Check out the latest entrant in the UMPC race, the MSI Wind, which we missed at CeBIT earlier last week. Toting a 10-inch display, Intel Shelton’08 platform, with variable processor speeds from 1.0GHz – 1.6GHz; 2.5-inch HDD or SSD, 1GB RAM, a reported 7-hour battery life and running either Linux or Windows operating systems, it seems MSI’s offering holds a lot of promise.
CeBIT ended yesterday, and I can’t say I miss it. Most importantly, the product lines were thin. Secondly, there was a transport strike on the fair’s first day. And, there is, apparently, a shortage of prostitutes in Hannover, a definite problem for the whore-mongering tech press corps. (You know who you are.) The last time it was important enough to attend was several years ago, and I’m not sure we’re ever going to this show again.
The ViDock Gfx is an Express Card/34 card and video box combo that can drive two external monitors. Nothing unusual there, except that the manufacturer claims this one is extremely fast and, quite frankly, seeing it in action in the photo above looked cool enough to be worthy of an entry in the Best Giz Readers’ Computer Rigs contest. The ViDock Gfx will be available in April in 128- and 256-MByte flavors. Full press release after the jump.
At CeBIT this week, Nav N Go has been showing off its ghetto-looking iGO MyWay 8 for an “upcoming yet-to-be-announced iPhone GPS receiver.” There’s no more information beyond that, except that the software looks quite boring and doesn’t seem to fully exploit the capabilities of multitouch. [Pocket-Lint]
Just unveiled at CeBit, Gigabyte’s M700 UMPC comes with a surprising 2 GB RAM. In addition to its hefty memory and bright design, the M700 manages to pack in a 7-inch, 1024×600 touchscreen and a 1.2 GHz processor. It also has Windows Vista Home Premium. Details on pricing and release are hush hush at this point. [Ubergizmo]
It looks like we weren’t the only ones not impressed with Meizu’s M8 iPhone ripoff — its booth at CeBIT was shut down by the local police and all products and promotional materials were removed. Yikes! Apparently some other booths were shut down as well, as this was part of a wider initiative to protect patent and copyright owners. What does this mean for the fate of our favourite junk copycat Chinese ripoff phone? Time will tell. Stay strong, my friends. UPDATE: The shutdown was actually due to a mistaken MP3-licensing issue and the booth is now back open. Apple had nuthin’ to do with it. Carry on! [Heise via Electronista]
At CeBit today AMD finally showed off the fruits of its 45nm labors—one server and one desktop chip, a far cry from the 16 Intel launched with Penryn’s debut back in January. But, given AMD’s woes lately, on the technical and biznass fronts, we’re just glad to see ‘em.
Engadget scored some time with a Meizu M8 mini One prototype board at CeBIT. And even while this demo is not constrained by the size of the M8 final hardware, the experience leaves a lot to be desired. The touchscreen has major, persistent lag issues (though Meizu claims it’s a demo hardware issue) and, as you’ll see, the software is too buggy to last two minutes before crashing. While we’ve been looking forward to Meizu’s iPhone knockoff for a long time now, we’re wondering if it’s not too early for our anticipation to throw in the towel. [engadget]
Hauppage has taken the plunge and moved from making TV adapter cards to making TVs—OK, a personal media player that also has a digital TV tuner built in. It plays MP3 and WAVs and you can watch MPG, VOB and a bunch of AVI formats on its 3.5-inch, 320 x 240 pixel screen. Storage is handled by SD/MMC cards and the four-hour lithium battery means it’s good for at least a couple of movies during a flight. Measuring 4.7 x 3.1 x 0.8 inches, its unimaginative styling reminds us of generic ’80s electronics, but some people might like that. Announced at CeBIT, it will be available April for around US$230. [Techdigest]
The new Sony Ericsson T303 may not be the Xperia X1, but it looks like a tiny, simple slider phone that will fit in any pocket. Sony Ericsson says that it combines “premium finish and materials with a good feature-set to deliver style with substance,” which is probably their own stylish but insubstantial way of saying “hey, it’s made of black or chrome metal, it has a camera, Bluetooth and FM radio, a mirror glass display, and it works!”
