More About Moorestown

At the IDF in Taipei a few days ago, Intel bigwig Anand Chandrasekher finally demoed the Moorestown MID platform. I admit I have been highly dubious about the market for Menlow platform based devices from Intel, but it’s follow up Moorestown, show here as a mockup and in a video demo looks very very impressive…and has been tipped for a 2009 release.

I’d buy a device like this in a New York minute….wouldn’t you?

Smartphone or Superphone?

John Sangiovanni wrote an excellent guest column at GigaOm recently in which he looked at the high end phone market as it exists today and sees a new device category developing…Superphones.

He numbered in this new Superphone category such devices as the iPhone, Samsung Instinct and LG Dare and sees them as devices with “vastly better performance, desktop-grade web browsing, and high-resolution displays”.

I definitely agree with his main point, and feel that a serious paradigm shift is taking place in the smartphone market as devices like the iPhone are transcending even the broad feature sets found in smartphones. Just as the first smartphones such as the Treo and the original BlackBerry melded the cell phone and the PDA (killing the PDA category in the process), so I feel the iPhone and it’s cousins are merging smartphones and MIDs (soon to follow the PDA into Betamaxland). They are more or less the mobile Internet devices that we have seen alot of vapor about, without many actual releases. The slow roll out of WiMax in the US, the duck soup of 3G standards in Europe and Asia and the resulting dependency on WiFi for mobile internet by many devices has effectively shut the window of opportunity on the MID as a mass market device in my opinion. As an ultra mobile notebook replacement MIDs have been overwhelmed by the Netbooks, and as a Mobile Internet device by the so called Superphones .

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The Mobile Shakeout will be Liveblogged

We all KNEW it would be coming, we just didn;t know how soon.

UMPCs, MIDs, Netbooks, Mini-notebooks…the mares nest of new mobile form factors was going to get slimmed down by the market. It just had to happen…and I feel it has, or is happening as we speak.

I add my voice to several others of late and declare, with a few conditions, the Netbook form factor to be the winner of this small but fascinating battle to be the next big mobile device.

All sorts of bloggers and gearheads I respect are declaring MIDs and UMPCs technological also-rans over the last few days. Scrupulously honest, Jenn at Pocketables is giving the laurels to Netbooks despite her own personal preferences. Kevin Tofel of jkOnTheRun, one of the most insightful gadget hounds out there, is trading in his Samsung Q1 for a Wind. Even small form evangelist Steve Paine of UMPC Portal is praising the Akoya Mini. I personally agree with all of their views. UMPCs and MIDs are nice and cool and fun for gadget fans, but for the mainstream consumer  they barely ever registered, totally overshadowed by Netbooks.

In fact, pundits all over the net who scorned all small computers as toys 6 months ago are now gleefully stating they have ordered Dell Mini 9s. Dell is NOT such a beloved company that brand loyalty alone could be causing this.

So where are all these conversions coming from?

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Reporting from IDF

If you want to know what is going at IDF you then don’t want to miss this video with our friend Steve “Chippy” and Jeff Moriarty.

The Convergence Begins?

Mini-Notebook, UMPC, Netbook, MID…we all knew that eventually the market would dictate which of these forms would succeed and which would fail. Rumbles in the industry are indicating that may be happening sooner rather then later.

Over the weekend, DigiTimes reported that PC vendors and resellers are feeling decidedly queasy about Intel’s heavy push behind it’s line of MID platforms, and quietly expressing that fact to Intel. The more optimistic amongst them feel that at the very least, MIDs won’t hit the big time until Q4 09, rather than Q1 09 as Intel is predicting. They feel (and I believe accurately) that the wave of new UMPC/Netbook models and the quiet recession in the worldwide economy will hamper the MID (Mobile Internet Device) form. Most pundits define MIDs as slate style, touch screen mobile PCs, with or without a sliding keyboard.

Vendors see the MID form being squeezed between miniature laptops forms (UMPC/Netbook) on one side and smartphones on the other. It certainly doesn’t help that recent releases in the MID space by Gigabyte and Lenovo are not cutting much ice in the marketplace while major UMPC releases keep coming through the summer/fall from MSi, Asus, Acer and Dell (among others). When back to school shoppers are outfitting high school/college students, small, cheap device in a conventional laptop form looks like a tool while the sexier MIDs look like flashy toys.

It is essential that Intel get their vast reseller/vendor channels behind MIDs if they hope the form to succeed against the intense competition in the mobile computer space. Vendors however are reluctant to waste holiday shelf space on products that won’t sell, especially in challenging economic times.

Personally I love the MID form, with it’s ability to be used as both a tablet and a more standard computer. However, I would not be at all surprised if MIDs aren’t able to catch the same fire that UMPCs are bottling as they are being embraced by mainstream tech buyers. MIDs also seem to have trouble getting down to the low prices that are helping to drive UMPCs.

What do you think? Do you see MIDs fading away altogether or into a niche market as stores are innundated with miniature laptops or will they rally once people get tired of “toy” laptops?

New Windows CE Device

I really don’t know how to called, MID? Handheld PC? Pocket PC? But for sure, UMPC is not.

4.3" TFT,ARM926EJ@266MHz CUP inside.5GB memory shared,Windows CE 5.0 system and WIFI. installed MSN,Skype,IE Web browsing,Word,Excel,PPT,PDF viewer,Flash,Nintendo games,etc

Gigabyte 704 UMPC Unboxing

Steve at UMPCPortal has just finished unboxing a brand-spanking new Gigabyte M704. Sporting a VIA C7 chip this sliding keyboard slate internet device certainly has the looks..and Steve’s early report indicates it may have the goods as well. He seems VERY impressed with it thus far.

Check out Steve’s testing notes as he plays around with this bad boy in the UMPCPortal forum HERE. He has indicated he is willing to take questions there, so ask away if you are thinking about upgrading to Gigabyte’s newest UMPC.

Watch the unboxing below.

First Intel MID pre-order/pricing: M528

Chippy from UMPCPortal has found that the first Intel MID can be preordered already at Tegatech, Australia.

Interested in mobile Internet devices? You know, the ones aimed at the consumer with consumer features and consumer pricing? Then read on… Tegatech, a well-respected UMPC retailer in Australia has recently signed a deal with Gigabyte for the distribution of it’s UMPCs and MIDs in Australia and New Zealand and has sent out an email to it’s media contacts announcing that my favorite MID, the M528 is on their books. A quick look at their website reveals that, yes, the M528 is listed, still looking very desirable, with a nice 8GB flash drive, the 3MP auto-focus cam, an 800×480 touch screen, 11Wh battery, built-in GPS, 3G radio and an 800Mhz Intel Atom processor. With a pocketable size, a pocketable weight and that slide out keyboard it’s a dream device for many.

But here is the interesting thing, the price for this device is around 1280 dollars! Was not the Intel’s MID concept talking about very cheap devices which only main task was Internet Connectivity? For that money you can buy a decent UMPC! A powerful laptop! 3 iPhones! And the other thing is that this price fiasco for some reason reminds me the 500 dollars price tag for UMPCs in the initial Microsoft/Intel marketing campaign. And I said Microsoft/Intel because during that marketing campaign Intel was part of it and a very active part of it and I wonder if the 500 dollars price tag really came from Intel and not from Microsoft.

Sharp’s MID released in Japan

This year is going to be the year of MID (Mobile Internet Devices). A good sign of that is this new MID released by Sharp in Japan. 

Sharp launches its 3G mobile phone ‘922SH’ in Japan market through SoftBank, which is expected to be available on 28th March.

Oh, wait a minute… I forgot my opinion… Well, I don’t know but the antenna seems to me a little bit “retro”… Do not you think?

Via AVING USA - Global News Network

Gigabyte M528 MID

Steve and JKK keep informing the whole community from CeBit 2008. Here is their latest video, this time about the Gigabyte M528.

Pocketables.net: Sony mylo 2 vs Nokia N810

Jenn at Pocketables has got a great comparison of  Sony mylo 2 (COM-2) vs. Nokia N810.

Although not intended to appeal to the same market, the Sony mylo 2 (COM-2) personal communicator and Nokia N810 Internet Tablet still share enough similarities to warrant head-to-head battles and other comparisons.

I’ve already finished my Nokia N810 review and a full mylo 2 review is in the works, so I’ve decided not to pit one device’s features and functions against the other’s to ultimately conclude which is better. Instead, what I’ve done is something that I hope will help you declare your own winner. All that matters when choosing a portable device is what’s best for you, after all. 

Head over to Pocketable.net and read Sony mylo 2 (COM-2) vs. Nokia N810 and then come back and tell us which one you like best and why!

Source: Pocketables

Photo credit: Pocketables

Tethering the AT&T Tilt to Nokia N800/N810 …

Jenn, over at Pocketables.net, has explained in step by step instructions how to tether her AT&T Tilt (WM6) to the Nokia N800/N810 Internet Tablet.

Although various hacks and utilities exist to enable the functionality, I didn’t have to use any of them because the Tilt actually supports BT DUN right out of the box. Or at least it does after all the AT&T nonsense is wiped off. (Given that AT&T buried Internet Sharing and put Wireless Modem in its place, I wouldn’t put it past them to have somehow disabled DUN too.)

 

Unfortunately, just because the functionality is there doesn’t mean it automatically works. The main obstacle when trying to establish a BT DUN connection between the Tilt and the N800/N810 is that Nokia’s predefined operator settings aren’t correct

Head over to Pocketables.net and see how it is done!

Source: (and photo credit) Pocketables.net

Little Devices Make Big Hit at CES 2008

From Channelintel:

New mobile Internet Devices are hitting the market and at CES 2008 they stirred a big buzz. The full Internet experience in a nifty little device. See for yourself

Source: Channelintel

Inventec MID pictures

Pocketeables.net has posted a few more pictures taken in the CES 2008 Intel booth of the Inventec MID. Many of the devices shown by Intel are just prototypes to show other OEMs what can be done using Intel processors. In another words, most of these devices will never see the market. That’s what happened in 2006 when Intel and Microsoft introduced to the world the Origami concept.

There is one thing, it seems to me that this year we are going to see more MID being released than UMPC.

CES 2008: Notebooks/Tablets/UMPC/MID unveiled

Here’s a review of the Notebooks/Tablets/UMPC/MID unveiled at CES 2008:

• CES 2008: Asus R50a specifications confirmed
• First UMPC with DVDROM integrated
• CES 2008: OQO Model 02 UMPC with Integrated WiMAX
• CES 2008: TabletKiosk upgrades the v7110 series to v7110e
• CES 2008: Gateway’s First FX Edition Notebook is a Mobile Media and Gaming Powerhouse
• CES2008: TabletKiosk i7300
• CES 2008: New Sony Mylo
• Samsung upgrades the Q1 Ultra
• CES 2008: Samsung Expands Its Q1 Ultra Line with New High-Performance UMPC
• CES 2008: Toshiba Qosmio: First HD Notebook with HD DVD-R/RW Drive
• CES 2008: ASUS Dazzles Las Vegas with Exciting New Products
• CES 2008: Fujitsu LifeBook U810 Mini Convertible and LifeBook T2010 Ultra Portable Convertible Notebooks
• CES 2008: Fujitsu LifeBook P8010 Ultra-Portable Notebook
• TabletKiosk will show at CES two new devices

Source: Mobility Site