Samsung has just announced the commercial release of first computers with NAND flash based solid state disk (SSD), that replaces traditional hard drive. And one of the first devices to get this NAND based flash is none other then Samsung Q1 UMPC.

NAND flash based SSD drives are the new generation of hard drives that can be used in a PC. They are very quiet and twice as light as the smallest 1.8″ HDD. NAND SSD’s are also much more reliable in portable applications - can withstand two times stronger impacts then traditional hard drives and are much easier to recover data from when dropped into the liquids or spilled upon.

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Samsung Q1-SSD: First UMPC with NAND Flash-Based Solid State Drive

When UMPC Origami was first released by Microsoft in March there were a lot of discussions and speculations about what this device is good for. Now the patent filed by Microsoft in December and made public last week reveals some Microsoft ideas about what it’s portable devices can be used for.

The patent, called “Portable Computing Device-Integrated Appliance” talks mainly about how PDA’s and Windows Mobile devices that can be used as a control panels for various home appliances. However this concept can be easily expanded for the UMPCs.

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Can Origami cook me a dinner? UMPC as a Control Panel for Home Appliances

It may not be Origami, but Pentagon just got their own Ultra Mobile PC. And it really is an impressive piece of equipment. Produced by General Micro Systems, P630 Spartan UMPC features:

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GMS P630 Spartan - UMPC for the military

Doesn’t matter what everyone does, Sony likes to do it their way. It seems that they’ll do it again with UMPC. Sony had ultramobile Vaio U in the market for a few years already and now they plan to release Origami spec’ed Sony Vaio UX using Windows XP Pro.

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Sony Vaio UX UMPC (not Origami?)

Remember Elite Group H70 UMPC that went mainly unnoticed among all the hype surrounding Microsoft Origami project and first official UMPCs from Samsung, Asus and Founder?

Well, it seems ECS H70 UMPC is coming to the U.S. soon. Last week Elite Group has been granted FCC approval for this UMPC and now we can find some pictures and draft user manual available on FCC site.

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Elite ECS H70 UMPC (non Origami?) is Coming to U.S. soon.

One of the major drawbacks for choosing UMPC device - is it’s power requirements. 2-3 hours of battery life just aren’t enough for ultra mobile device. And the biggest power drain - anywhere from 30 to 65% of the total power consumption comes from the LCD screen.

Today Samsung has got some good news for us. Korean vendor announced that it has developed first amorphous silicon (a-Si) 7″ single chip WVGA (800×480) TFT-LCD. While uses for this screen does not specifically mention UMPC, WVGA screens of the same size and resolution are actually used in all UMPC devices launched so far.

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New power efficient 7″ screen from Samsung