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Couple nice handtops on the market
Viewed 948 times. 1 person liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
I'd like to mention, the Sharp Netwalker and the UMID mbook M1.
The Sharp in my opinion is the superiour of the 2. Runs a stock version of Ubuntu on a 800 MHz ARM, has wifi, usb, 5" screen, nice keyboard, clamshell design about 6 by 4 by 3/4 of an inch. It should be a nice fast well designed computer with plenty of memory and storage space for programs. Runs windows very well in an emulator so runs windows programs that are unavailible for Ubuntu. I'm planning on getting one and installing Maple on it. It comes with the standard office and web.
The UMID mbook M1 is the windows version of the above. I do not know whether it comes with office but it does do email and web browsing. it has an x86 1.6GHz atom which is slower than the above ARM in the real world and being it has the same amount of ram of the Sharp it'll have too little ram to do much besides run the operating system. With A LOT of tweaking Ubuntu will run on it but its a very tedious process and being the hardware is cheap windows optimized hardware I don't expect it to run very well. It has a very short battery life 5 hours which will be 4 hours in the real world. To use usb or headphones to listen to mp3s it has an included dongle which you have to carry around along with your computer. It does have bluetooth so a person can use a bluetooth ear phone if you don't mind high frequecy soundwaves by your head. It not bad for a windows computer about as high qaulity as your going to get and UMID is supposed to come out with a M2 but according to the specs on the M2 it has a 3" screen which is a tad small in my opinion. I do expect the M1 to run a little hot being it is a fanless design with an x86 so processing (such as listening to MP3s) will be a little difficult, if used this way I'd carry it in a bag and risk the bluetooth using a bluetooth ear bud.
Enjoy!!
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edited: Dec 05 2009
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GreatDane
Thank you for the Blog.
The Sharp sounds nice, particularly if you like Linux. One point, I have run units using the ARM CPU, as well as units using the Intel Atom CPU, and the Atom is considerably (4-5 times) faster, work load for work load. The Linux unit might boot faster (reportedly 3 seconds), but that is going to be where the advantage ends. None the less, with the Windows emulator the Sharp looks like an interesting unit. There is a nice write-up on the unit on Pocketables, but they do complain about slow app launch speed etc. Speed is definitely going to be an issue with the Freescale CPU and 512 MB RAM. One potential problem is that the battery is non-removable. Another is that, like it or not, 4GB Flash is very small for todays enviroments.
The basic specs for the Netwalker are:
5” 1024 x 600 touchscreen.
Full QWERTY keyboard, optical mouse.
800 MHz Freescale i.MX515 CPU based on the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture.
4 GB of Flash Storage and 512 MB RAM.
2 x Full size USB ports.
Micro SDHC slot.
802.11b/g WiFi.
10 Hour reported Battery life.
Another point: All computers potentially come with Office - Open Office is free and anyone can download and install it (and it works well on Windows, but don't tell anyone  ).
The UMID M1 is on its way out. The M2 has already been seen at various shows, and it is a whole lot better than the M1, itself not a bad unit. The M2 has at least 1 GB RAM on the 1.6 GHz version, as well as an optical mouse, full sized USB and a 4.8" 1024 x 600 resolution screen. The lucky few who have had the pleasure of using the unit are highly impressed, and it would seem that a true 5~6 hour battery life is a reasonable expectation with this unit (and the battery is removable). Couple that to SDD sizes up to 128 GB, and the M2 is looking like a real winner.
The M1 does not run all that hot, reportedly less than an OQO 2. I have an OQO E2 (1.5 GHz with 64GB SSD and HSDPA), and it is not unbearably hot, unlike the OQO Model 01+, which could get to be very heavy in the right circumstances. I suspect that the M2 will have similar or improved thermal characteristics, as it seems to be a little larger than the M1.
By the way, don't worry about Bluetooth, cell phones, WiFi and the like scrambling your brain, the latest research by a number of Universities and a few Governments indicates that there has been no long term increase in the percentage of people suffering from brain tumours over the last 20 years since we have started to use these technologies. Besides which, why are you worried about Bluetooth - you prefer to use Linux?
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