Viliv S5 MID detailed impressions, now with video!
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Mar 11th 2009 7:46PM
posted Mar 11th 2009 7:46PM
We got to play with the Viliv S5 at CES, and now the gang at UMPC Portal have some detailed impressions they'd like to share with the world. The haptic touchscreen device has "one of the best" on-screen keyboards this reviewer's seen, although it pales in comparison to a physical keyboard. Other minor issues include a lack of a microphone and physical mouse pointer, though you could quite conceivably get along just fine without 'em. That said, this bad boy apparently has "an overall good feeling" that makes the reviewer want to use the device more and give the touchscreen typing situation "a chance." Kudos for the "incredibly impressive" battery life, and not even the lack of 3G and an SSD prevents him from declaring it "the best pocketable UMPC," one that "raises the bar." But that ain't all -- check out the video after the break for the handheld in all its glory.
nice.
palm pre/iphone competitor...(?)
I find it to be nice too but a bit redundant now when smart phones have flooded the market. There is hardly anything that the device can to better than a smart phone or netbook. It slightly fails when it comes to pocketability and also fail in the category of usability due to the small screen and lack of a physical keyboard. To me it's a beefed up PDA and there is a very tiny market for PDAs these days.
Its not a smart phone or a PDA, its a computer. Yes you could say that netbooks compete with it, but this is smaller than any netbook and the lack of keyboard (though understandably a consideration to some) can be seen as positive. Think about it, the screen is about the perfect size between portability and a good browser experience. Im sorry but the iphone, or any phone for that matter (exept the omnia 2 maybe?) has a screen that's just too small for any long time browsing.
My perfect devise would be a small slate tablet (8-10 in) with a actual OS, that has great battery life good resolution and maybe a active wacom digitizer for drawing and such. It also should be as thin as possible. This meets some of those standards and I hope companies take notice.
Martin: So what if it's technically a computer? You can't type of document on it, you can't demanding games and it's not like you do heavy multitasking on it. As for the browsing experience I wouldn't say it's much better than an iPhone, Experia, G1 or similar device as I can't imagine one would want to browse on a screen that small for longer than 30min. Even browsing on my 10 inch netbook is pushing it in terms of screen size and resolution.
The point is that although the specs for this device is worthy of a pat on the back, the device has very limited usability over a smart phone.
@Homeboy.
Limited, LIMITED?????!!!!!!!!!!!
It's got Windows xp on it, it's not a technically a computer, it is one. It's got the same specs as a Vaio P, only it's on XP ( Hallelujah). It' has 6-7 hours of video playing battery life, meaning with it's standby function, this is one of the few pc's that you can carry around with you all day and only recharge it at night so u can carry it all day tomorrow.
It does ( with the right codecs/player combo) 1080p with slight hiccup's , and 720p flawlessly on the mkv format
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvrYL2Xksig
I doubt any smartphone browser can beat this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGW1sEf1WJM
or this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psszo-9dsGk
Now chek out streetdeck 2:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=J35AOdit0Xw
Or, if u don't like the small, screen or screen keyboard( which I think is great btw) u can check his brothers:
www.myviliv.com/ces/main_s7.html
www.myviliv.com/ces/main_x70atom.html
oopss... not a phone.. haha
Wished the Archos 5 IMT came with bluetooth and better hardware buttons than those cheapy and now "peeling" off poor paint plastic job.
I'll take one, made by Apple, with 3G, plz :)
Idk why they wouldn't throw in a 3G radio and a microphone for the thing....
Now that's what I call true unboxing... no *beep* slow motion rubbing hands all over packing box, the device box, and redtapism. He just went straight to the subject. Nice work!
Damn, that's a hell of device accessories for a IMT that is that cheap. Even the $400+ *beeping* Archos doesn't come with any of these except the cheap-O headphones and an incomplete feature manual
couldn't get this on the 9th..
am I the only one thinking this is a rip off of the iphone 3g?
Yes. Yes you are.
urrrrr.... except for hte fact that it does not have 3G.
that is silly since the iPhone is a complete rip off of the Dell Axim 50v. They look identical.
Yes.
Are you the only one to not realize that the iPhone was a complete ripoff of many touch screen phones that came before? No, you're not. Most of the fans seem to forget their history. Yay.
Seems like it could be pretty cool.
Hate those damn fake keyboards. If it was a slider I would order one asap. I'll wait for the OQO 2+.
Makes me look forward to the Android Archos phone....
Ok , now back to reality , remember here in USA success equals sales. Ask any CEO. At first impression we want to compare to iPhone/ipod touch. Now for the harsh truth reasons y it will not sell here in USA, 1)touch was invented $229.this $400+.
2) in middle of global depression who gonna trust viliv brand over appleipod touch???exactly no one. So with that said another product killed by the iPhone/touch.
Except for the fact that this is an actual computer, and not just a smart phone. Think of it more like a netbook without a keyboard and you'll see that there are plenty of people wanting this.
Shank, are you some sort of bot? You write the same shite everytime. You are the worst troll that I have ever seen. You comment on most articles, but have no creativity. Nothing you write is interesting in any way. If I were you, I would kill myself. Right now. Are you Steve Jobs?
nice
This looks very nice. I hope the +/- $700 price is deemed too high to maintain in this economy and that it comes in a bit cheaper... but I can't see how... the components must come close to that cost anyway.
By the way, the UI looks pretty clever.... why can't we have this on a standard windows install? I wouldn't mind skipping the start menu and just bouncing my way through a series of cubed spheres. Not at all a bad way to get to a destination.
I was skeptical of this device until I saw this promotional video for Streetdeck II, a car navigation application for Windows.
http://www.streetdeck.com/default.aspx?PostID=38
Mostly I'm impressed by Streetdeck, but I also was surprised by how capable the S5 is in running it.
Yeah but for $99 asking price for SD II, it's quite a bit high. I mean they should make the Navigation pkg a bit cheaper otherwise no one will buy it.
If you already own the S5, that's a lot of $ already spent and I can almost best most pple own a GPS device these days. So to pay another $99 for the convenience isn't something lots of people will want to do.
@Jimmy Jones: Most other computer based navigation software runs between 60-100 bucks. iGuidance runs for 90 bucks and Garmin mobile pc is about the same price. For Streetdeck, $99 bucks you get Nav software, plus a nice friendly touchscreen interface to interact with your music, videos, etc.
I think the interesting thing about Streetdeck is that it was originally designed around the idea of having a computer permanently installed in your car. So it's designed to handle all the functions you would associated with a car-puter and car stereo, and to be easily controlled while you're driving.
If you price a Viliv S5 against car-puters, the S5 is a much easier and less expensive way of having a computer in your car. And not only will it work in your car, you can take it out and use it for about 6 hours on battery power. A car-puter can cost up to $2000 plus installation, accessories, etc. Based on the activities on the Streetdeck blog, the Streetdeck guy is turning towards these UMPCs as a better alternative to a built-in car-puter, which makes a lot of sense, as long as you don't mind a smaller screen than you can install in a car.
At the same time, a piece of software that provides easy-to-use touch and gesture controls for GPS, multi-media files (i doubt it plays video files), satellite radio, etc. is exactly what these tiny computers benefit from the most. Although this guy had an in-car environment in mind when he designed the software, Streetdeck is by far the slickest touch interface i've seen for any application running on one of these UMPCs with touchscreens. It seems like the guy could branch out with his existing UI design to offering other variants that handle other functions for different settings.
So, I just find that interesting. I'm personally not in the market for a computer to put in my car right now, and I have no particular interest in a tiny computer that runs Windows.
Yeah, but can it run Mac OS X?
700 Euros! Forget it.
Possible to get a linux version for less $$?
I ordered this device a couple weeks ago from dynamism during their US launch. I have been using a Nokia N800 for the past year and a half and carry it with me everywhere. The N800 suffers from a painfully slow CPU and its funky build of Linux (Maemo) with a severe lack of ported applications that run on the device.
While fatter than the N800, the S5 is a full computer complete with USB host, VGA out, GPS and a X86 CPU that runs Windows XP, Win 7, Linux or whatever (dunno if anyone has tried to turn it into a hackintosh). I don't see why you couldn't run a virtual machine or two although you would run into some serious memory limitations with only 1GB onboard. Text to speech and voice recogniton over a BT headset should prove interesting. If 6 hour movie playback on a single charge is true then surely running all day (not s3 standby) with the screen off should be possible I would think. If the Wi-Fi is sensitive enough this should be fun for wardriving. Does anybody still wardrive?
The lack of a keyboard and 3G is gonna be a dealbreaker for some but data tethering and an external BT keyboard and mouse are possible. Hopefully, this should serve as my UMPC, nav and media player. Mine came with the car kit so I'm eager to try the uber cool looking Streetdeck 2. Being able to use a full office suite - Finally! Why noone ever ported openoffice to Maemo for the N8xx I'll never know. I believe the Atom CPU has enough muscle to handle MAME and SNES emulation. Old games like quake I, II or simcity should be playable. And yes, they do make bluetooth joysticks apparently (who knew)? I saw somewhere that people were able to play WOW on this thing - thats completely nuts! Hell even 720P movie playback to a HDTV usig VGA out is possible. How many pocketable devices on the market can do that now? And how many of those for this price? None that I know of.
My complaints are few so far. I really liked the kickstand prop on my N800 which this doesn't have. IMO, this is probably something all handheld MIDs should have. No internal mic or SD card slots were boneheaded moves. Mine has a 60GB Samsung 1.8" magnetic drive. I guess this was a cost saving move but SSDs and UMPCs were made for each other. Could try cramming one of those in after the warranty runs out and SSD prices are lower if the BIOS supports them. Although not Viliv's fault, I'm waiting for someone to make a good belt clip case for this. On second thought, wearing this on one's belt might severely limit their ability to ever get laid again....