Pocketables

Would you carry around a PC if it gave your MID Windows capabilities?

Over the weekend I got bored and looked over to the shelf where my Viliv S5 has been faithfully collecting dust for me since I got my first iPad. I still remember what a technological marvel it was back when I got it, all the way back in the old days. 2 years ago, that is. Feels like a different century, almost. 

I thought it was a pity to leave it on the shelf with nothing do do. With the two batteries I have for it, it is after all a 5-inch Windows 7 PC that runs for 5+5 hours or so. That's not a small feat, even in 2011. I decided to start from scratch, restored the entire partition to the factory image, and jumped onto the Pocketables forums to find out how to get those HID drivers installed to make Windows see the touch screen as a touch screen, not a mouse. Some tinkering, installing, uninstalling and optimization later I had a fresh Viliv S5 in my hands. And then I remembered why I stopped using the thing: you can't really fit very powerful (in Windows-terms) hardware into a 5-inch device. But do you really have to in order to use Windows on your MID?

ITG xpPhone 2 to be released in January, will run Windows 8 later

Last year around this time, ITG released its first xpPhone. That phone ran Windows Embedded Standard 2009, but this time, the company has decided to step it up a bit. The xpPhone 2 will run Windows 7 (at first) and will be upgradable to Windows 8 whenever it's released. 

The second iteration of ITG's UMPC/smartphone hybrid has some pretty decent specs, especially in comparison to the Fujitsu LOOX F-07C that I reviewed last week. For starters, the new xpPhone will sport a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, 2GB of RAM, and up to 112GB of SSD storage space. All of those specs are wrapped nicely under a 4.3-inch display in a body that is slimmer than the original. 

Like with most awesome pieces of hardware like this, we haven't heard anything about pricing or exact release dates; it'll simply be sometime in January. As for price, I'd say to expect it to be somewhere around the range of the previous device: $750-$850 sounds plausible to me. 

The F-07C was a pretty good UMPC, even with its lower specs. I predicted that there might be some awesome devices coming because of Windows 8, and since the new xpPhone has better specs, I think that prediction might just come true.

[Engadget]

Fujitsu LOOX F-07C review

When the iPhone was introduced way back in 2007, it not only brought a new way of thinking about smartphones, but also helped to dig a deep, gravelike hole in which the beloved UMPCs and MIDs that Pocketables used to cover would reside. 

But even with Android and iOS and even QNX starting to fill the hole that the dying UMPC devices created, there may still be a market for those two categories of products. Fujitsu obviously thinks so, anyway, and released its LOOX F-07C UMPC/smartphone hybrid. It runs both Windows 7 and Symbian. Obviously, Windows 7 makes it a UMPC and Symbian runs the phone side of things. But how does that all work out in the long run? 

Well, read on to find out.

Dell chooses Windows 8 over Android for tablets

Dell is a manufacturer known mostly for their desktop and laptop PCs, but lately they have begun branching out into the tablet market. Their Dell Streak 5 and Dell Streak 7 Android tablets carved out a niche with some users, and their future roadmaps have an even heavier focus on tablets.

However, while it was at first assumed that Dell would stick with Android for at least some of their future tablets, the company just announced that they will be betting on Windows 8 for all upcoming tablets. In the words of CEO Michael Dell, "Android is certainly another opportunity as well, but that market has not developed to the expectations they would have had."

Basically, it sounds like Dell has been unimpressed by the performance of their aforementioned Android devices, and as such have decided to abandon the platform. Windows 8 certainly seems to be a great alternative choice for tablets, and I know we would all like to see some new UMPCs, especially from a well-known company like Dell.

Still, it seems odd for Dell to completely abandon Android, even if they do have other plans. Do you think this will turn out to be a good decision, or has Dell just missed the boat in terms of tablets? 

[Android and Me]

Kohjinsha SC3 runs Windows 8 wonderfully

While UMPCs have basically gone away, we still have a sweetspot for news stories about them. So when we found that the Kohjinsha SC3 is among the older devices capable of running Windows 8, we simply became overly excited and just had to bring you a story about it. 

According to a post on our very own forums, the SC3 has the potential to run Windows 8 on a daily basis, unless you're obsessed with playing Flash videos and games: Flash is supported in Windows 8 (yet.) But if you can get past that issue until Windows 8 is finished and released to the world, then your SC3 will definitely be getting a few more years of use. 

The only other thing that seems to be an issue is the fact that the SC3's resolution of 1024 x 768 isn't supported with Metro. The Metro UI requires a resolution with aspect ratio 16:9, so all you have to do to get Metro running on your SC3 is to add the 1024 x 600 resolution to your igdlh32.inf file. 

[Pocketables Forum]

Windows 8 will boot up in under 10 seconds

If you thought that Windows 8 was going to boot up slowly and not very efficiently like in previous versions, then thankfully, you were wrong. The Building Windows 8 blog is reporting on what they're doing to 8 that will make the full operating system boot up in under 10 seconds.

Let me break it down for you: basically, when you shut Windows down, it will write to your hiberfile.sys file; it's essentially a deep hibernation.. It saves your windows and current tasks, but cuts power to everything. 

The really cool thing, though, is the way it reads that system file to boot up. Instead of running through all of your drivers and services and whatnot, it simply reads from the hiberfile.sys file and goes right back to what you were previously doing. If you're familiar with the Mac, it's very similar to what Lion does now. 

In my opinion, this is going to be huge for Windows 8 in general, but especially for tablets. Boot-ups won't take as much battery life and processing power, and things will be just the way they were before you shut your computer off. 

Are you all as excited for Windows 8 as we are?

[Building Windows 8]

Netbook Navigator Nav7 UMPC to ship soon, says Netbook Navigator

Oh, cool! Look at that sweet UMPC to your right! That would be Netbook Navigator's Nav7 UMPC, and it's pretty awesome, especially for us. 

The Nav7 doesn't can come with without any operating system, but if you want to pay a bit more for one, it'll come with 32-bit Windows 7, in any one of the versions. It comes standard with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530, a 16GB SSD, and 1GB of DDR2 RAM. You can definitely upgrade those standards, though, with options for 32GB or 64GB SSDs and up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM. 

Other things that are included are a 1024 x 600 7-inch capacitive screen, a 1.3MP front-facing camera, two USB 2.0 ports, 802.11n wireless networking, audio in/out, two integrated speakers, and an integrated touchpad on the back with dedicated mouse buttons. 

You can buy the barebones unit without any OS for $599, but with options and software, you can run the Nav7 up through the $1000 mark. Take a look after the break at some press pictures. 

Unboxing the Fujitsu Loox F-07C Windows 7/Symbian phone

Well, it arrived. "It" is the Fujitsu Loox F-07C Windows 7/Symbian phone I ordered from Conics.net a couple of weeks ago.

The device has a 4-inch SVGA (1024 x 600) LCD display, 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z600 CPU (underclocked to 600MHz), a 32GB eMMC SSD, and 1GB RAM. It also includes a 5-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera. Over the next few days I will attempt to answer many of the questions already asked, as well as addtional questions posted below.

Microsoft opens up Windows 8 blog

If you have been reading our site for any amount of time, you know that one slice of our bread and butter is MIDs and UMPCs, preferably running Microsoft's Windows operating system. However, as of late, we haven't been able to bring you much of that, because they've simply vanished. However, our beloved MIDs and UMPCs may be making a comeback with Windows 8. 

But that's been a pretty big "maybe" until today, when Microsoft announced that a new, dedicated Windows 8 blog would be opened up to provide consumers and developers and whoever else is interested with information about the next iteration of Windows. Steven Sinofsky, a Windows President, wrote this on the blog's first entry:

"We've heard people express frustration over how little we've communicated so far about Windows 8. We've certainly learned lessons over the years about the perils of talking about features before we have a solid understanding of our ability to execute." 

In normal speech, that means Microsoft wants to communicate with their customers better about what they can expect when they open the retail package.

[Building Windows 8]

Qualcomm renames Snapdragon line, confirms 2011 quad-core chips

Hot on the heels of yesterday's NVIDIA announcement, in which the company told us when its Kal-El quad-core processors will be in tablets, Qualcomm today informed us of its own plans for the future. 

Those plans are a pretty big deal, as it turns out. You know Qualcomm from its line of Snapdragon CPUs, as they have become pretty ubiquitous in Android devices. However, even with the well-known name, Qualcomm has decided to rename the entire Snapdragon line, in an effort to better differentiate what goes into your devices. 

The processors are now broken down into four categories: S1, S2, S3, and S4. Each S-series processor is named by generation; that is, the S1 is the first generation, the S2 the second, etc. We're currently at S3, the third generation of Snapdragon processors. The S4, then, is going to be the next "Snapdragon," and will be the quad-core chip series from Qualcomm. 

Are you guys in any way biased towards NVIDIA or Qualcomm? Do you prefer one over the other?

[SlashGear]