UMPC Site

cPC will be available in 90 days with 1999$ price tag. (sub-2000$ ! ) with Compact Flash WiFi card in the box. James Kendrick was told that a number of agencies/companies placing orders requested cPC without radios for possible security risks.

In the meantime James resigned from DualCor Board of Technical Advisors.

Sony Vaio UX looks to be better than DualCor cPC for having a keyboard,cameras,onboard WiFi etc. but i believe cPC is better than UX for having both Windows CE and XP, having instant on (only for Windows CE of course,but nice), XP Tablet Edition instead of plain XP Pro, bigger screen (5″ vs 4.3″), better shape. If you want a PC nearly at that form factor (OQO,cPC,UX) and are willing pay 2000$ (both three of them are at that price a little more or less) cPC is a better one to me.

DigitalWorldTokyo published a little preview of UX50.

The keys are almost flush with the case and don’t move much when pushed, so I never really got a good feel for them. They’re also small — the entire keyboard is only about 12 centimeters wide.
The position of the “Enter” key at the far right of the keyboard made it difficult to press. This was compounded by its slightly curved shape to match the case.

The screen is sharp and bright. It has 1,024 x 600 pixels resolution so full-screen web browsing is possible, but would be difficult for the poor of sight. Everything in the Windows menus and input boxes was readable — nothing was so small that it became a mush — but I did find myself squinting at some things.

There are a couple of handily located zoom buttons on the right hand side of the case. These helped, although the need to include zoom buttons shows how small everything on the screen is.

You may be curious of why i’m writing about UX although it is not a UMPC? Well, there is not much news floating.

UX90S– 1.2 GHz Intel Core Solo, 512 MB RAM, 30 GB HDD, Intel Graphics 128 MB shared memory, 4.5” screen @ 1024×600, external resolution up to 1600 x 1200, Memorystick Duo slot, CF slot, 1 USB port, dock, 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, integrated keyboard, battery life 4.5 hours, AC Adapter, dock, soft carrying case, stylus, VGA/LAN adapter, strap, Windows XP Pro

UX50– same as above except with a 1.06 GHz Intel Core Solo

UX180P– same as above except native English with 1.2 GHz Intel Core Solo, integrated EDGE via Cingular SIM, no CF slot.

The two Japanese models (UX50, UX90S) have a Sony release date of May 27th and the American model (UX180P) has a Sony US release date of mid July. Dynamism has a number of packages some of which include a DVD+RW portable drive. If you just can’t wait until mid July to grab a Sony UX in the US you don’t have to wait, just get one from Dynamism. I have dealt with them for years and their customer service and support is top notch.

via jkOnTheRun

Virtual Tour
Press Release
Videos
Official Website

Vista Capable (almost all new PCs are Vista capable,it is not like Vista requires 4 GB RAM, triple core or something)

From JKontherun ;

All together now, repeat after me:

The Sony UX Micro PC is not an Origami/ UMPC as defined by Microsoft and the OEMs. It does not come with the Tablet Edition nor the Touch Pack software. I intend to call the UX what I have always called the Sony U devices– ultra-portable PCs (UPCs). This may confuse some but I didn’t name the Origami the UMPC, which is not really a name to begin with but a genre of computer.

OK, I feel better now.

The teaser on Sony US website has changed and revealed two Sony Vaio’s : AR Digital Studio and UX Micro PC.

Look at its name! UX Micro PC.Its like “we can’t say it’s a UMPC but we can fool and make you believe it is a UMPC.” I told you that i don’t think it is a UMPC and James Kendrick agrees with me (from software perspective) :

I should point out though that contrary to what CNET is reporting with Windows XP Professional this is NOT an Origami/ UMPC. This is going to get confusing very quickly.

Cnet has published a preview about Sony VAIO UX180P. I can’t say it is a “preview”, i can’t even say they really know what a UMPC is. The article says the screen is 4.5″ at top and it changes into 3.5″ close to end. And as you see on JK’s comment, they claim it is a UMPC which is not. It is like a Sony promo indeed.

“Can Sony save the UMPC?”
“Too big,too small or just right?”

There are comments and photos coming from an anonymous reader about a new Sony ultra-portable PC - kinda like UMPC as a lot of people categorize, but not me (let me explain later). It was said to have 7″ 1024*600 touch screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Core Solo, WAN, biometric sensor, dual cameras, “UMPC” with Windows XP Pro (not Tablet Edition), Flash HDD. And here is a teaser video of it on Sony US’s (Sony U series were mostly “only in Japan”) website. The link directs to “notebooks” and “Vaio”s. The teaser underlines its’ being “Blu” ! (Blu-ray ? )

You can see more photos here.

An intelligent reader of JKontherun , cobalt , made good scaling of these photos.

If you take the next to last picture (the one of the device head on) and scale it to 63%, it will make the screen about 5″. Then the fingerprint scanner is about 0.5″, almost exactly the size of the fingerprint scanner on the Fujitsu P1510 (using it for comparison only), and the keys on the thumb-board are almost exactly the size of the ones on the Cingular 8125 version of the HTC Wizard, just spaced out more.

And an Engadget reader told that the screen is 4.5″.

Now, imagine this screen 4.5-5″ with 1024*600 screen. It will be like wearing someone nearsighted’s glasses with healty eyes. (remember Game Boy magnifiers?)

And why do i think it’s not a UMPC? Because especially nowadays’ ( ! ) UMPC comes with a 7″ screen. It can be 6″ - 8″ (maybe 8.4″ like LS800), but 4.5″-5″? And with a Blu-Ray maybe? I don’t think so.

We will see what it will unfold into tomorrow.

I told you to keep in mind what LisaG posted on her Day 3 post of life with Samsung Q1. She said she could watch a two hour movie and after Q1 got some battery life. (scroll down, you will see) All Q1 reviews show that Q1 has a good battery life - some reviews say even 3.5 hours! And here is Washington Post’s eo and Q1 comparision :

One of the first upgrades for many users of these products will likely be a second battery pack. The Q1 lasted only 1.75 hours on a single charge, and the EO lasted about 2.25 hours.

I waited for corrections from Dennis O’Reilly, but he didn’t change it. We know eo can’t last 2.25 hours and we know Q1 has better battery life than 1.75 hours.

You should read the rest of the comparision too : A good example to the kind of reviews don’t say much. But he made some good points too :

Unfortunately, each device’s cramped screen real estate is difficult to navigate. At the default 800-by-480 resolution, many open windows were truncated, and dialog boxes often opened outside of the viewable area, requiring some “guess” clicks. At the higher resolutions, the problem was even more noticeable.

Another plus for the Q1 is its ability to rotate from landscape to portrait mode, which is a boon for note-taking.

LisaG posted third day of her life with Samsung Q1 : Games, Music and Movies .

You will use this information later, so read it:

How about battery life? The Q1 made it through a 2 hour movie with juice to spare. That movie was on a CF card, so the hard drive presumably wasn’t spinning much and using lots of power. Brightness (you can control brightness even in AVS NOW mode using the Q1’s menu button) was set to 50%. Temps were reasonable, the device was warm but still comfortable to hold.

While video playback, MP3 music and photo slide shows aren’t anything uncommon for Windows machines; doing all this without booting Windows is a special treat. While it takes over 60 seconds to boot Windows XP, if you slide the power switch to the left rather than right when turning the tablet on, you’ll launch AVS NOW, which does all the great stuff I just described but you only have to wait 20 seconds for AVS to boot.

Wow! Weren’t they advertising AVS as “instant-on” multimedia?

Rob Bushway from GottaBeMobile.com posted a video review of Fujitsu P1510D. P1510D is mostly categorized as ultra-portable , but it is a UMPC to me , and a good one too!

In this video review, I take a look at the Fujitsu P1510D Touch Tablet PC. In particular , I take a tour of the tablet, the software, compare it in size to the TC1000, examine handwriting issues, and issues involving tablet pc functionality and touch in general.

According to an email Rob Bushway got from DualCor, cPC will be shipping in 90 days. But even James Kendrick, who is on the DualCor Board of Expert Technical Advisors, learned this from Rob. So i’m not sure if they will be able to make it in 90 days.

More important news is that there will be no wireless communication on cPC. No WiFi , no Bluetooth , no 3G. (no GSM/GPRS too) You have to use CF / USB Cards for these. You can download official data sheet here.

JK and Rob got disappointed of it , but it is not very shocking for me : It is hard to squeze two hardware systems in such a small box ; both C7-m processor and Xscale etc. and i believe cPC’s charm is in being so small and including both Windows XP and Windows CE in different hardware platforms in the same small box. If you want to have GSM or EVDO on a pocket-pc , there are already lots of options for that.