Only instead of Q2, it will be marketed as a part of Samsung Ultra edition and will be called Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC. At least that’s what Samsung’s Taiwanese site is telling us:

The design of Samsung Ultra Q1 UMPC looks exactly like the one revealed last week, so the specs are probably on the spot as well.

If true, then Samsung Q1 Ultra is shaping to be one impressive gadget with:

Intel CPU
1GB of RAM
60 GB HDD
1024×600, 300-nit WSVGA Display
Dual cameras (1.3 and 0.3 mpx)
QWERTY keyboard
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Wibro connectivity
Windows Vista Home Premium OS

Even though Samsung Q1 UMPC was somewhat of a commercial disappointment, it was a fertile test ground for for a new device concept and the second generation Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC has a good shot at becoming a hit.

This is definetely not the Sony Vaio UX model announced last week. The label ID clearly states that it is VAIO PCG model, and Vaio UX50 and 90 come with VGN prefix.
Also even if we can only see the back side of this computer it doesn’t look like UX - the sides are not symmetrical.

Though it is difficult to tell the exact size of Vaio PCG-1J, the stylus next to it makes me believe that it shoud have 5-8″ screen. It also runs on Windows OS, has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GSM/EDGE connectivity options.
From all that we were able to piece together fom the limited information available on FCC site, Sony VAIO 1J1L looks like a good candidate for UMPC category.

Update: Despite my arguments to the contrary, looks like it’s Sony Vaio UX. Check these pictures at Micro PC Talk. (Through Jake on the Run).

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.

NAND flash based SSD’s have significantly faster data transfer rates - 4x faster (53 MB/s) reading and 2.5 times faster writing speeds, therefore they are great for multitasking. According to Samsung, Windows XP on NAND SSD will start 25-50% faster then from traditional HDD.

As the it’s UMPC models before, Samsung Q1-SSD will be able to play media files and watch TV without booting Windows, so Samsung claims that this UMPC is at least 30% faster then stand alone personal multimedia players.

Quieter, lighter, more reliable and faster UMPC - is there anything not to like? Well, as for now Samsung Q1-SSD will be sold only in Korea. And very few will buy them anyway. Since the first NAND SSD’s are very expensive you will have to shell out $2430 for Samsung Q1-SSD with 32GB NAND drive.

Samsung press release

]]> http://umpcnews.com/2006/05/23/samsung-q1-ssd-first-umpc-with-nand-flash-based-solid-state-drive/feed/ http://umpcnews.com/2006/05/22/umpc-origami-control-panel-home-appliances/ http://umpcnews.com/2006/05/22/umpc-origami-control-panel-home-appliances/#comments Mon, 22 May 2006 11:59:43 +0000 Staska News http://umpcnews.com/2006/05/22/umpc-origami-control-panel-home-appliances/ 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.

In order to use portable device as a control panel, home appliances should have a special docking station or interface port to which the device is connected. Portable device then determines the type of appliance to which it is connected and changes the user interface accordingly. Home appliance can be operated through the touch screen or input buttons on the UMPC. The user interface settings can also be stored on the home appliance themselves and transmitted to UMPC when connected.

As an examples of such integrated appliances cited in the patent are: home entertainment system, an automation and/or security system, an environment control system (e.g., for controlling a furnace, air conditioner, humidifier, etc.), a clock radio, a refrigeration appliance (e.g., refrigerator, freezer, refrigerator/freezer combination, etc.), an oven or range, and so forth. It can also be used in the vehicle (e.g., car, truck, van, recreational vehicle, boat, etc.) environment and may be, for example, a vehicle stereo or entertainment system.

Various preprogrammed instructions for different home appliances can be downloaded to the portable device and then used to operate the home appliance. That’s an interesting possibility. Maybe someone will write a program to cook me a dinner on my Origami Oven, using the products from my Origami Fridge ?

Up to 1.2GHz+ Intel Pentium®-M processor with up to 2MB of L2 Cache
Ultra small footprint 6.5”x3.0”X0.5” not including Battery and Display
Up to 2GB of 266MHz DDR SDRAM
64MB of RAM
OpenGL® and Direct-X® support
802.11g Wireless Ethernet
Touch-screen and LCD panel with backlight support
60 GB HDD and CompactFlash
Line in/out Audio for Voice recognition
Support for conduction or convection cooling

Since military was never very concerned about their budgets, GMS was able to cram a pretty impressive equipment inside Spartan UMPC at a starting price of about $3400 (according to mill-embedded.com).

In addition to the specs described above P630 Spartan UMPC has embedded GPS receiver is able to withstand temperatures from -40°C to +85°C and, needless to say, packs a all advanced shock protection and data security features.

GMS site

According to Mobility Today Sony UX will have:

7″ touch screen
SLiding QWERTY Keyboard
Intel Core Solo Chip
WAN, Wi Fi, Bluetooth, 3G
Two cameras
Windows XP Pro
HDMI Port

However it is rather strange that Sony is not using Tablet PC OS on Vaio UX UMPC. Decision not to put a Touch Pack software on Ultramobile PCs can be understood and has already been done for ECS H70 UMPC. This software does not bring very significant improvements to Touch Screen optimized Tablet PC OS and if there are some additional costs involved some vendors might just drop it. Especially when they do not really need Microsoft marketing muscle behind them.

But why have a touch screen on a Windows based Ultramobile PC and forgo all the improvements that Touch and Pen optimized Tablet PC OS gives over standard Win XP Pro?

Update: Well, Sony has officially announced Vaio UX PC. And it is not Origami. In fact it is not even UMPC. Sony Vaio UX is 4.5″ Pocket PC with full PC functionality running Intel Core Solo and Win XP Pro. There’s even version of Sony VAIO UX running Linux.

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.

ECS H70 UMPC will be sold in two configurations - Value and Premium. Value configuration will have:

Intel Celeron M ULV 900 MHZ processor
Intel GMS + ICH6 -M chipset
256 MB DDR 400 SO-DIMM SDRAM
7″ WVGA (800×480) TFT display
Intel GMA 900
30GB 4200rpm 1.8″ HDD
3-in1 card reader (SD/SDIO/MS/MMC)
1.3 megapixel camera
Touch screen with Stylus Pen, Synaptics pointing stick
HD 7.1 channel Audio, Built-in speaker and microphone
3 cell Li-ion battery pack 11.1V 2400mAh
Bluetooth Module
802.11b/g WLAN card
Dimensions: 225.5×144x.23/25mm
Weight: 830g

With Premium configuration you will get faster Intel Pentium M ULV 1GHz chip, 512MB of memory and 60GB hard drive.

One interesting thing that we noticed while scanning users manual is that Elite H70 is being positioned as normal Tablet PC and there’s no reference to Microsoft TouchPack software in it.

But there are a lot of pages intentionally left blank in the manual and with all other features fully compliant with Origami specification it would seem downright stupid to forgo additional convenience and marketing opportunities provided by new UMPC category.

This seems to confirm a report by Origami Portal that ECS H70  is not Origami device. It still sounds pretty stupid to me. Why go to all the lenghth producing a device fully compliant to Origami specs and then miss all the marketing opportunities provided by Microsoft?

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.

Samsung is touting simplified integration and manufacturing advantages that could lead toward thinner and simpler mobile devices with a number of controller circuits integrated into one chip. And we certainly won’t mind slimmer and nicer devices.

However there’s another key advantage to the single chip design - reduced power consumption. Samsung’s new prototype 7″ screen consumes only 300 mW of power which is significantly less then similar traditional LCD’s. And any reduction in the power consumption of LCD screen can lead to disproportional increase of the batter life of a UMPC device, which is certainly great news for consumers.

Unfortunately this is just a prototype device and it could take several years for it to be produced in mass market quantities. However with the increasing demand for highly portable devices and power efficient components,  we can expect the commercial implementations of this technology sooner rather then later.

The research also states quite an obvious - that there’s no size fits all solution. So even though the first generation UMPC devices will not have many unique features and will try to create a new usage model at a price points affordable for early adopters, we can expect a lot of experimentation and innovation later as processing, storage and power saving/storing technologies catch up.

Indeed we can already see these trends in development - the first generation of UMPC devices are pretty similar to each other with vendors adding minor features like web camera or digital television to the basic reference design. However, as recent patent filings from Intel and Apple show, companies are experimenting with various user interface and usability features and other interesting innovations should follow as the UMPC market develops.

The In-Stat also argues that requirements of UMPCs will drive new generation of ultra low power x86 processors and create more competition in the field. Already Via low power processor is a viable alternative to Intel and AMD is considering it’s entrance here too. Intel also has a clear roadmap for it’s low power Core architecture and as the prices come down for these chips we can expect Core Solo and Core Duo ULV processors in UMPC devices by the end of the year, with Meroms following in 2007. These developments should significantly boost the processing capabilities of UMPC devices while reducinng their power consumption as well.

One big loser in this trend is Transmeta, who was the first to develop low power chips that would have been a great option for many UMPC devices. Unfortunately Transmeta was too early to the game and closed down it’s processor manufacturing a little over a year ago. As Jim McGregor, Principal Analyst with In-Stat says:

“It’s ironic that the UMPC is now taking center stage close to a year and a half after Transmeta, a company focused on delivering processors for this very segment, finally had to call it quits as a processor vendor because of lack of market growth.”

All in all the future of UMPCs looks interesting and early skepticism of some analysts about first generation UMPCs seems premature.

Via Vnunet

]]> http://umpcnews.com/2006/04/28/78-million-umpcs-to-ship-in-the-next-5-years/feed/ http://umpcnews.com/2006/04/20/apple-origami-umpc-looks-likely/ http://umpcnews.com/2006/04/20/apple-origami-umpc-looks-likely/#comments Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:40:35 +0000 Staska News http://umpcnews.com/2006/04/20/apple-origami-umpc-looks-likely/ Is Apple working on it’s own Origami UMPC device? Well, judging from patent applications filed by Apple in recent months, it seems so.

Does this picture look familiar:

It looks just like variation of Microsoft Touchpack software, except it is a single arc QWERTY keyboard, instead of two split panes in Touchpack. This drawing comes from the latest Apple patent application filed today describing “activation of virtual keys of a touch screen keyboard”. The form and shape of the keyboard doesn’t appear to give any benefits to larger tablet PC or laptop sized devices and seems best suited for a small portable computer just like UMPC.

And there’s more. In patent application filed on February 2, describing “Gestures for touch sensitive input devices”, Apple is providing drawings of such a PC:

As you can see the look and size of the device seem to be very close to Origami UMPC. Of course, Apple wouldn’t be just copying Microsoft’s designs, it is trying to create even better user interface for UMPC. In this patent application Apple is talking about a multipoint sensing device that allows you to manipulate images on the screen with several fingers - like using virtual scroll wheel, turning pages or selecting and rotating images on the screen.

In another patent application published on February 16 Apple describes “Virtual input device placement on a touch screen user interface”, which is basically the virtual keyboard that that pops up somewhere on the screen depending on the application used. Nothing groundbreaking here, but still, a confirmation that Apple has been working on highly portable PC with a touch screen for a few months now.

So when we will see Apple’s origami UMPC? I have no idea, but these patent applications show that Apple is serious about such a device and we can expect some information on it soon.