May 15, 2006, 4:17 PM PDT
Can Sony save the UMPC?
Posted by: Justin Jaffe

Throwing its hat into--or at least nearby--the UMPC ring, Sony has announced the VAIO UX180P Micro PC. Taking some of the most innovative elements of the T-Mobile Sidekick and the OQO Model 01, the VAIO UX180P features a a 4.5-inch (diagonal) wide-screen display, which slides up to reveal a QWERTY keypad. We got a sneak preview of this thing a few weeks ago, and our early impression was that it's friggin' cool. But this is Sony, after all, and the VAIO UX180P is also friggin' expensive.

Weighing 1.2 pounds, the little rapscallion has a 1,024x600 native resolution and is equipped with components that will make a Treo user quiver. You get a low-voltage Intel Core Solo U1400 processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 30GB hard drive, as well as a full version of Windows XP Professional. Networking connections include 802.11a/b/g wireless, Bluetooth, and Cingular EDGE WWAN. Remarkably, for such a small device, the UX180P makes room for two cameras--a 1.3 megapixel one that faces out from the back and a 0.3 megapixel one that faces out from the front for Webcamming--as well as a biometric fingerprint scanner, headphone and mic jacks, a USB port, and a Memory Stick slot. It's an impressive lineup of specs that you could expect to find on any number of late-model laptops. And then there's the price...$1,799.

Ahem.

Leaving price aside for the moment, the fact that it has a built-in keyboard is critical, and it gives the VAIO UX180P a better shot at success than other early UMPC designs, including Sony's own VAIO U50. We found the keys to be spaced apart a bit far, but we didn't spend enough time with the VAIO UX180P to get a chance to get used to them. The device has a touch screen, which you can manipulate with your finger or the included stylus, as well as a stick pointer.

We watched some movie clips on the VAIO UX180P, which looked great on its 3.5-inch display, and we surfed around the Web a bit using the stylus to navigate. Sony told us that these systems are getting about 3.5 hours of battery life, less if you're watching a movie or surfing wirelessly, and they'll run up to 4.5 hours if you're being extremely gentle.

Enough about us, though, and our impressions. What do you think? Does the price make the Sony VAIO UX180P DOA.? Or is it the future of the UMPC?

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May 08, 2006, 4:29 PM PDT
Origami is in the house
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

We finally got our own "Origami" ultramobile PC. This one is an Eo v7110 from TabletKiosk, a manufacturer that sells primarily to corporate integrators (and direct via its Web site). We just dropped the machine off at our Labs, so full benchmarks and a review will post this week. I had a chance to work with it for a few minutes before I gave it up.

It's a nice machine. The control layout is sensible and the learning curve is very short. I've never used a UMPC before today, and I was up to speed with it in minutes. The screen is touch sensitive, so you can thumb-type on it using two rounded half-keyboards (one under each thumb), although the pressure required to register on the screen was a little high, making typing tiring. Microsoft's Windows XP tablet interface also comes with a very nice full-screen menu system that's reminiscent of the Windows Media Center variant.

The TabletKiosk representative we met with pitched this machine as useful for two main groups: First, "vertical" applications such as health care, industry, and the military. As a portable console into business and custom applications, it makes a lot of sense. It's much lighter than a full-size tablet PC, and it runs standard Windows programs.

The other proposed customer set was the consumer: business travelers, cooks in their kitchens, and so forth. For this group, this platform strikes me as a bad choice. It's too small to be used comfortably for intensive work, its battery isn't robust enough to last through a single two-hour movie, and with an $899 starting price, it's way too expensive to be a kitchen appliance. However, as a car PC, it's a great option, and TabletKiosk does make a mobile mounting solution.

At the platform's current state of development, a UMPC might be just what's needed in some vertical and business environments. But even though it's a neat engineering feat, it's too heavy, too expensive, and has too-poor battery life to make a good choice for a consumer or a small-business user. We'll have more to say on the product, and the platform, after we test it.

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May 01, 2006, 1:41 PM PDT
Hands-on: the Samsung Q1 UMPC
Posted by: Justin Jaffe

• See our First Look video of the Samsung Q1.
  
  
• See the Samsung Q1 slide show.

Samsung unveiled its Q1 Ultra Mobile PC this morning at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Starting at $1,099, the Q1 features a 7-inch (diagonal) display, weighs about 1.7 pounds, and runs a modified version of Microsoft Windows XP Tablet. The device seeks to combine elements of a laptop, a tablet, a PDA, a PVP, an MP3 player, a GPS module, and a gaming handheld into a form factor that falls between that of a smart phone/Pocket PC and an ultraportable laptop.

When we first laid eyes on the UMPC form factor at the Intel Developer Forum back in March, we thought that the concept was sort of cool--it might make a nice entertainment device for passing the time on a cross-country flight or make a decent video player/GPS device for a long drive. Despite the fact that it could run a full version of Windows, however, we had our doubts about how useful it could really be, lacking a real, built-in keyboard--a fatal flaw (in the U.S. market, at least) for UMPC predecessors such as the Sony VAIO U750P (sold overseas as the considerably more successful VAIO U50).

As we saw this morning, Samsung and Microsoft have addressed the keyboard issue in two ways. First, with accessories: a compact USB keyboard is available (along with a Franklin Planner-esque portfolio to hold it all). Second, with Microsoft's TouchPack application, which features a virtual, radial keyboard that's split between the corners of the UMPC's display--a feature we've already seen similarly implemented on the Fujitsu LifeBook P1510. The dial keys, as Microsoft calls them, have a standard QWERTY layout and are arranged for thumb typing, similar to a Treo or BlackBerry. You can adjust the dial keys' opacity, change them from black to white (for use on dark backgrounds), and bring up an alternate layout that features keys for tools and shortcuts.

We've seen this before, though. With its onscreen keyboard, the VAIO U750P took a similar tack, and we remain skeptical: the cramped keyboards found on most ultraportable laptops, and even the tiny keypads on the Treo and the BlackBerry, are simply in a different league than the UMPC's virtual tablet keyboard.

Battery life is another Achilles' heel. It looks like you can expect approximately 3.5 hours of run time from the Q1's standard three-cell battery, and closer to 2 hours when running intensive tasks, such as video. That said, Samsung will also sell a six-cell battery and a power pack that it says will deliver 7 and 9 hours, respectively. Still, for a form factor that strikes a compromise between a laptop (average battery life of 3 hours) and a smart phone/Pocket PC (average battery life of 8 to 9 hours talk time, six to seven days standby), we expect a battery life that falls somewhere closer to the median.

Price remains an issue, too. Making matters tougher for the Samsung Q1 and other UMPCs are ultraportable laptops, such as the $1,400 Gateway NX100X, which cost just a few hundred dollars more and deliver a more traditional form factor in just a slightly heavier package. Though a Samsung exec said that the company is "very comfortable where the price is," we think it's still about $500 too high.

Other notable Q1 UMPC features and ruminations:

• Sling Media has developed a special version of its software for the UMPC so that you can stream live TV over a wireless network on it; the software will be available later in May.
• The UMPC's SRS stereo speakers sounded much louder and clearer than the Sony PSP's.
• We saw a quick demo of how you can connect the UMPC via Bluetooth to your cell phone's cellular network, which begs the question: When will we see built-in EDGE connectivity for the UMPC?
• Because it runs Windows XP, the UMPC can conceivably play any existing PC game title; though with its 512MB of RAM and 900MHz ultra-low-voltage processor, you'll be hard-pressed to play anything more hard-core than the included version of Sodoku.
• Samsung ships the Q1 with a homegrown A/V utility, called AVStation Now, which lets you play movies and MP3s and access other multimedia content without booting up the Windows OS; in contrast to the other Instant-On-style utilities found on entertainment laptops from HP, Dell, and others, Samsung's AVS is based on Windows XP, not Linux.

And here's a quick rundown of the Q1 UMPC's specs:

• Dimensions: (approximately) 9 inches wide, 5.5 inches deep, 1 inch thick
• Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Processor: Intel Celeron M ULV (900MHz)
• Chipset/graphics: 915GMS, Intel GMA900 (128MB)
• Memory: 512MB DDR2 RAM (400MHz), upgradable to 1GB
• Display: 7-inch (diagonal) touch screen LCD (800x480)
• Storage: 40GB hard drive
• Networking: Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0
• Connections: Two USB 2.0, one Type II CompactFlash slot, VGA output
• Price: $1,099

Samsung says the Q1 will be available for purchase online at BestBuy.com starting May 7, CDW soon after that, and in retail outlets later this summer.

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May 01, 2006, 9:02 AM PDT
TabletKiosk delays its UMPC
Posted by: Dan Ackerman

Forget desktops and notebooks; the new category PC vendors want you to get excited about is the Ultra-Mobile PC, or UMPC. Microsoft, Intel, and several hardware vendors teamed up to develop specifications for a tablet PC platform (originally code-named Project Origami), and Samsung is about to release its much-hyped Q1 tablet.

According to News.com, southern California company TabletKiosk had planned to have its UMPC device, dubbed the Eo v7110, on the market already, but a manufacturing problem has dealt the company a setback. An open letter on the TabletKiosk Web site reads:

"As the end of April rapidly approaches, we find ourselves in the position of having to balance our commitment to quality with the expectation of a timely product delivery. After the process of quality control was completed on the first Eo production units, it was determined that there was an issue in the tooling of the back panel that affected the operation of the system fan. Because of this problem, the back panel had to undergo a slight redesign and thus the initial shipment is going to be only a fraction of what we had anticipated."

While other UMPC manufacturers are targeting gear-happy consumers, TabletKiosk has been selling non-UMPC tablet PCs to commercial and industrial users for years.

Besides manufacturing woes, the budding UMPC industry faces other hurdles, including initial reports of poor battery life, problems with demo presentations, and the fact that vendors have been trying to push tablet PCs since the late 1980s.

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