Spring IDF 2006: Merom and Ultra Mobile PCs

The Ultra Mobile PC

Known to some as Microsoft's Origami project, the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) is actually far from a new concept; Intel first talked about it at last year's Fall IDF calling it the Handtop PC and saying that Intel would be making processors for it in the 5W - 0.5W power range.

Six months later, there now are working prototypes as well as a commitment to see the first devices shipping this quarter (given that this quarter is almost over, we'd expect to hear some announcements soon).

The idea behind the UMPC is pretty simple; it's a device that offers more portability than a notebook, but more power than a PDA or Smart Phone. Intel and Microsoft seem to think that there's a big market for a device like this, and honestly we do too, however we also believe that the ergonomics of the device and the interfaces (both human and GUI) must be perfect in order for it to succeed. If they aren't done well, we could be looking at a smaller version of the failed Tablet PC.

All of the UMPC prototypes shown off at IDF use a non-productized Ultra Low Voltage Pentium M processor, most likely running at significantly lower clock speeds than anything that's available for retail sale in order to fit in that sub-5W power envelope. The devices that we saw supposedly featured an internal 1.8" hard drive varying in capacity, but going up to 30GB.

The target screen size for these UMPCs is in the 5" - 6" range, with some devices going larger and others going smaller. Despite the small screen size, the displays are relatively high resolution, the one we played with featured an 800 x 600 native resolution. Unfortunately, since it was running Windows XP (and not Vista or OS X) the fonts on such a small/high resolution display were virtually unreadable. On the more portable prototypes you'd have to really concentrate to hit any of the Windows menus with the bundled stylus and reading text on it got tiring very quickly.

The initial prototypes were all around 450 - 600 grams, or around 1 - 1.32 pounds. Their weight was pretty decent, but the thickness and overall dimensions of the devices prevented them from being tossed into a pocket like you would a Smart Phone or PDA even.

The shortcomings aside, we do believe that there is potential here; PDAs were not functional enough, they lacked the screen size, processing power and input devices to really be widely used. Tablet PCs had all of that, but lacked in the portability and ergonomics departments. The Ultra Mobile PC has the potential to provide users with a welcome medium, let's just hope someone does it right.