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, 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)