Not every mobile computing device has to fit in your pocket. Intel is hoping that users will fall in love with some new tiny PCs based on a new Intel platform. And they are so anxious to get them into your greedy little hands that they expect to get products out this quarter. This is at least an amazing six months earlier than previous estimates.

We're so used to vaporware and devices which never show up on the market that it's more than a little surprising to hear of a schedule for a whole new class of devices to be moved up like this. But we welcome it with open arms. Maybe even with open wallets.

According to TG Daily (http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/06/intel_umpc/), there are two waves of devices.

The first Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) are now expected quarter from Samsung, Asus and Founder. They will have "ULV Pentium M processors with 90 nm Dothan core as well as a 915GMS chipset."

The second set of devices gets even better and are expected later this year, with new low-power processors. They "... will include devices from LGE, Acer and Averatec and run Windows Vista."

These UMPC devices will boast the following (but maybe not all right away):
* One week standby time
* Eight hours continuous operation
* WiFi
* Wireless WAN (maybe EVDO or HSDPA)
* GPS

There is no specific statement that these devices are expected to run standard desktop releases of Windows, or something close to it, but that seems to be what is being intimated.

Price ranges have not been announced, so we don't have much more to go on that the TG Daily speculation that it should be coming out at a significantly lower price point than the $2000 OQO handheld computers.

In the next few months more details should appear, and we'll find out if this is for real or just another sneaky way of creating some buzz to test the market.

(Via engadget.com (http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/07/intels-ultra-mobile-pc-shipping-this-quarter/))

Call me old-fashioned, but I don't see the point... So you have something that is neither as cheap, small, or simple as a PDA, yet not as complex and powerful as a laptop (and certainly not as powerful as a desktop). Where does this really fit in?

I can see someone having a laptop as their main computer (and indeed mine has been in the past), but I can't see them having something like this as their main computer... Too little power, too much potential to get accidentally damaged, I think.

<conspiracy-theory>They'll run Vista, hmm? (The second 'batch', that is.) And only Vista, I suppose. All part of MS' plan to force people onto Vista...</conspiracy-theory>

I'm sure that if these devices get popular, someone will figure out how to put Ubuntu or some flavor of Linux on it. That seems to be the sport of the day... putting Linux on anything!

Intel will not design a 'Vista' only machine. That is not their business model.

I think BobR's remark is generally correct, this is a kind of 'dry test' to gauge market reaction. This is not the first time we've heard about this form factor, and it is one that could make tablets viable. Price will be the key.

MS does not need an evil plan to coerce Vista usage, there's no conspiracy here. OEMs will simply start shipping new computers with Vista and stop shipping computers with XP, and that is how most licenses of Windows are sold.