UMPC Site

Hugo over Ubertablet prepared two videos for showing UMPC Basics. I didn’t watch them yet (i know the basics :D), but i believe they can be useful for new UMPC fans.

Show Notes:

Intro
Navigation: Program Launcher
Data Entry: Tablet Input Panel (TIP)
Ink Notes: Journal
Adding depth to your notes: Virtual Printers
Disseminating Information: Snipping Tool
Fun: Sudoku
Close

View the video here:

View Part One: High Resolution - 9.42 minutes/40.3MB
(download Part One here)
View Part Two: High Resolution - 11.40 minutes/48MB
(download Part Two here)
View Both Parts: Low Resolution - 20.82 minutes/87MB
(download Both Parts here)

Do you remember the Catcher, rugged “UMPC” made for military applications? There were a lot of news floating on UMPC blogs about it. I told that it was hardly news because both there are other products like this on the market (”military market”) and it will be very expensive. It seems i was a little right. Gizmodo posted that it will be available on November 15, for $7000.

Word on the street is that it’s due to come out on November 15 for the low, low price of $6,995. What does nearly $7K get you?

Carrypad and a OrigamiPortal visitor posted disassembled photos of eo i7210 and Asus R2H, respectively.

Steve over Carrypad noticed that CDW is listing Q1b and Q1 with Pentium M and 1 GB RAM with availabilty under 2 weeks.

Rob Bushway from GottaBeMobile made a short conversation with Rob Howe, DualCor’s president and COO.

GBM: When will the cPC ship?

Rob Howe: Because of the changes in the market place, technological advances, and customer feedback on version1, we have not decided on a launch date for Version 1.0. We are currently working furiously on the engineering for the cPC version 2.0 , which we are looking at shipping in the spring 2007 time frame.

There are two contests going on:

1)MobilitySite is giving away a new 30g iPod and a Microsoft Zune.

The Prizes
1 Microsoft Zune and 1 Apple iPod

How to Win
This is a 2 in 1 contest. 2 winners, one from each contest included in this one contest.

The 1st one is so simple that my son could do it! Simply go here and vote. I will randomly select one winner from all that have voted.

The 2nd one is a photo contest. Simply take a photo of your current MP3/Media player setup. The staff and I will select 5 we like and the users will vote. Photos must be uploaded to the contest section of our gallery.

Who wins what? We will employ a sophisticated method to let the 2 winners decide who gets what. We will have a best 3/5 virtual rock, paper, scissors competion and the winner chooses.

2)GottaBeMobile is giving a Motion Computing LS800 “Ultra Mobile” Tablet PC.

Here’s how to win. Put together a creative 800-1000 word essay for us on how adding a Motion LS800 to your life will make you more mobile and enhance your personal and/or professional life. Better yet, you ought to include BOTH aspects of life. When we say be creative, we mean VERY creative. For an LS800 prize valued at almost $2,200, you should be willing to work for it! Besides the essay, the use of creative art, video, pictures, whatever you can come up with will be considered within reason, but remember the main concern will be on how this device would influence your life in a positive way. We reserve the right to refuse anything too big or wild. Just remember that the emphasis will be on the essay.

Ha-ha, so you bought a UX180P and crying now! At least Barry Gerber (from Tomshardware) ’s friend seems to be. He bought a UX180P and he feels scammed that only a few months later Sony revealed “the real UX” , UX280P (UX180P with 1 GB RAM and 40 GB Hard Drive) with the same price tag.

What does Sony have to say about the short-lived UX180P and why it has disappeared from the market? Basically: We only made a small number of the UX180Ps. The UX280P is so much better. As a buyer of a UX180P, I’m not impressed by the excuse that Sony made only a small number of UX180Ps and is now selling the ‘real’ UX as the UX280P.

If you are careful, you really can see the future. Did you noticed especially in the early times of the Origami to UMPC journey, some UMPCs at the presentations were running some software (probably GUIs) with “Yahoo!” images. I made some plans including Yahoo! for the UMPC in my head (and it’s prototype in my hands), but i couldn’t figure out why after all those time there wasn’t anything coming from Yahoo!.

But it looks like something is coming. According to TG Daily Intel and Yahoo are developing a next-gen Yahoo! branded UMPC. It will be smaller,but not faster than current UMPCs.

Intel provided a sneak peek at one of the UMPCs planned to hit the market in 2007 - a Yahoo! branded mobile device - that packs a comprehensive feature set into a small form factor. Technical details were scarce, but the presentation and hints given by senior vice president Dadi Perlmutter indicate that this will be the UMPC Microsoft and Intel should have introduced earlier this year. According to the executive, the devices will not use Core 2 Duo processor, and “consume approximately half the power of today’s CPUs with approximately one-fourth the package size.”

News are probably true, but although TG Daily looks certain, i couldn’t be sure of Yahoo! branded UMPCs. They might be just making a good GUI integrated with online Yahoo! services. And this picture increases my suspicion:

“Yahoo! Go for UMPCs”. It sounds like a service rather than a hardware product, doesn’t it? It doesn’t say “Yahoo! Go UMPC”.

And below that “based on Intel Reference Design”, not ” the UMPC Yahoo! and Intel planning”.

ABC News revealed a new ultraportable PC : Black Diamond Switchback.

Black Diamond is putting a different spin on the fast-fading UMPC market with it’s rugged new handheld solution, complete with military specifications for shock, vibration, dust, moisture, and extreme temperatures. It’s called the Switchback PC, and the company has a silent partner with a background in weapons design, so it picked the right people to design it.

It sounds like it’s more of a portable PC for military applications rather then a UMPC for masses, doesn’t it? It has close hardware specs to UMPCs ;

The screen is a sunlight viewable display measuring at 5.6 inches and sporting a 1024-by-600 resolution. Other impressive features include built-in GPS, Bluetooth, and WLAN.

But i can’t imagine a military PC running Touch Pack.

I think it’s hardly news. We heard UMPC-like rugged PCs made for military before, and they were very expensive. (over $2000)

Good unboxing pictures of Asus R2H are posted on Mobile01 and Slashgear.