UMPC or the ultra mobile PC’s were touted as the devices that will change life and provide good computing device on the go. Many concepts came and some were near about laptops while other were hybrid of phone-cum-PC.
Here a brief review of the best UMPC’s that you saw in 2006 based on looks design and yes the most important performance.
1) Kohjisha SA1F00
This is almost a laptop with 500MHz AMD processor 7-inch 800 x 480 screen with 8 GB HDD and host of other features like WI-FI, Bluetooth CF card slots. It’s priced in the range of $750 to $1000 depending upon specs you choose.
2) Sony VAIO UX Series
It’s a good UMPC with 1.2 GHz Core Solo processor but the price tag of $1700 and above depending upon specs can put away many possible buyers.
3) ASUS R2H
A Celeron 900 MHz processor base UMPC this supports Windows XP and is priced at £799 in UK.
4) Raon Digital Vega
This one has 4.3-inch screen with the maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 with RAM of 256MB and 30 GB HDD. Price is in the range of $978 to $1016 depending upon specs.
5) Fujitsu P1610
This UMPC has an 8.9-inch display with 1.2 GHz solo processor, RAM of 512MB coupled with WI-Fi and battery life of 3.5 hours, it is priced at $1649. Link photo: http://www.ixbt.com/short/images/p1610.jpg
Here is what you can look forward to in the year 2007
1) VISTAGAMI not Origami The number one UMPC to look forward to will be (as the reports are suggesting) Vistagami another Microsoft foray in the UMPC market after the well known debacle of Origami. It is supposed that this new venture will have better battery life and hopefully become first UMPC to support Vista.
2) HTC Athena
The other UMPC to watch out for is HTC Athena Half Phone Half UMPC. A UMPC styled device with full QWERTY keyboard powered by Windows mobile 5.0 and having 2-megapixel camera with GPS.
3) Samsung SPH-P9000
Samsung has also showcased their concept ULTRA Portable PC ‘SPH-P9000′ a folding keyboard UMPC with 5-inch screen and 256 Mb DDR RAM with WiMax support.
4) Fujitsu CD Case-sized UMPC
Fujitsu has also Show Cased their concept folding UMPC which when folded is of the size of CD case with 8-inch display
One of the major disappointment for all the fans of the UMPC was the pathetic battery life of them although it saved you from carrying larger laptops all the time but on an average the battery life never lasted a working day.
