New Samsung Q1b to sport Via C7-M processor?

We've all come to accept the fact that the UMPC hasn't had the heroic launch Microsoft had originally intended, and a fair share of the blame seems to get placed on the (relatively) high price tags, but more costly is possibly the unbearably short battery life of many of these handhelds. Even though the momentous hype saw some of these bad boys initially sold out, it didn't take long for folks to start griping over the "standard" 2.5 hours of battery life, even though bulking up a "ultramobile" machine seemed a counterintuitive solution. Samsung has apparently went back to the drawing board, and is supposedly planning on swapping in a new, more energy efficient processor to preserve those precious minutes of life. If CNET UK is to be believed, Samsung's forthcoming Q1b will be the one to house a Via C7-M chip -- while speculation involving this move piqued our interest previously, bringing it to fruition is undoubtedly a smart move. Those energy-focused engineers at Samsung are also packing massive 32GB SSDs into future UMPC models (namely the NT-Q1-SSD); the Q1b will reportedly sport a 60GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM, which could make (somewhat) commendable strides in keeping the UMPC powered up longer on a single charge, but pairing the Via C7-M with an SSD would seem the optimal (albeit costliest) solution. Regardless, all this power saving definitely won't come cheap, and while we don't know what the Via-equipped Q1b will set you back (nor if it will eventually pack that swank flash hard drive), it should still be a slightly easier pill to swallow if it operates longer than an extended lunch break.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

[dextro @ Aug 22nd 2006 9:48AM]

I'm starting to think I could build a UMPC on my own in a micro-itx format or something 8-)

[Kevin C. Tofel @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:58AM]

It's now confirmed via the Q1b manual, which is online at Samsung. Since it's a Via ULV, the chip can run between 1.0 to 1.5 Ghz; not sure which specific clockspeed that Samsung is going with...

[Pedro @ Aug 22nd 2006 11:19AM]

dextro, look into the gumstix platform (http://www.gumstix.com/), but trust me, don't try to get a screen working with a serial interface unless it's going to be text only and you can handle using a fair few shift registers :p.