[May 05, 2006]

'Q1' powers up portable PC sector

(The Irish Times Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Technofile: It's time once again for a round-up of some of the latest news to emerge from the techno files . . .

Recently, I mentioned the launch of a new breed of Windows computers, dubbed the UMPC by Microsoft - ultra mobile personal computer. This attempt to refresh the flat market for tablet PCs was launched earlier this year and a number of manufacturers are bringing out products in line with the new software. Among them, Samsung has announced the official US release of its UMPC, priced around $1,100 (870). Dubbed "Q1", it will be joined in the next few months by products from Asus and is designed to be both a fully-blown PC and something that you can take on the road, but which you can whip out and use more easily than a laptop.

The Q1 features a seven-inch touchscreen, Celeron M ULV processor, 40GB hard drive, 512MB RAM, 802.11b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0.

Why can't you put Wi-Fi (wireless LAN) into a PDA? Well you can, but many machines don't come with this feature built in and, if they do, it's usually in the form of a bulky extra device. Now manufacturer Eye-Fi (see www.eye.fi) has built Wi-Fi into an SD card. Eye-Fi is now working on a compact Flash card version as well. With Wi-Fi on an SD card inside a camera, in theory you could also upload photos to a service like Flickr.com.

Last week, Nintendo announced that the gaming console formerly codenamed Revolution would now be known as "Wii". The news failed to wiin (sic) over the gaming press ("desperately silly" said the Guardian, while the Financial Times headlined its article: "Wii aren't too sure about this").

However, "Wii" isn't really any sillier than the last silly name invented for a console (Cube? Xbox?), and it's the quality of the games that count in the end. Wii shall see.

Laptop maker Asus has come up with a luxury option for mobile road warriors: a laptop in leather. The S6F should come out next month, featuring a wrist rest and lid fashioned in light or dark brown leather.

The laptop itself features a 1.6GHz low-voltage dual-core Core Duo L2400 processor, with 1GB of DDR 2 SDRAM, a 100GB hard drive, a multi-format DVD writer and an 11-inch WXGA anti-glare screen. There's also 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Gigabit ethernet. The price is around 2,500.

Casio has launched a new 10.1 megapixel Exilim Zoom digital camera with a wide-format LCD display. The 2.8-inch (230,400 pixel) super bright LCD shows photos off as if you have just printed them, plus Casio uses the extra screen space to give you a preview of a wide angle and a telephoto shot at the same time. Priced at around 550.

If you own a Windows PDA, then you might like to check out the new FIFA World Cup 2006 software from Sharko. The tool will compile statistics of matches through both the qualifying rounds and final stages of the competition, with six continental zones covered and details of the groups in each one, plus all matches.

Details of the final stages are already included. Pub quiz gurus will also enjoy the details of the last three competitions in the history section. It costs $2.99 from Handango.com.

Anyone with a Skype phone on their PC might be a little bored with the standard ring tones. But, thanks to a deal between Skype and three major music companies, you can now get master tones on your Skype phone from artists including Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day.

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