What an apt situation for post number 101. Being teased into responding and giving my comments on what ultra mobile PC means! Craig Pringle responded with his version of the definition of ‘UMPC.’ Its the very confusing microsoft product definition previously known as ‘Origami.’

Don’t think about Microsoft’s definition Craig, think for a minute about how a potential customer will try to understand the term ‘UMPC’. The first thing they will hear is that its an acronym for Ultra-Mobile PC. If you then try to create two definitions of the same term just because one Ultra Mobile PC doesn’t have touch-pack software then the customer will end up confused, will buy a notebook and we’ve all failed to push the mobile PC sector forward. Clarity for Microsoft ultra mobile PC product managers and partners is one thing. Clarity for customers in another thing altogether.

I just read Craig Pringle’ latest post. In it, he says the that Motion Computing LS800 is not a UMPC. I think it is!

Craig is a Microsoft ‘Most Valuable Profesional’ (MVP) so I can see why he might say that but I don’t think its going to be good for anyone in the ‘Ultra Mobile PC’ market, customers or resellers, that we draw a line between the Origami-derived UMPC’s and other UMPC’s

Here’s a question. If Samsung put an AMD processor in the Q1 casing, should it be called a UMPC? I think for the customers sake, if it performs the same tasks and looks the same as an Ultra Mobile PC, its a UMPC.

Here’s my first attempt at the definition of an UMPC.

A highly portable computing device with 5-10″ screen, wired and wireless connectivity that is able to load and run common internet, office, media and pim applications operated through a graphical user interface.

And that’s why our ultra mobile PC product database contains more than just Origami-derived UMPC’s. What do you think?

[update: Craig’s response. My response. Craigs latest response. ]

Its not quite an Origami ultra mobile PC but the Nova 5000 is nonetheless an ultra-mobile PC and one that we’ve had interesting discussions about with Fourier Systems recently.

Fourier systems have been specialising in data-logging systems for educational markets for over 15 years and have just started to offer an ARM-based windows CE device as a base system for its existing data logging software and probes.

The NOVA5000 is a ruggedised tablet running Windows CE5.0 on an Xscale PXA255 (400Mhz) processor with GPU supporting a 7″ 800×480 touch screen and a good range of interface ports including VGA-out and ethernet. The specs won’t impress anyone used to looking at Origami based UMPC’s but its what we consider to be a good baseline spec for a home ‘web-pad’ device. What is also very interesting is that Fourier already have strong relationships in the U.S. educational system and could very easily reach high volume sales of this device. High volumes mean low prices of course and it wouldn’t take much to re-package this into a very low price home web-pad/tv-pad of the kind that Pepperpad, Coxion, Nokia and Sharp have on the market.

Fourier seem to be well-aware of this and tell us that they will be considering a consumer device as a further development project.
We think that if a re-design includes a PXA27x Xscale processor, wifi, a consumer IR module, the Intel 2700G graphics co-processor, comes with a stowaway wireless mini keyboard, a good multimedia software package and hits a price of around 350 Euros, it could be a great buy.

Its good to see manufacturers currently in the ‘vertical markets’ considering moving into consumer markets rather than the other way round for a change. Its a good sign that the consumer Ultra-Mobile PC market is maturing.

If you have any (sensible!) wishes i’m sure that they’d be happy to hear them so drop them on the comments and we’ll let them know what they need to achieve.

Regards
Steve / Chippy

There have been some posts [url=https://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=458&forum=8]in our forums[/url] about the AVS Now system losing functionality after upgrading the Samsung Q1’s memory to 1 GB.

So Tomi B did some hacking around and figured out how to get the hibernate file it needs up and running after upgrading.

According to the steps on [url=http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-WSOl1tg1dKXet7GA8E7VbQ–?p=170]his website[/url] you will need to:
1. Plug in an external keyboard.
2. Shutdown and reboot into AVS now.
3. As soon as the boot logo goes away (or is about to go away), hit F8 (repeatedly if need be).
4. You’ll get an option to “Delete restoration data and go to the boot menu”. Choose this.
5. XP will boot, but for me nothing showed up (and this is the point I was searching for the restore CD).
6. Wait until disk activity stops and slide the power switch. If it shuts down, great. If not, just hold it until the machine shuts down.
7. Reboot into AVS now again.
8. The system will boot up and immediately go into hibernation.
9. Reboot into AVS. This time it should work.

Hopefully this helps some people out with ithis issue if they’ve been having after it after performing an upgrade on their Samsung Q1.

Go check out [url=http://360.yahoo.com/profile-WSOl1tg1dKXet7GA8E7VbQ–?cq=1]Tomi B’s site[/url] for more Q1 information. Read the full story

Back in March we broke some news about Mobitia (also trading as Mobits) and their ultra mobile PC developments. Its seems that they are making progress as the 7″ and 5.6″ UMPC’s (previously shown as ‘Bebos’ devices) look to be moving towards production. Pictures and specifications are now available on their website along with a ‘coming soon’ teaser.

The UMPC’s are both VIA-C7-M based devices with the new VIA CX700 integrated north/southbridge chipset with hardware MPEG-4 and WMV-9 decoding support. (not just mpeg-2 as in the eo and Easybook UMPC’s.)
Also very interesting is the LAN port, the TV-out port and the SD card slot. These are three things that a lot of people wanted on the Tablet Kiosk Eo / Paceblade Easybook P7 devices.

The synaptics mouse pointer is included (a proven advantage on the eo and Easybook) along with fingerprint sensor and options for Camera/GPS/DVB-T/DVB-H modules on board. DVB-T would be great in Europe for the World Cup right now!

The images show a product very similar to the eo/easybook although the casing looks like its a pre-production mould. It certainly could do with a bit of colour and trimming. In our opinion, the thin-framed version shown at the top of this article looks the best of the two. The image name (X15-5) suggests that it’s the 5.6″ version although its difficult to tell which one actually has the bigger screen.

Confusingly the web page title is called ‘ADAM 8.9’ but the images are titled ‘X15’ so we’ll call it the ‘X15’ for now. (The ‘ADAM’ name is from a different, but also interesting UMPC-like product range.) The Mobits website has been updated slightly and now shows a few more images including the Beacon 5.6 and 7 products with keyboards that we find very interesting. These could be variants of the Bebos but there isn’t any detail available on these.

In a previous email from Mobits (a trading name of Mobitia) we were told that production is planned for August. It is more than likely that the devices will not be sold under the Mobits brand. Like the Amtek 700, they will probably be sold through resellers. We’re trying to get an update from Mobits and will, of course, report as soon as we know.

Latest product specs will go into our database here (X15 5.6″) and here (X15 7″)

Regards
Steve / Chippy.

Andrew Diller of The Syncing Apple contacted us last week to rave about the beta software update on the Nokia 770 internet tablet. I’ve read a number of positive posts about it and it appears Nokia are really putting some good effort into the Maemo development and making headway with the optimisations.

New features include google talk, better memory management and a full-screen thumboard.

I like what Nokia are doing with the 770. They have developed a low-end device and made it possible to do many of the functions that you’d normally use a larger ultra mobile PC for. It’s also clear that Nokia are commited to RISC-based CPU’s while companies like Pepperpad are moving to x86 architectures with their Pepperpad 3. We recently published a short report on the x86/RISC battle in our main portal.

As we’ve said before, we’re looking forward to the next-gen Nokia and hoping for a flip-down keyboard, a slightly more powerful processor (to enable full-screen mpeg-4 video) and a memory upgrade.

For some good pics and comments, see Andrews blog.

Regards
Steve / Chippy

On the 8th June, VIA held a press conference to announce something called ‘VIA OnDemand’, a joint developement with HTC and Acegain.

The ‘something’ is a secure P2P-based system based on Acegain’s DRAMA grid architecture. According to this PDF from VIA (2005), ‘OnDemand’ will be a complete media distribution system including encryption, trust and DRM capabilities. This next-generation media distribution system would be able to offer music, games, games network, videos, voice over IP, video conferencing and live-update features.

The Drama platform has been developed for multiple operating systems including Linux, Windows XP and Windows CE and appears to utilise the ‘padlock’ hardware encryption features found in VIA chipsets. The DRM component is not detailed but ‘flexible licensing’ is mentioned.

Timothy Chen will run the new business having moved from Dopod after its purchase by HTC. Chen is the nephew of Cher Wang who started VIA Technoliges in 1992 and HTC in 1997.

The question is, why are HTC in the mix? HTC and VIA are closely related family companies but at this time, I don’t see HTC using the VIA chips that seem to be part of this OnDemand architecture. One likely scenario is that HTC will start moving efforts into the ultra mobile PC business. It would certainly make sense for HTC and VIA. HTC’s PDA business is probably in decline. HTC have a powerful set of business relationships including very close ties with Microsoft. ultra mobile PC products make great phone companions and VIA have a good set of processing hardware to enable it all.

I can envisage that the OnDemand platform would be made available to mobile network operators and the software is built into new UMPC’s. ultra mobile PC users would then use their 3G or Wifi data plans to connect their HTC UMPC’s (with VIA chips of course) to the internet where the full range of media services would be available.

The really great thing about this scenario is that UMPC’s can be sold subsidised by mobile phone operators with data and content contracts and that’s exactly the kick-start that UMPC’s need. The customer would be buying a cheap (HTC/Windows 5) smartphone with data plan and then, a few months later perhaps, the customer goes back to the mobile operator and buys a cheap (HTC/Windows XP) ultra mobile PC with a content plan.

Although many mobile operators already have content deals and media distribution systems, if it means being able to sell a new line of products that can generate demand for data contracts, the advantages of moving the content onto this new platform (assuming the content contracts permit it) could be worthwhile.

So, following the press conference of OnDemand, I haven’t seen any news reports. We’ll keep our eyes open and try and tie-up the loose ends as soon as we can. If anyone was at the VIA OnDemand conference on the 8th, please let us know how it went and if anyone knows anything about HTC producing UMPCs, please spill the beans!

Story leads from the freitasm blog.

Regards
Steve / Chippy

Its 20 minutes until the world cup starts here in Germany. Its 27 degrees, the roads are quite and the smell of Barbecues the sound of TV and garden parties fill the air.

So, here goes for a speed-post. Please ignore spelling mistakes!

VIA CoreFusion
President an CEO Wenchi Chen announced that the next in the Core-Fusion range of single chip CPU/Chipsets (Codenamed ‘John’) will be available before the end of the year. This is a great step for minaturisation as it combines the C7-ULV and the VX700 chipset (combined north/southbridge) on one package.

ASUS R2H in July.
Asus confirmed that they are aiming for a July launch for the R2H. No further confirmation (or denial) of pricing and specs. This will bring some competition in at the 900-1100 Euro mark.

Intel sub 1-watt processors.
Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher said that Intel will have a new Ultra-Low Voltage Core Duo CPU ready during the second half of this year that will consume “a median average” of just 0.75 watts. He also reported that HP, Dell and other vendors are already developing PCs which will use the chip. ‘Median average’ is a strange term to use and kind of gives the game away that the real average utilisation will be something above that 0.75Watt figure.

Epios development.
The Epios linux team showcased low-power VIA-based low-power PC’s. Significant is that they now have support for C7 and the related chipsets. I’m interested to know if they are working on small-screen GUI’s. If so, it could give via-based ultra mobile PC users a great alternative to Windows.

LCD power-reductions
The news came through that backlight technology on LCD’s could change by the end of the year bringing 30 minutes more to the battery life of existing UMPC’s. Anything that gives an extra 20% battery life is a good thing!

Pepperpad 3
Pepper computer announced the AMD-based Pepper Pad3 multimedia web-pad.

Averatec.
Averatec announced more details of the AHI ultra mobile PC including a challenging price-point. The device looks great and most other people seem to have made the same comment.

ECS H70
The ECS H70 (AKA Founder mininote) was displayed with a Pentium M CPU option. This would make it the first Origami ultra mobile PC to have a Pentium processor. Its an expensive part but ECS say they are aiming for a $900-$1100 price point.

And thats it! Kick off in 10 minutes.
Good luck to all teams taking part.
Fingers crossed for England of course!!

Steve / Chippy.