Speculation is growing that UMPC manufacturer WiBrain have closed their doors. After the upcoming WiBrain I1 was apparently shelved, with no new information on the company site and feedback from internal sources that “nothing is happening” with the new model, now the whole WiBrain site has been pulled.
Wibrain have announced an update to their UMPC line, introducing the Intel Atom processor and HSDPA mobile broadband. The new I1 brings casing tweaks as well as hardware changes to the previous VIA C7-powered B1, including 1.1GHz and 1.3GHz Menlow (Silverthorne/Poulsbo) CPUs and a choice of storage: 30GB or 60GB HDD, or 64GB SSD.
The WiBrain is a full function ultra mobile pc weighing in at about 1.15-pounds. There’s a 4.8-inch WSVGA touch screen display between a split keyboards. There’s a neat pop-up video camera on top of the unit.
There is some new design features, specifically some new buttons and locations for old buttons, the keyboard is still split though. This device has a fairly amazing 4.8” WSVGA touch screen too, with a 1024×600 resolution which is pretty good for a UMPC.
It now runs a VIA C7M processor which gives it a whopping 1.2GHz clock speed, VX700 for graphics, and up to 1GB of RAM. You can get your choice of 30 or 60 gigabytes of storage as well.
If you’re in the market for a UMPC and hold function over form, the B1 from Wibrain might just catch your fancy.
The B1 looks very strange, and I’d probably pass it by at first for that reason. However, the keyboard placement is logical, and gives it the feel of an old Game Gear (which smoked the old GameBoy back in the day, even if it never really caught on) and even has a trackpad that you can use near your right thumb.
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