Ultra Mobile PCs Are Going to Be Very Important

[Ed Hardy]

Brighthand's Editor-in-Chief explains why he thinks Microsoft's and Intel's vision for Ultra Mobile PCs is going to have a big impact on the mobile world... in a few years.

Read more at www.brighthand.com/article/UMPC_Editorial

[webwizardc88]

I, for one, doubt they will ever have any significant impact. A UMPC is simply a shrunken-down Tablet PC. Considering Tablet PCs have not really had much of their own impact (most mobile users still use tradional notebooks), it cant be expected that something based off the technology of a tablet PC would.

It is probable that any impact the UMPC does have wont be on the PDA market anyway, given that is is truely a totally seperate class of device. PDAs are tradionally small pocketable devices that make one's life more convenient or more entertaining. A UMPC will not be pocketable or convenient, in fact it's only major draw (i think) will be the potential for alot of computer power to be packed into the thing.

And yes, i know mine is an extremely unpopular opinion... but luckily i dont really care (no arrogance intended)

[MleB]

If, on the other hand, one could take the UMPC (running XP or whatever 'full' OS is current), include a USB port for occasional access to a printer (or whatever) and be able to add a portable UWK keyboard so that one could do true document creation on the fly, then I might just be interested.

Have an optional home base charger that includes a DVD/CD burner for software installation and archiving.

Notebook or laptop computers are rapidly losing their portability as they contrive to be gaming machines, widescreen movie viewers and desktop replacements. And PDAs offer portability, but they are companions to your desktop, not a stand-alone solution.

A sub-$500 UMPC with full OS and a $70 UWK and I'll be first in line to replace my PDA and notebook....

[surur]

To get the advances in price and battery life, the power of this device would more or less have to stand still. If we still used 1990's monochrome laptops they would cost $100 and work for 3 days on one charge.

Its like this: Power, Price, Battery Life - pick any two.

Surur

[PdaJah]

1. My Vaio laptop has 6.5hr battery life therefore UMPC should be better than 3 hrs
2. I like the idea of XP on a mini tablet. I prefer the stability of XP over WM5.
3. What is the future of WM5 in the context of UMPC and Vista?

[w12]

I had an Ultra Mobile PC years ago, it was called a Dauphin.

http://popcorn.cx/computers/dauphin/dtr-1/

Yes, it had the few hours battery life (at full speed) it was clunky and ran the standard windows, ssloow.

The industry has been goign from stupidity to stupidity. Wondering in the wilderness, wondering why charging more than a laptop for something that is less, results in modest sales. Continually trying to pump the power, and features, at the expense of battery life size and convenience, to run operating systems that even gives desktops trouble.

When I went to sell my Dauphin, I had a guy come up and say that he was a pen computer apps designer and the Dauphin wasn't enough, he needed something with 20MB of memory, not 4MB). His apps were forms, something even an z80 based PDA could do, if he had the intelligence to realise that he was wasting his and his customers time and money. You must note, that 2-4MB was still in the ball park at that time, and 20MB, was far out there in expansion terms. Why was he so gullible to get sucked in, because he was fed the line by MS that he needed to be using their system, and was too stupid to realise different.

Back in those days there was a XT palmtop with 640*400 (or was that 200) display that could get upto 100hrs battery life (and had hidden CGA video port on it connector). I think it was called the Poquet. Psion had previously had a XT Msdos laptop that could go over 100 hours on good batteries as well. Now we have 2 hours and backup batteries.

Yes, the new form factor will be a valid choice, in a few years time, when the processor will be suitable for vista, when it will consumer 0.5W, and the size can easily fit around a 5.5 inch screen. But until then I got one word of warning remember the "Dauphin".

-------------------------------
A new design, a new breed.

Yes, a z80 and XT can do half the tasks most form driven devices needed, but those days are gone, and now we need things capable of handling more commercial jobs, ands consumer entertainment services instead. But there is stuff out there already, just see past the word "PC" and "dauphin".

If we look at PDAs, we realise that most the stuff for any of this stuff is there. If you look at game consoles announce (GPX32, PSP) you see platforms that models for the commercial/business sector could be based on.

But if you scrapped the hi-end stuff, and stuck to what you really need, you would find that modern PDAs and these handheld consoles are over powered for your requirements. If you got rid of much of the multimedia you will see that you only needs tens of Mhz, not 1000's.

Mobile phone platforms, with Java, are suitable for this. For starts there are a number of platforms with modest multimedia capability at a modest price, that interfaced to a screen, USB, wireless interface, and digitiser instantly make a consumer aware multimedia PDA platform. Now you can measure battery life in tens of hours+ (realising that you can fit a big battery in a case with a 5.5-10inch screen).

Java then becomes the platform for cross development (given a suitable pen engine, or keyboard). You instantly also have Mobile communications to base.

Take one step back and get a phone platform with no advanced multimedia functions (maybe with mp3 like playback) and Java and there is the bases for a machine that might have 100 hours+ battery life again, but suitable for many of the mundane jobs out there.

The Apple newton laptop (what was it's name?) was one successful example of a stripped down product that did this as a laptop alternative (but price is more a key these days).

Why doesn't the Mobile companies do this, well they are there to make lots of money selling trendy gear, this is not their interest. You can see the Nokia Tablet, has no mobile function and is expensive for the capability. But there is an opportunity for outside companies to leverage the volume benefits of these platforms and their parts, that lead them to be cheaper, and mould them and Java to suit. They do not need MS, or Palm, or even Apple to do this, all they need is Sun's Java platform, and piggyback the hardware designs, they don't need to charge exuberant pricing. Somebody like Sun is the perfect person to extend the Java platform in this way. The real advantage is wen you make consumer products that can be cross made into business products to raise volume and lower cost.

Sorry, this was a bit more than I planned to write.

I am looking at designing my own platform (non mobile and non Java) based on previous work of mine, with the objective of a thousand hour battery life for a pocket tablet, and with limited multimedia capabilities. The limits are what you tie yourself too, it aren't going to run Windows Vista, but will be more oriented towards old Windows CE and Palm like functionality, which is just enough 90% of the time for commercial non-executive use.

[pixelator]

I think there's going to be a splash, but only because people are ignorant enough not to realize this has been done before - and better.

There are micro notebooks with swivel screens, smaller, lighter and more capable devices. $1000+ buys a decent (and not necessarily much bigger) laptop with a real keyboard and DVD-RW. Hell, even Apple has an iBook that's pretty small for $1K.

This is a tablet PC made a little smaller. Without a keyboard or optic drive, a small laptop (even if a bit larger or more expensive) will still be the preferred choice. These need to be cheaper, more efficient and equipped with a foldable/slide/cover type keyboard. At that bulky thickness, it also could probably house a DVD.

Maybe when flash HD's become more prolific we can see one of these really fully equipped and competitive with subnotebooks, but for now, they're just tablets.

[wshwe]

Soon HP and Palm will each only sell 1-2 non-phone PDA models. Dell dropped the X30 and now only sells the X51. UMPCs will be niche products like non-phone PDAs are now. One of the chief limitations of PDAs and UMPCs is screen size. This is 1 reason why many people carry 15" and 17" laptops instead of 11" or 12" models.

I see the popularity of laptops increasing instead of going down. I think laptops will eventually capture 70-80% of the PC market.

[Gerard]

I like it. Even at 900MHz and 3 hours of battery life, this first Origami is a lot more powerful than the only PC I've ever owned; a 600MHz PIII notebook from more than 5 years ago. That old beast has been a cranky one, but mostly owing to running a lousy Acer Win98SE OS. The 15" screen has always been more than I wanted, and the 7 pound weight has meant it never leaves the house, making it effectively a desktop. More convenient of course, in that I can hide it in a closet for a week when not needing it (which is a lot of the time).

A few months back I got a small DVD player at a bargain price. It's cheaply made, noisy, and the resolution of the 7" screen is terrible, but it's easily large enough to watch and enjoy movies with headphones or plugged into my stereo. A 7" screen a couple of feet from my eyes is the equivalent of a 50" widescreen TV across the room, and at about USD$100 a heck of a lot better value.

In this context, with my very limited interest in paying top dollar for technology for its own sake, the Origami is rather appealing. The resolution is going to be at least double that of my DVD player, so very watchable. It'll be lighter than that thing too, and less than half the thickness. At less than 1/3 the weight and 1/4 the dimensions of my old notebook, it'll be easy to toss into a small shoulderbag (something I usually have with me anyway) and take anywhere. If it works with a small infrared or Bluetooth folding keyboard, great, it's a notebook!

I don't want to have to carry a DVD/CD player around with me just because I want a computer with me. Ripping movies to DivX and keeping them on a small USB external hard drive is preferable, as is keeping software installers on such a drive rather than on CDs. Of course it's nice having a DVD player/recorder, but that should stay at home, for me anyway. Such a device will make it very tempting to finally buy a new computer.

I'd still not take it everywhere. Such a machine is still awkward to use like a PDA, so I foresee using the Toshiba for a good long time to come.

[Wail]

This seems like the perfect home server!

Currently I use an old Compaq desktop (measuring 2 feet tall, 1 ? feet deep, and 10? wide), connected to an LCD screen, two printers (over USB), a PCI WiFi card, two external Matrox hard drives; not to forget the keyboard and mouse.

Now, with something like the UMPC I can do without the keyboard, mouse, screen, and the huge footprint needed for a desktop. Not to forget the sheer ugliness of a desktop taking up that space.