03/09/06
Earlier today UMPC probably just became a new buzzword. What is it? Microsoft created a stir about a secrect project called oragami. They released the news at
CeBIT that oragami is a new form factor, UMPC, which stands for Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer.
So, what does this UMPC computer offer? Is it a PDA or a laptop?
They feature a touchscreen, a pen and dedicated buttons to open commonly used aplications. Microsoft beleives these may become as popular as cell phones. Will they? Who knows. They have hard drives in them that will go bad. The screens are very small- how many people want to look at a little LCD?
Who makes them?
Different manufacturers will be making the devices, including Samsung and ASUS. Can't wait to check out ASUS's UMPC. They will be running Windows XP.
So what else? Can you type on it? The keyboard will likely be an external device. They will be somewhat powerful, some sporting a Pentium M CPU & 512MB memory. This will be sure to make them run at a decent speed (for today's software), but even quite a few of our 4 year old laptops around the shop have 1024MB memory or more. They're going to be at least $600, but we're placing bets most will be around $1000 at first. They will probably be very easy to lose and funny looking to carry around. With them weighing in at <2lbs, the battery can't be very powerful and will likely die in 1.5 - 2hrs.
We'll have to wait and see how this one goes...
See it
here.
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