Divergence & Death

I love writing for MobilitySite, and I especially like reading what others’ have to say.  But day after day I read the same thing in every blog.  It goes like this, “The new XYZ phone from ABC has this and that feature.”  It’s grown old.  And boring.  I’m thinking of kicking my excitement level up by taking up Bocce Ball or Bowling.  All the devices are the same.  They are no better than what we had four years ago.  They’re just getting bloated with compromised add-ons. 

Windows Mobile is Dead.  Read on to find out why your next device will not have a Windows Mobile OS.

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Fujitsu NetBook Gets Official

The Fujitsu Amilo Mini Ui 3520 netbook has finally gotten a nice set of pics and full specs released on the web. The quite acceptable technical specs are as follows:

• 8.9’’ WSVGA Display (1024 x 600)
• Intel® Atomâ„¢ Processor N270 (1,6 GHz)
• 1024 MB DDR2 667 MHz RAM
• 60/80 GB HDD (3600 rpm / 4200 rpm)
• LAN, WLAN 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth
• ExpressCard slot
• USB 2.0, VGA out
• Webcam 1,3 Megapixel, Digital Array Microphone
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
• 233 x 29 / 36 x 175 mm, 1 kg
• 399€

I definitely like the look of this device, and the 8.9 display is about perfect for me, should I be tempted away from my Eee 701. 10 Inch is too large for me in a netbook, but an Atom would be nice. If they can get this device out quickly in the US and Europe, in a reasonable number of places, and possibly push the price down below that of the MSi Wind, Fujitsu could have a winner. However, the back to school possibilities are rapidly diminishing…and Dell will be shaking the box soon. Time is of the essense for Fujitsu.

(Source – JKK Mobile)

VIA and robots

What a UMPC and a robot could have in common?

Well, you can read the answer in the above photo, a VIA processor. And if the picture does not convince you, here is a video:

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Apple and Wibrain?

One of the visitors to Wibrain Kiosk at IDF was Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple.

Is Apple exploring the market to make it own UMPC?

Unboxing the Kohjinsha SX2, JKK Style

Here is a video that you don’t want to miss about one of the best UMPC or mini Tablet, whatever name you prefer, in the market.

UMPC are here to stay

This is a very nice article that I found today and that I would recommend to read to anyone that still have doubts about the UMPC platform. 

Some critics seem to think that UMPC (ultra mobile PCs) are just a fad. Wrong. They’re here to stay.

The author is completely right. UMPC are today stronger than ever.

Viliv S7

Chippy from UMPCPortal has found at IDF a new UMPC that will be released in the first quarter of 2009. This one has a shape of a mini Tablet PC with a 7 inches display and will use an Atom processor. I hope that it uses the dual core Atom announced yesterday by Intel. That would be nice.

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.

Sunlight visibility

That’s a question that I have been asked many times and that has been answered wonderfully at Pocketeables.net

Since many prospective UMPC buyers want to know how readable a particular device’s display is outdoors and in direct sunlight, my husband and I headed to Kawaikui Beach Park in nearby Aina Haina this afternoon to find out. We stacked my HTC Shift, Willcom D4, Sony Vaio UX180P, Fujitsu U810, Kohjinsha SC3, and the Gigabyte M704 I have on loan from Direct From Japan in a travel bag, cranked up their screen brightness levels, and set them up on a picnic table. Have a closer look below.

In my own experience none of these devices compare to a Fujitsu P1620 or P1610 outdoor screen.

TEO 3 is free

I don’t know how I have missed this news about one of the best Tablet PC Applications I have ever tested.

Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 3 has recently been changed for a commercial application to a free for all software program that adds much needed tablet PC support to Microsoft Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Outlook 2007. It runs on a wide variety of hardware including Tablet PCs, UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs) or an Origami device running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or Windows Vista.

Via ghacks

iHangMan for UMPCs and Tablet PCs now Freeware

A short note to say that I have decided to unlock iHangman  and release it as freeware.

HangMan is one of older Paper Games known. According to Wikipedia Hangman is a paper and pencil guessing game for two players. One player thinks of a word and the other tries to guess it by suggesting letters.

This is a version of the game prepared for UMPCs and Tablet PCs where the computer thinks the word and it’s our task to guess it. The game comes with 3 lists of words, the main list of around 1000 words, the list of Capitals of Countries and the List of Countries names. You can create your own list of words in a TXT file adding one word per row, this feature makes the games virtually new every time that you add a new list of words to be used by the program. This game is a perfect tool to practice your handwriting with the Tablet PC recognizer. You can also use it as a learning tool to teach your kids new words making the learning process a big fun.

Tweaks2k2.com - iHangMan for UMPCs and Tablet PCs

Small Netbook or Big PDA

Yes another contender has entered the budget Netbook arena, this one coming in smaller and cheaper then most…but even then it seems you may not get what you pay for.

The 600 gram, 7 inch Mini Laptop Neo is now available at UK chain Maplin’s for £170 ($325). The miniBook’s actual measurements are 222 x 165 x 30mm, with a 7 inch, 800×400 display

According to Maplin’s specs and features are as follows:

· 7-inch TFT widescreen screen and stylish piano black finish casing
· Easy to use Linux operating system with UK keyboard
· 3 x USB 2.0 ports
· Stereo speakers and built-in microphone
· Touch mouse pad
· Email and Office (word processor and spreadsheet program)
· PDF viewer
· SD / SDHC Card reader
· 10/100Mbps Ethernet port
· 2GB SSD (soild state disk) shock proof storage
· Expand the storage with USB or SD Flash Memory (not external hard drives)
· Supports up to 4GB SD cards and 4GB USB sticks
· Multi-theme display (Child or Adult mode)
· DDR2 128MB memory
· AC adaptor / charger
· Complete with Xip office applications
· 12 month warranty

OK, no word on WHAT CPU that is, or what version of Linux it runs. Beyond that, the measely 128MB or RAM makes me wonder if the unit would be capable of much more then PIM storage and the occasional text file. 128MB is what you would expect to see on an iPaq or Palm Tungsten PDA a couple years ago, not on a new netbook. Also, it says it handles SDHC, so why is it limited to 4GB SD cards? One element of real interest….When they say it features Xip and Office applications, do they actually mean an Execute in Place bootloader or did they just misspell Zip? Curiouser and curiouser.

All in all however, when a 7 inch, 2GB SSD, 512MB RAM Asus Eee 700 is available at Target for $299, why buy this product for $325.

Caveat Emptor, mate.

Kohjinsha SX3KP06MA / SX3WP06MA video review!

Today the Kohjinsha SX series has been released to the market and already some video reviews started to appear in the web. Here is one of them.

The SX series is the first UMPC that includes a DVD Drive.

Second Time Around

I took delivery of my second Asus Eee 701 today in Galaxy Black with RAM upgraded to 1G, identical to my first one in every way. This had to be done as my first one was stolen (sigh), but through my upset I have managed to glimpse a silver lining to the situation.

In short, I now have a chance to do things better.

With my first Eee, I swore to myself before getting it that  I would stick with the initial Xandros Linux OS for at least a couple weeks, then try a few of the other Eee optimized Linux distros out of curiosity as I had never really tried to use Linux. Frustration and confusion however caused me to flee back to a nice, safe XP install after only two days. I know, not pretty, and I ain’t proud of it, but Linux ungeeked me. The difficulty of adapting Xandros to my needs, the seemingly unending amount of code I needed to enter with little or no documentation and the nightmare of installing applications from the repositories made me no better then a common citizen, running back to the shelter of what I knew. I intend to try a little harder this time to explore Linux, and have made the following goals for my second Eee based on my experiences with the first.

1) Experiment. I learned that it is dead simple and painless to install complete Operating Systems as it took a couple cracks with nLite to get the XP networking set up. Towards that end, I already have install CDs ready for the three Linux distros that most interest me (Mandriva, EeeDora and EeeXubuntu) and may also install Linpus. I will swap those around for the first few days to get a good feeling for the strengths and weaknesses of each. I will still probably end up with XP, but I want to make full use of this chance to be able to comment more intelligently on all major Linux options.

2) Discern. I found that in the few weeks I had the first Eee, the main thing I did with it was read, both books and comics and play Diablo II on the bus. Therefore, first things first I will install software for e-books, JPG comics and other similar media (and Diablo II). I may not need Word or OpenOffice at all, getting by with a WordPad type program. Either way, I want to be more careful with what applications I install this time around.

3) Optimize, optimize, optimize. In the end, I was just so happy to get an OS up and running well on my first Eee that I just installed all the off the shelf drivers Asus provided, whacked a bunch of standard software on and then stuck with it as I didn’t want to risk having to reformat again. Dumb. This time, I will make use of the plethora of streamlined drivers and utilities available out there to make the Eee run as fast and smooth as possible…and if it should get a bit hinky on me, just reformat it and start again. I am willing to spend a couple weeks tinkering before I let the device settle into a final form this time, since now I know how durable it is.

Sometimes, to really get the most out of a device, you need a second chance at it. This oughtta be fun.

Free Vista SP1 Support (until March 18, 2009)

Did you know that you can get free technical support on Windows Vista SP1 until 18 March 2009?  Free, unlimited installation and compatibility support is now available for all worldwide customers using Windows Vista SP1, until March 18, 2009. Telephone support is available worldwide.

Find out more and access the service here. 

 

This support for SP1 is valid until March 18, 2009. Availability of chat or e-mail support differs depending on your geographic location. For customers residing in North America or Canada, chat and e-mail support is available.

Some issues may require more advanced support for which there is a charge.