Our brethren over at Engadget Chinese just went hands-on with the Via NanoBook at Computex. Better yet, they seem to have unearthed the other, US-bound OEM: FIC (First International Computer) as it's known in Taiwan, or Everex as we know 'em Stateside. Makes sense given Everex's penchant for VIA C7-M procs in their StepNote series of laptops. The FIC CE260 they played with even had a prototype Skype-phone module in place of that oddball world clock insert seen previously. Also new is a date: they were told to expect the unit to show up in China and Europe (presumably under the Packard Bell branding) sometime in August. Engadget Chinese has tons of pics and first-hand impressions so be sure to click the "read" link below for a quick trip across the Pacific.

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]