch Android MID by SMiT

It’s been about 2-weeks since I last used my daily desktop PC and 2-weeks since I’ve heard that horrible background noise of fan and disk. For the last two weeks I’ve been using a silent, modular, ‘grab and go’ solution based on the Fujitsu U820 ultra mobile PC and it’s working out very well indeed. You won’t find many solutions like this out there because this is one of the secrets of the ultra mobile PC world that marketing teams and board members get scared about a multi-scenario device!

UMPCPortal is where we take mobile devices and hold them up against a template of productivity, technology, battery life and engineering. We try and look deep into the technology to not only see what’s possible today, but what’s possible tomorrow and how it can fit into pro-sumer and productivity scenarios.

If you’re looking for a more consumer-focused ride though, that’s what we do over at Carrypad. There we take mobile devices and focus on the things that are important to the casual user. Price, features, ease of use, style and user interfaces play a huge part her because not everyone needs the Full Internet Experience when lazing around on the couch catching a little YouTube in the advertising breaks on TV.

We’ve Got an iPad on the Way, and You Can Too

In the last week we’ve invested in an iPad. Ben is going to take the reigns on it and see if he can work out where the device fits now and to track it as applications start feeding through. It seems strange to be following Apple into this new segment at such a low price but it looks like they really will have the first 3G-enabled consumer-focused tablet on the market beating the Dell Mini 5, the JooJoo and the IDC ultra by a long margin.

The Top Consumer Internet Devices.

The database has been running for a while now and we’re seeing an interesting Top 5 battle. Consistently at the top is the Dell Mini 5. This 5 inch Android-based handheld tablet promises to trump the already-popular Archos 5 in two ways. It will not only contain a full 3G and voice radio but it will also be one of the first MIDs (i.e. a device targeted at Internet use as it’s primary function) with a full suite of Google applications. That means marketplace which means a whole new opportunity for developers to work with a huge 800×480 screen.

Also knocking around at the top are the ICD Ultra which should be available later this year. The Notion Ink Adam is a similar device and if they get the promised Pixel-Q1 screen in there it will be a great device for outdoor use.

More significant, I think, it the Archos 7 Home Tablet. This isn’t a powerful device but at $179, it should offer excellent value for the round-the-house experience. It’s claimed to offer a smooth video playback experience at near 720p quality along with a reasonable browsing experience and a good set of Android applications. Archos will be following-up with a whole range of Android-based devices later this year too so they are clearly putting their bets on the Android OS. If Google allows them to use their marketplace, the whole range of Archos devices will get a huge boost.

Of course, the iPad is going to be important but it’s not rising as high in the ‘charts’ as I expected. Maybe that’s still to come!

There’s a lot more news out there in the world of consumer devices but we’re going to be honest; you won’t find everything at Carrypad. There’s a lot of hype out there and a lot of products that just won’t get past stage one a showing at an exhibition. We’ll be focusing on the cream of the crop and only bringing you the news that you need to hear.

Check out more at Carrypad where you’ll also find the RSS feed and the ability to sign up for the daily email.

Meet:Mobility Podcast 45 is now available. Streamed live (meetmobility.com/live) on 12th March 2010 with special guest Charbax (Twitter, ARMDevices.net)

In the podcast we talk about the mobile computing highlights of CeBIT including the Archos 7, four convertible netbooks, the new Atom processors and ION GPU options and much more.

Full show notes and links to download/listen are at Meet:Mobility

I’ve just read a great article by K T Bradford on Laptopmag. It adds some input to thoughts I’ve been airing for a while now and it’s extremely important for the consumer tablet, mid and umpc market. The simple fact is that all those Android tablets out there that you see popping up at CES, MWC and CeBIT are built on the open-source version of Android. That’s very different to what you find on smartphones in one very important way – Market.

As we’ve seen through analysis of the Compaq Airlife (Article: Social Netbooks) there’s a lot of potential for ARM-based devices if they address these four points.

1 – Point of  Sale

2 – Always on

3 – Location and social networking

4 – Dynamic User interfaces

The simple fact is that without Google’s market and despite the efforts of 3rd party marketplaces, the device isn’t a point of sale and it won’t attract content and applications. This back-office is critical and will drive the succesful products out in the consumer market..

The opportunity is there right now for Google. There are OED’s all over the world wanting to lever that Google and Android brand to bring devices into the market and Google appears to be keeping the door closed. Read through the Laptopmag article and you’ll find quotes from Entourage and Archos descibing how Google said no. I’ve heard it from other manufacturers too.  Some are staying positive and saying that it’s going to happen soon (‘Version 2.2’ everyone says) and yet, there’s not even a hint of movement by Google.

The strange thing is that Google have talked about using Chrome for 10″+ devices and that leaves a huge gap in the middle.

If Google don’t move quickly they will have a huge problem on their hands with Meego. Intel and Nokia already have stores in place for this platform and it’s going to be rolling out exactly into the space where Google is holding back. If Gartner are right and this market explodes, Google will be left standing and will have to work very hard to catch up. I have no doubt that they could catch up but how much is it going to cost them to tempt the developers back from the 100million netbooks and multi-million smartphones and MID devices that MeeGo could roll out on in the next few years?

We’ve had one video from Charbax so far and we have to say we’re quite impressed at the price/performance ratio on the newly-announced Archos 7 Home Tablet [Information.] Here’s a new video from JKKMobile that will give you another feel for how the device is looking, feeling and performing.

Source: JKKMobile.

I know I moaned a bit about the potentially weak CPU (a 600Mhz ARM9-architechture Rockchip 2808) on this but credit where credit is due. This is quite the bargain if all you want to do is watch 720p videos at up to 2mbps. (Hey, that’s more resolution than I get on my PAL TV!)

Interestingly, the Archos 7 Home Tablet [info] has USB-Host (via miro-usb port) and composite video out for basic TV playback 2GB RAM (149 Euro version. 8GB 179 Euro version) and it weights 350gm.

We had a quick chat online with Charbax (the guy who made the video) and we tells us that we should expect 7hrs video playback and support for most codecs.

We’d like to get a better feel for how fast the web is on this before recommending it for such use but for video, basic document reading, podcasts, mp3 and just for fun, this is really a bargain.

Source: ArchosFans.