Android is slowly but surely appearing on a number of UMPCs and MIDs, but if you actually want to buy one – as opposed to just read about it – your options are still pretty limited. Over at jkOnTheRun our friend Kevin C. Tofel’s patience has expired and so he’s loaded Android 1.6 onto his Samsung Q1UP UMPC, courtesy of the Android-x86 project.
There’s a lot of discussion about the role of convergence of devices. Everywhere you go, it seems that someone’s pushing the notion that every function needs to be converged into one device. Now convergence is a great idea: the idea of carrying one device instead of multiple devices is compelling, but is it really realistic? Sure, I’d rather carry one device than two, but our research shows consumers will carry two or, in some age demographics, they’ll even carry as many as three.
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If eviGroup's intentions appeal but their Wallet MID's 5-inch WVGA display simply isn't enough for your browsing needs, hold on for their second device. According to an insider, the French company's second-gen tablet will not only have a larger touchscreen display but switch out the Wallet's ARM11 processor for an Intel Atom CPU.
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If there's one thing capitalism has taught us, it's that competition is usually good for prices. Newegg have just joined Dynamism in offering the Viliv X70 UMPC, the 7-inch Korean touchscreen tablet, which you'd expect to mean prices were pushed down. Unfortunately Newegg don't seem to have got that memo; their prices are actually a little more expensive than the existing offers.
It’s not quite the same as having a Viliv S7 here in our sweaty, bitten-to-the-quick hands, but we’ll certainly settle for an unboxing video for that vicarious, new-gadget thrill. As we commented the other day, several S7 units have been winging their way to reviewers worldwide, with jkkmobile and jkOnTheRun both receiving theirs this week. From the former we have an unboxing, while the latter has a live gallery and video demo.
Video unboxing after the cut
Chalk another one up to bizarre branding: you’re looking at the Pierre Cardin PC-729 UMPC, the handiwork of Shenzhen Industries, and while you might assume the Chinese firm have “borrowed unofficially” the designer branding, in actual fact this is the result of a legitimate licensing deal. The PC-729 has a 7-inch 800 x 480 WVGA resistive touchscreen, 1.2GHz VIA C7-M processor and 16GB SSD, and is set to hit Chinese shelves priced at 2980 yuan ($436).
Importers Dynamism have released pricing and specification details for the Viliv S7, the latest ultraportable touchscreen device from the Korean company. Coming after the surprisingly popular S5 and well-received X70, the S7 adds a QWERTY keyboard and uses a more traditional netbook-style form-factor; according to Dynamism, when it drops in the US it’ll be priced from $629.
With the sales success of the Viliv S5 and X70 MIDs, all eyes are on the Viliv S7 to see if the company can make 7-inch touchscreen convertible netbooks popular too. Yet to go up for preorder in the US or Europe, an S7 has dropped into the hands of UMPC Fever in Hong Kong; they’ve been sharing their first impressions.
We can’t help but think that if OQO had seen this much interest a few months back, they may not have gone bankrupt. An OQO Model 2+ UMPC – the company’s most recent model, complete with OLED touchscreen, Intel Atom 1.86GHz processor and integrated Qualcomm Gobi 3G WWAN – is currently listed on eBay, with bidding already at $5,100.
It’s an interesting challenge. Lots of mobile devices that are all vying for the consumer pocket (and wallet). But just how many devices will consumers carry with them at any one time? The answer is important as that also helps define which devices will be successful and which ones will fail. Conventional wisdom holds that most consumers prefer to carry only a single device, and while that wisdom is correct it only tells a partial story. We’ve done some interesting research at Interpret that says there’s more here than conventional wisdom would indicate and that consumers are willing to carry more than one device; however there’s also an upper limit on that number.
JP
