The Gadget: WiBrain’s B1E UMPC, a slightly-wider (and much thicker) than PSP-sized UMPC with full QWERTY keyboard, touchscreen, trackpad, and on-board webcam.
The Price: $US699
The Verdict: Meh.
The keyboard feels great and the trackpad works about as well as a standard laptop trackpad, but the speed and quirkiness set this thing back a bit. It’s decent enough when you’re just browsing the net, but startup times and shutoff times are atrocious. CNET says it’s the slowest UMPC they’ve tested, which we agree with. The 4.8-inch screen’s 1024×600 resolution is sharp, but renders text so tiny that anyone over the age of 30 will not be able to read it.
We also had trouble getting the webcam to work with Skype, which might have been just us, but we had a lot of trouble doing a lot of other things (Wi-Fi connection, Windows Update) with it as well. It’s definitely not a great Windows machine. The relatively low price of $US699 may make this worth it to you if you need an XP machine on the go, but we’d recommend a small laptop instead of the WiBrain if you don’t mind the extra space. [WiBrain]
Jon
February 19, 2008 at 6:09 AM
This is for all the nay sayers out there…
I’m with Entropyman on this one, for the money, this is a great device.
There is some misinformation circulating on the internet about sound quality.
These claims are absolute rubbish.
The integrated solution is no better or worse than many other solutions on laptops available today.
Granted, there isn’t much volume on offer, but there isn’t the slightest hint of distortion or crackles as mention is some reviews.
Through headphones, I really have no issue with the sound quality.
I would mention that in order to get the sound working properly, I had to disable the hardware acceleration and set the power management to Laptop/Portable.
The keyboard is only meant for light use, but it has good feed back and gets the job done.
Report PermalinkGames tested so far:
GTA Vice City – works great
Midnight Club II – works great