HTC Advantage Not Coming To US
If you are an American HTC fan, you must have been excited about the HTC Advantage 7510 (the updated 3G UMPC). Well, bad news for you. The 7510 is not coming to the U.S. because the Qualcomm chipset is restricted from sale on American soil.
Atom Powered Lenovo Ideapad U8 Unveiled
Lenovo has just released a new Ideapad series UMPC, at Intel’s IDF in Shandhai. Called U8, it features a Intel Atom processor, 4.8-inch touchscreen and bullseye, optical mouse, EDGE and 3G and possibly TD-SCDMA for China.
Also it supports MS Office applications, it sports Live GPS, hand written notes and probably the 12-key pad is headed for calling. The Ideapad U8 will come with Linux and if you want to see with your own eyes what we are talking about, watch the following video.
via Dvice
The Alarm Clock UMPC
French designer Jean Hong created a device that combines an alarm clock with a browsing PC. It is an interesting concept, as many of us surf the net first thing in the morning, with a cup of coffee beside. The alarm clock can be removed when browsing the web, and reattached at night, after setting the hour to wake up the next day.
It is called the Pix-L mini PC and was designed to wear the Microsoft sign on it. Maybe the IT Goliath will take a look at the small David and decide to give him a chance in joining him…
Wibrain UMPC Is The Better Version Of Macbook Air
Wibrain released a new portable computer that has full functioning of a regular PC, but fits the palm of your hand. The Ultra-Mobile PC is a response to the Macbook Air that divided people into those who liked it and those who didn’t and, as the name says, it really is ultra mobile.
It has a weight of just over 500 grams (1.15 pounds) and it has the same power of components as a desktop computer: a 1.6 gigahertz processor, a 60Gb hard drive, Wifi and Bluetooth capabilities, a webcam and microphone for Skype and other communication programs and a resolution of 1024 X 600.
The system comes with Windows XP installed, and of course, has a full QWERTY pad and extra controls for games along with a touchscreen with stylus included. The device is already in retail, and you can get one for $850.
Cuppa – The PC Of The Future
I was surfing on the Internet and I came across to one of the most interesting designs for the PC of the future. The PC concept is called Cuppa and is based on the RFID which stands for Radio-Frequency Identification. This method is used by small devices named tags which are integrated in objects in order to be identified from a few meters through radio waves, but there are also RFID versions without chips.
Cuppa could be used by everyone and it can be connected to many devices in your home like a TV or a cell phone and is most useful when you want to access your PC from all around your house. This future-PC was designed to be very portable therefore it will have a width of 266mm, a height of 111 mm and a thickness of 20mm.
The users of Cuppa also might see the informations they want on the TV screen, but they would need some extra chips in order to be able to show the applications on the TV. The Cuppa will also be capable to detect when of his “brothers” Cuppa is near and because is dubbed as the PC of the future the designers say that this device will be environmental-friendly.
Rumor: HP UMPC To Feature VIA Chips
Latest reports suggest that the HP UMPC 2133 will feature VIA Inside, not Intel’s Penryn as previous reports were saying. If this is true, than it’s incredible news for VIA because this is the first time they could succeed with one of the big companies. The good news don’t stop here. It seems like the ultra portable could get an upgrade consisting of Isaiah 2.0Ghz/DX-10 performance. The HP 2133 has been a very popular device but more is expected from the device. We hope to get back to this soon and give you more information as promised a couple of days ago because I know that many of you are fans of the UMPC.
Rumor: HP To Release An UMPC
HP seems to have dropped an information about an upcoming UMPC release, but they haven’t offered any details, like specifications, date or price. Probably it will be released at the end of Q2, but nothing’s sure. The UMPC is going to be handphone-like and it will see a major improvement in battery life and is headed both to youths and professionals.
If the news are true, we might get more details along with an official announcement soon.
via CNET
Fujitsu Announced Lifebook P1620 UMPC
Fujitsu has just announced an upgrade to the Lifebook P1610 UMPC that’s even lighter than MacBook Air. The P1620 features a 1.2Ghz U7600 Core 2 Duo ULV processor, with 100 GB of disk space, up to 2GB of RAM. The other specs remained the same: 32GB SSD option for $299, a 3-cell battery or a 6-cell one for an extra $45, a 1,280×768 8.9-inch display and it comes with XP Tablet PC, but you can also choose Vista for the same price.
The M704 UMPC unveiled by Gigabyte
Gigabyte announced their new M704. This UMPC features a 1.2GHz VIA Esther ULV C7 processor, a hard drive of 40GB or 60GB, 7-inch 1,024×600 WXGA LED-backlit touchscreen, a multicard reader, a VX-700 chipset, twin USB 2.0 ports and a VGA output. The M704 also sports a QWERTY keyboard which slides out, a 1.3MP CMOS camera and 802.11 b/g WiFi. Gigabyte hasn’t mentioned the release date nor the price.
Asus Eee – The Cheap UMPC
Asus seems to apply an interesting marketing technique, trying to get their new little UMPC, Asus Eee, to sell as much as possible. There are rumors going around that there will be models available even at $200. What is interesting is that the cheap model will not be available in USA. Another one that will be around $400 is said to be released in the country.
Talking about features there is nothing special to say. The UMPC will only have a small 7 inch LCD display, a flash based hard drive that is said to be of 4 Gb, WiFi and 512 MB RAM.
The system is not intended for regular users. It was thought to be useful for anybody that wants to have a laptop with them while traveling or at school. The main thoughts in the creation were linked to it ending up small and being easy to transport from one location to another.
Samsung Q1 Ultra Released
Samsung Released Q1 Ultra after exactly one year of the release of Q1. The new UMPC sports a 7 inches 1,024×600 LCD display and a battery lifetime of at least 4.5 hours. The UMPC has a QWERTY keyboard split into two parts, on both sides of it’s LED backlit display.
It is developed in collaboration with Intel and Microsoft, being a true mobile device, that can be carried all over with you and that offers you almost the capabilities of a desktop or laptop PC. Running on the Windows XP Tablet Edition and with a Intel CPU, it has impressive feature, especially along with it’s 40GB HDD and 512MB memory, it’s 7″ touchscreen display and connectivity options, like 802.11 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Using it, you can fully enjoy multimedia, like music, movies, books and games, without having any problems. What’s the most impressive in it is the size, that lets you carry it everywhere you have too, without causing you troubles. It’s price is quite low, in comparison with other UMPC devices, at $1,099 in bulk, for the US citizens.
Sony VAIO UX390 Reviews
The Sony VAIO UX390, as every laptop, UMPC or gadget, has it’s good parts and bad parts. It has a long battery life, a SSD ( solid state drive ) , but it’s keyboard is hard to use, nontactile and it’s too expensive for it’s performances. Anyway, those kind of devices aren’t very practical yet, even if they have the same features and softwares as the normal-size PCs, they have too small display and keyboard.It measures 5.9×3.7×1.5 inches and has a 4.5″ display, when opened having 5.25″ deep. The UMPC weights 1.1 pounds without the AC adapter and 1.6 including it, but it’s quite heavy for it’s sizes.
It’s 4.5″ display has a 1,024×600 native resolution and high quality image. It has two zoom keys on it’s right size, but the zooming is slow and the image is hard to see, so they’re mostly useless. Under the slider display, it has a backlit keyboard composed of very small hard-to-press keys and is even lacking some of the usual keys on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
The web pages are hard to read and surf, due to it’s resolution of 600 pixels high and it requires a lot of scrolling. Also, the page up and page down keys would be very useful for website navigation, but they are lacking and you have to combine the function key with up or down arrow keys, which is pretty hard.
The Sony VAIO UX390 works both with a stylus and your finger, but it’s recommended to use the stylus, for better precision and for keeping the display clean and it also works much better with it.
About connectivity, it has a memory card reader, a headphone and microphone standard jack, one USB 2.0 port and a webcam. To increase it’s connectivity, it comes with a docking station, that sports an Ethernet board, a mini FireWire port, three USB 2.0 ports, an A/V for connecting an external monitor, Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g WiFi and EV-DO, using a small antenna.
As default, the Sony VAIO UX390 comes with a Intel Core Solo U1500 1.3Ghz processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM and Intel 945GM graphics card. Thanks to the 32GB SSD drive, it has no moving or mechanical parts, having an increased battery life, a lower time access and lower heating. Unfortunately, it has a too low capacity SSD, when it could come equiped with a 128 or at least a 64GB one, especially that it comes with Windows Vista Business, which fills the drive.
This UMPC is not quite the fastest and best PC, but it has good performances for it’s sizes and it makes competition to ultraportable laptops, which are much bigger. But the ultraportables have another plus, in front of the UMPC, being much more functional, due to the 11 or 12inch displays and standard or almost standard size keyboard.
Another bad part of this and all UMPCs is the short battery life, in our case being of about 3 hours. There have been done major improvements to the UMPCs battery life, but it’s hard to make it enough for our needs, mostly because it stocks such performance in such a small case.
The Sony VAIO UX390 has a one year warranty, which includes free shipping and 24/7 toll-free phone support. If you want to extend the warranty to 3 years, you have to pay $299 more, or you may just pay $20 for each phone call made to tech support.