It’s had nowhere near the coverage of their S5 MID, but the Viliv X70 looks set to gain a whole lot more attention now that preorder pricing has started to emerge. Importer Dynamism is listing the X70 for $599; whether or not you think that’s good value for a 7-inch touchscreen UMPC with 6 days standby, it’s certainly well priced against the S5.
From a web tablet render to one almost on the market. Viliv’s X70 UMPC may have only half the screen size of the CrunchPad, but it’s capable of a whole lot more than simple web browsing and media playback; jkOnTheRun have followed up their first-impressions video with a more comprehensive usage report.
Color us a little confused on this one, but we’ll never knowingly turn down a cool touchscreen tablet. According to our tipster, you’re looking at the 8-inch wireless control unit for Hong Kong telecoms provider PCCW’s new Eye 2 service, which will blend multimedia services like NowTV, Moov and Snaap! with video calling.
Video of the device in action after the cut
Viliv have announced their plans for Computex, and there are a few interesting MID and UMPC tidbits that should keep them ahead of the game in the ultramobile space. As well as obviously demonstrating the latest versions of their existing set-to-ship range, Viliv have promised a 10-inch screen MID (possibly a netbook) and a 4.8-inch MID with keyboard, potentially as in the mockup shown here.
Live photos of the Clevo TN70M convertible UMPC/netbook have emerged, courtesy of importer Mobilx. The 7-inch touchscreen device squeezes in a full QWERTY keyboard, 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU and roughly three hours battery life under load. It also has a webcam and fingerprint reader.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a UMPC from Clevo – all the way back to March 2008 and the TN120R, in fact – but the company is back with the 1.33GHz Atom Z520 powered Clevo TN70M. Based around a 7-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, the 904g UMPC packs WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and optional WLAN.
Video demo after the cut
Hackintosh netbooks are nothing new, these days, and so the more extreme OS X tweakers move on to more esoteric hardware. We’ve already seen Sony’s VAIO UX-series UMPC running Apple’s OS, but Micro PC Talk user perrin21 has a particularly slick setup: a subtly modified Sony VAIO UX 390 running OS X 10.5.7 as though it just stepped off a Cupertino production line.
Video demo after the cut
OQO have confirmed that they have closed down, with no remaining stock to be liquidated and no provision to repair or service any of their UMPC range. In a statement on OQOTalk, the shortfall is blamed on “financial constraints”; according to Bob Rosin, SVP of sales and marketing at the company, a deal is being explored with another PC vendor, over the OQO technology and engineering team.
The first SmartQ 7 MID has landed with its brave buyer, Steve over at UMPC Portal, and he’s done the sensible thing (or at least the sensibly geeky thing) and shot over two hours of unboxing and video testing. That may seem extreme, but at $189 for a 7-inch touchscreen internet browsing device with WiFi, USB host and more, many people are wondering if SmartQ have delivered on what Microsoft first promised with the UMPC platform.
Video unboxing after the cut
A recent Intel presentation has tipped the company’s upcoming Medfield processor as destined for smartphones, rather than merely as the Atom replacement for netbooks and MIDs that the CPU has so far been assumed. Intel expect “mainstream smartphones” using the 32nm Medfield in 2011, with the processor’s smaller board size and reduced standby power both making it suitable for compact devices.
JP
