Although it's still proudly donning the proverbial
prototype badge, a nifty machine from
Compal was spotted at Computex running Windows CE 5.0 in favor of the
battery-draining XP or Vista. Simply dubbed the UMD (Ultra Mobile Device), this ultraportable supposedly pulled double duty as a smartphone and even played nice with
HSDPA. Internally, it featured a 532MHz Freescale i.MX31 processor, 512MB of NAND Flash memory, 256MB of DDR RAM, a 4.3-inch WVGA display, 802.11b/g WiFi,
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a slide out QWERTY keyboard, trackpad, hot keys, built-in speaker and microphone, a 1.3-megapixel CMOS camera, SIM card slot, and a miniSD slot to hold excess media. Additionally, it boasted USB connectivity, a headphone jack, a meager five-watt power consumption rating that enabled nearly five hours of battery life, and the obligatory media playing and Skype-friendly applications that you would expect on such a multifaceted device. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell whether Compal will come through on bringing this thing to market, but we're sure there's a niche that would be all over it should it eventually roll out.
[Via
Wired]
posted Jun 14th 2007 7:39PM
i'd hit it.... just tell me when they come out!
sony's gonna say something about this...
That's not a UMPC...It's a pdaphone.
Jesse; I agree. Running Windows Mobile makes it a PDA Phone not a UMPC.
But it is a nice PDA Phone if they would think about changing the color.
Aaron: Windows CE != Windows Mobile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_ce
Windows Mobile = Windows CE.
But still, this is not a umpc. It has the specs of a pdaphone, it's the size of a pdaphone, and it has the os of a pdaphone...It's a pdaphone.
Windows Mobile is not Windows CE (as tobin said in code)
it is a type of it
even the good old Sega Dreamcast had a type of Windows CE
Compal probably made their own
finally something to put the iphone to shame. That could do some damage in the smartphone world. Too bad a major player isn't bringing it to market.
finally? what about HTC's PDA phones?
The Samsng i730 has been killing the phone for years...As does the i760.
more info here.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20070607/133773/
seems there's a nice BLACK colour too!
its nice
but that 5 hours of battery life is pretty shitty
I wouldnt get it even if it did come out because of that
If priced right, this could be a nice internet tablet to compete against the Nokia N800.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20070607/133773/
in BLACK too it seems
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20070607/133773/?SS=imgview&FD=291939425&ad_q
the black one up close....mmmmmmmmm
unfortunatly i believe this is going to be like the SHARP EM ONE.
it is a data only device, the specs say HSDPA but no phone like frequencies. hope it is not hust data as it would be such a waste. throw in a at LEAST a 2 meg auto-focus cam and a multimedia chip (qualcomm or nvidia) and this is a great phone.
IF IT CAN'T RUN YOUTUBE, PORNOTUBE, play FLASH games or use JAva Chat environments, then ITS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME.
Why is this newsworthy? First of all, as so many have stated, Windows mobile or CE =! UMPC. Also, so many similar/better devices already exist from HTC, Sharp and Samsung.
"...running Windows CE 5.0 in favor of the battery-draining XP or Vista"
The reason for this was probably less likely battery concerns but the fact that XP or Vista can't fit on 512MB Nand flash and a decent PC os would slow to a crawl on this hardware.
Windows XP Embedded can fit into a 32MB flash drive.
Windows mobile kiks full OS ass, OK it can't run most of the cool apps out there , but if someone bothered to write them for WM then it would make XP/Vista redundant, I'm glad to see the murmurings of a movement against computers and OS's that use huge amounts of power for no good reason.
At the moment programmers writing for desktop PC's have no limits they just bang in features and let the huge ram cope with it all, Nokia should start making PC's with the same restraints as a mobile phone, you'd start to see highly efficient apps and hardware that performs just as well.
A laptop running XP is a goddam joke...bloatware that requires hardware sucking huge Li-ion batteries dry within hours and cooling fans, in 20yrs time we will see this as the steampunk era.
I would definately enjoy a winCE device over the fugly smartphone or windows mobile, simply because it operates more like a desktop... and looks like it as well. This is something I would carry around, provided the battery life could be extended.
Nice -- a PDA with a bigger than VGA+ screen, and a processor fast enough for Skype. With existing WinCE software, it will do some cool things:
1) with TCPMP, it will play typical VGA sized xvid/divx movies (hopefully while using A2DP Bluetooth headphones)
2) with TomTom Navigator and a Bluetooth connected GPS receiver, it will be a decent GPS/navigation unit (with a big display)
3) with Skype for PocketPC, it will do VOIP over WiFi access.
I'd rather have a full-sized SD slot for 4/8+GB storage, but other than that pretty nice.
World's
Biggest
Smartphone.
And
It's
Not
A
UMPC.
And
It's
Not
A
UMPC.
It's
A
PDA.
to reiterate what everyone else has said:
IF IT DOESN'T HAVE A X86 PROCESSOR AND RUN WINDOWS XP OR VISTA, ITS NOT A UMPC ITS A FREAKING POCKET PC!
WOW THIS IS SO COOL!!!!!!! if it is really 350$ yes im going to buy it! windows mobile bleh, CE5 is cool.
Windows CE is what windows mobile is based on, but it has far more functionality. It has a normal start menu and a normal desktop. There are very good Windows CE office programs available, and CE can also run almost all ppc programs. I have a NEC MobilePro 900c with CE 4.2 ($80 from eBay), and it is great for spreadsheets/ word processing/ internet browsing etc.
Most people only need the basic functions of a computer, so for them something like this is great.
Compal never has built quality equipment. They are a Con Company