CES is just days away and I’ve just finalised the kit-list for my Ultra Mobile Reporting Kit V11. I’ll be there for the week and focusing on Tablets, Netbooks, Ultrabooks and, if I find anything, UMPCs. 2011 was a year of change in the way I did reporting for my websites Carrypad, UMPCPortal and Ultrabooknews. The Samsung Galaxy Tab gave me more mobility than I had ever had and the [...]

The live review and Q&A with the Samsung 900X1B went well on Saturday and we got through the 2 hours without any major issues or showstoppers cropping up. Battery life during the 2 hours was good at a projected 6hrs which included constant Wi-Fi and even some high-performance mode gaming. Wi-Fi, something that’s been highlighted by others as an issue on the 900X1B was stable but in a test across [...]

I’m loving it! The Samsung 900X1B is an 11.6” notebook running an Intel Core processor with a battery life of 5-6hrs in web-working scenarios. Sounds big and heavy right? It’s not. The price matches the productivity potential and it’s working well as a partner to  my 7” Galaxy Tab Android Tablet. The Samsung 900X1B is part of the Series 9 range that includes a 13” version and it’s designed around [...]

I’ve posted a detailed review of the ASUS UX21 over at Ultrabooknews and even if you think the device is too big, I encourage you to read the article to learn about the platform and it’s differences to Oaktrail, Cedar Trail and other low-power platforms. The UX21 idles down well and gets things done so fast that the total battery used for tasks is, in many cases, less than on [...]

Despite all the fuss about Ultrabooks and Tablets there’s still a significant market for netbooks out there as small, low-cost ‘just enough’ laptops. Developing countries, students, secondary laptops, travel laptops or simply the lowest cost laptop possible, the Netbooks are a valid choice. With the next generation, using Cedar Trail as the CPU cplatform, it gets even better with significant improvements to 3D graphics that should smooth-out quite a few [...]

Update: Full review including live session is now available. It’s all too quiet over here at UMPCPortal. I’ve been working on a Samsung Series 7 Tablet (XE700) live review but it looks like it has been delayed for some reason. I’ll keep you posted on that but in the meantime, you might be interested in something that is built on the same platform. The 11.6″ ASUS UX21 is heading my [...]

It looks like the XPPhone guys are at it again with their ultra-converged solutions. This time a 4.8″ mini Slate ‘phone’ running on a 1.6Ghz Atom platform. Not much information is given in the press release regarding specifications but given that all the Images are renders, this is likely to be something for 2012, and a rather niche market given that the weight and active standby time on this ‘phone’ [...]

I love the Samsung Series 7 Slate PC, or should I say the Samsung EX700. It’s a work of amazing engineering and combines power, features, style and weight to make the first tablet PC I’ve really thought about buying. Core i5 performance in 860gm is something that reminds me of the top quality engineering that went into the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium. It’s a true hot-desking device with mobility at [...]

The elusive company is back with the Ocosmos OCS9 — Ocosmos has tantalized us with awesome UMPC concepts for years, but the devices have always turned to vaporware seemingly just prior to release. Well, it seems Ocosmos is at it again, but this time, we’re certain that they’ll actually be bringing a product to market, thanks to the folks at Dynamism. Surprisingly, Ocosmos actually showed up at last month’s IDF, only after [...]

In a detailed Windows 8 post last week I outlined some issues around Windows 8 and mobility. One of the biggest issues is the resolution requirements. 1366×768 is going to he expensive to implement on 10″ and smaller screens. I also found a lot of issues with portrait mode. The apps included in the developer edition weren’t optimised for portrait mode at all. Fortunately most ofbthe problems lie in the [...]

Many of us have downloaded the Windows 8 Developer Preview to give it a test run and I think it’s fair to say that the most exciting feature to test is the Windows 8 Metro UI. Focused on touch, app-snacking, consumption and entertainment it has been an interesting product to think about in terms of mobile computing; real mobile computing. Getting the balance of UI right for both on-the-go and [...]

When my baby boy, Nicklas, was born last year one of the readers sent me a congratulations email, rallied some troops and ended up sending a cafepress voucher. I waited a while to use it but now my son is 18 months old, here’s the result – an Ultra Mobile Fanboy! Thanks to Eddie for having the idea. Thanks to Jean-Paul, Matthew, Bennett and to everyone that sent good wishes. It’s been [...]

Prediction: 9 out of 10 commenters around the web will accuse the Samsung Series 7 Slate as being ridiculously over-priced. Personally I think its the best Tablet PC I’ve ever had my hands on and in my opinion it’s well worth the money that is being asked. Liliputing have details. In 2012 the Series 7 will mature with Windows 8 into one of the most multi-scenario high dynamic range computers [...]

There are a couple of things I want to bring to your attention about the WeTab 11.6” Atom-based Tablet, currently available in Europe. Firstly, they’ve obviously got to migrate everything from Meego to Tizen now. They’ve released an up-beat statement saying they’ll be ready for the release in 2012 but my heart goes out to this company that put many eggs in the Meego basket. Yes, others have too but [...]