Thursday, September 7, 2006
UMPC Roundup: Samsung Keeping Busy with Three New Models
Posted by Ekkie Tepsupornchai in "NEWS" @ 12:00 PM
As most of you know, Samsung was the first out of the gate with Microsoft's UMPC concept, releasing the underwhelming Q1. Well, a couple weeks ago, Engadget caught wind of a couple of successors. First is the Q1b, which scraps the Intel Celeron in favor of the Via C7-M processor, which reportedly increases battery life significantly. While availability is not clear, CDW has been spotted offering the Q1b for $899 USD.
Announced at roughly the same time was the Q1-SSD, which appears identical to the Q1b except for the spiffy 32GB solid state NAND flash drive. This flash drive should provide better performance and near-instant-on capability. The kicker, however, is the ~$2500 price tag, which guarantees that it won't be reaching the low-price consumer crowd Microsoft was targeting.
Finally, Ed Hardy of Brighthand has just reported yet another new Samsung UMPC, titled the Q1P, will be available in the 4th quarter (not sure if this includes the US or not). While details are scant, Samsung has announced that this model will support HSDPA (3G wireless), which is currently only supported by Cingular within the US. The assumption is that this will come with the same VIA CPU (no word on the NAND flash drive). Thoughts?
Announced at roughly the same time was the Q1-SSD, which appears identical to the Q1b except for the spiffy 32GB solid state NAND flash drive. This flash drive should provide better performance and near-instant-on capability. The kicker, however, is the ~$2500 price tag, which guarantees that it won't be reaching the low-price consumer crowd Microsoft was targeting.
Finally, Ed Hardy of Brighthand has just reported yet another new Samsung UMPC, titled the Q1P, will be available in the 4th quarter (not sure if this includes the US or not). While details are scant, Samsung has announced that this model will support HSDPA (3G wireless), which is currently only supported by Cingular within the US. The assumption is that this will come with the same VIA CPU (no word on the NAND flash drive). Thoughts?
