Here we go again with another week in review for your perusal. A mystery Android-powered MID tipped up this week looking very much like those renderings of the Apple tablet to my eyes. It’s cool to see android showing up on so many devices. Logitech unveiled an update to the coolest racing wheel ever, the G25, called simply enough the G27. The new wheel promises more accurate force feedback effects and keeps with the slick clutch and gated shifter we loved from the G25.
Microsoft’s Origami campaign came in for both praise and criticism, and while they can’t claim to entirely control the UMPC (or subsequent MID) markets they’ve were at least initially responsible for promoting ultramobile PCs. Now Microsoft have decided to shut down their official Origami project site, three years after it was founded.
It’s taken Samsung some time to refresh their UMPC range, and with the combined experience from the Q1 Ultra and their award-winning NC-netbook range, you’d expect fine things from the new Q1EX-71G. Unfortunately, LaptopMag’s Mark Spoonauer comes away disappointed with the Q1EX UMPC: battery life, handwriting recognition and performance all come in for serious criticism.
The next model in Samsung’s UMPC range, the Samsung NP-Q1EX, has been revealed, after the 7-inch touchscreen device was spotted at the FCC. Dropping the QWERTY thumb-board from the Q1 Ultra, the Q1EX gets a slimmed-down casing, VIA’s 1.2GHz Nano ULV U2500 processor and Chrome9 HC graphics, 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM and an integrated SiRF Star GPS receiver.
A clutch of new digital photo frames from Samsung today, and the company gets partial-kudos for giving at least some of them WiFi. Two 8-inch 800 x 600 frames, the SPF-85H and SPF-85V, and two 10-inch 1024 x 600 frames, the SPF-105P and SPF-105V, are available, although the ‘V’ versions have WiFi b/g. Each can load images from their SD/MMC/MS/XD card reader or via the USB memory slot.
Samsung has announced two new versions of the company’s Q1 Ultra UMPC. The Q1U-CMXP adds a 3G HSDPA modem, while the Q1UP-V replaces Windows XP with Vista Business. Both use Intel’s 1.33GHz Core Solo U1500 processor, but in a nod to Vista’s greater RAM hunger the Q1UP-V doubles standard memory to 2GB.
Over at Pocketables, Jenn has somehow managed to score some time with Kohjinsha’s super-compact SC3 convertible tablet. The Atom-based ultraportable has a 7-inch touchscreen, 1GB of RAM (2GB in Jenn’s) and a 60GB hard-drive, and only began shipping in Japan on July 11th. There, users can take advantage of the 1Seg digital TV tuner too.
As solid-state drives gain popularity, we’ve seen a few products that offer a way to retro-fit flash-based storage to your notebook, usually in the form of an adaptor that allows you to plug one or more Compact Flash cards into a traditional hard-drive socket. Steve from UMPC Portal has taken the plunge and used a Ably-Tech PA-CF18Z adaptor and a Transcend 8GB CF card with a theoretical 45MB/s transfer speed. Best of all, he’s not just walked through the installation but benchmarked it against the UMPC’s original performance.
After a few weeks of budget, mobile laptops grabbing the headlines, its been the turn of monstrous gaming machines to storm the limelight. Acer announced their first serious gamer’s desktop, the Aspire Predator, which is intended to take the breed out of the boutique and into mainstream computer stores. Alienware struck back with an updated Area-51 ALX; the industry’s first overclocked 4GHz Core 2 Extreme aimed to put Acer back into their place.
Samsung is planning the third refresh of its UMPC range in Q1 2009, likely to unveil the new designs at CES in January. That’s the word from Jeongseon Euh, Principal R&D Engineer in Samsung’s Computer Systems Division; in an interview with Tech Radar, Euh confirmed that the company has a 65-percent market share in the UMPC segment, and is using that lead to experiment with alternative form-factors. In terms of total sales, Samsung has shifted approximately 100,000 of the different Q1 versions worldwide.
SlashGear Japan
