Hasta La Gadget!

In today’s world, it’s a pretty safe bet that revision two is already on the drawing board by the time revision one hits the market. That said, it’s still somewhat embarrassing for UMID that we already have leaked proof that the M2 is on the way to replace the just-barely-official M1. Judging by a purported roadmap, the MID M2 will be smaller than 3-inches and will boast calling capabilities. Furthermore, it’ll support HSPA, WiMAX and a slew of other wireless protocols (or at least some of ’em), but we wouldn’t expect to see more of it until late 2009. Unless UMID wants to completely cannibalize sales of that M1, of course.

Filed under: Handhelds

Forthcoming UMID M2 already dancing on M1’s spotlight originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure what sort of shenanigans ARM gets up to, but it managed to amass itself quite the interesting collection of netbooks for its MWC booth. Information was scant, but they were showing that Freescale i.MX-based Pegatron netbook and nettop we saw at CES, an ultrawide 11.1-inch Snapdragon-based netbook from Wistron, a Snapdragon-based convertible tablet netbook from Inventec Alaska, and a totally odd “tech demo” of a Qualcomm-based Wistron MID semi-running a sketch version of Windows Mobile 6.5. Most all of the systems were in some level of prototype form, and seemed unbearably slow at running whatever prototype flavor of Linux they happened to have, while the MID didn’t really seem to operate at all, at least to our touch. Still, it’s clear that Snapdragon and Freescale i.MX are allowing for some pretty wild and thin form factors while still rocking decent battery life.

Continue reading ARM’s stash of netbook oddities and a Windows Mobile 6.5 MID

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops, Tablet PCs

ARM’s stash of netbook oddities and a Windows Mobile 6.5 MID originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just played around with Viliv’s latest MIDs, the stylish S5 and X70. Both devices use haptic feedback for onscreen keyboard input, and despite the resistive screen we found them both to offer some of the best touchscreen interaction we’ve seen on devices like this. They were both running Windows Vista, and seemed rather responsive and usable, even with Atom under the hood. What’s really impressive is the X70 (pictured), which is thinner than the S5, and also can be mounted to an optional leather case that brings a keyboard and foldability to the device, and turns the unit into a laptop of sorts. Neither device is particularly thin or light, but there’s a lot of quality going on here, and for folks sold on this sort of functionality and form factor, it would be hard to do much better than these at the moment — of course, you’ll have to swim to Korea to do it. Video of the S5 is after the break.

Continue reading Viliv S5 and X70 MIDs hands-on with video!

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Viliv S5 and X70 MIDs hands-on with video! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Right around this time last year, Texas Instruments was busy showing off its OMAP 3 platform, which enabled 720p playback from a mobile phone. At this year’s MWC, we’ve got a real live handset recording 720p, and TI upping the ante once more with a chip that handles 1080p. For those still with us after being blasted with resolutions, the predictably titled OMAP 4 aims to bring 1080p support, 20 megapixel imaging and “approximately a week of audio play time” to mobiles and MIDs that house it. Granted, TI also calls this stuff “future-proof,” so don’t believe it’s totally incapable of uttering some pretty outlandish stuff. At the heart of the platform is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 chip, a programmable multimedia engine based on TI’s C64x DSP and a POWERVR SGX540 graphics engine. We’re told that it’ll play nice with Linux variants such as Android and LiMo, Symbian and Windows Mobile, though it’ll have to be mighty impressive to outgun NVIDIA’s Tegra. Battle on, we say.

[Via Linux Devices]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

TI’s OMAP 4 bringing 1080p support to smartphones and MIDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA’s really promising the moon here, and if they even halfway deliver we could have a real “game changer” (as they say in the business) on our hands. What’s on offer is a theoretical $99 slide-out keyboard MID, running a Tegra 600 chipset and Windows CE — NVIDIA, as usual, offers the innards and the concept, but will leave it to manufacturers to create (and price) the actual units. The device could handle HD video playback, “days” between battery charges and always-on wireless connectivity. This form factor lands in between NVIDIA’s Tegra APX chipset for smartphones and ION GeForce chipset for netbooks, and if it actually delivers it seems like it could actually make MIDs viable in the market. Of course, there’s the question of what sort of Windows CE skin it’ll take to make this fun to use for the target market — perhaps the fact that Tegra is coming to Android in the near future is enough to make this all moot, but we’re willing to give the $99 MID a fighting chance.

Filed under: Handhelds, HDTV

NVIDIA’s Tegra to power $99 MIDs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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