The original 1.2GHz Core 2 Solo U2200 processor (which was soldered in place) has been swapped with a 1.33GHz Core 2 Duo overclocked to 1.438GHz. And the 48GB SSD is replaced with a fast RunCore ProIV 128GB SSD. Amazingly, the battery life is said to be pretty much the same.

It’s a pretty involved mod, but it’s a hackintosh I’d definitely like to take for a spin. That 4.5-inch touchscreen doesn’t look too bad, either. [MicroPCTalk via UMPC Portal via SlashGear]

The good news is that you can run Android from a USB drive or Live CD, so you don’t have to nuke your current OS.

Kevin over at jkOnTheRun has a Samsung Q1UP, and was able to install an Android 1.6 port originally intended for the Eee PC 701. He says “Android is blazing on a 1.33GHz Intel Core Solo” and suspects the battery lasts longer, too. He was also able to use Wi-Fi, and the Samsung’s QWERTY keyboard without problems.

The major glitches Kevin ran into were on the hardware side of things—no touchscreen, sound, Bluetooth, or button mapping support. That’s bound to happen when the port isn’t specifically geared for the device, but he says he’s chatting with developers to make it happen.

An interesting experiment, but I’d be interested to know if other mobile/netbook OSes, like Jolicloud or Intel’s Moblin, fare any better. [jkOnTheRun via SlashGear]

Unlike its predecessors, which are basic touchscreen internet media tablets, the Archos9 is a touch tablet that can run a full computer OS. It also features a built-in webcam, 120GB of memory, full touch support, an external mic, streo speakers, and a toggled-on optical trackpad and an on-screen keyboard, and will be available in Europe this October—around the same time as Windows 7’s release—for €450 ($635).

Not far behind the quiet April release of the Archos 2, the Archos 3 has made an appearance on Archo’s web site. Looking slim and shiny, the Archos 3 is an 8GB MP3 player, which touts a 3-ich colour touchscreen, 14 hours of battery life, and supports photo, audio and video playback, voice recording and more. There is no word on pricing and availability as of now. [Archos via CNet and UMPC]

The HDPC has a 800 x 480 pixel four-inch LCD, two 1W speakers, QWERTY keyboard, touchpad and game controllers. It even fits in a 30GB or 60GB HDD (with the option of a 4GB SSD) alongside a slew of ports including USB2.0 and PS2 mouse/keyboard connector. Add in 802.11b/g, maximum 4GB RAM, Bluetooth 2.0, webcam and a five megapixel camera and you’re getting a pretty full-featured PC, though of course we’re not sure how it handles in-use.

You’d think the battery life would suffer running all that, plus its Via processor (500MHz or 1GHz), but the reported life is 7 hours at “high power” or an impressive 90 hours at low power settings. This multi-use gadget really does fall down on size, measuring 6.4 x 2.6 x 0.96 inches and weighing pounds, so it’s a pocket-stretcher. But it’s not a wallet-stretcher: it’s available from July for between US$400 and US$500 in Korea, no idea though if it’ll make it across. [Aving]

As we have yet to see an active screen shot from the MSI Wind we expect that it is still at prototype stage, but that has not stopped MSI churning out blue, silver and pink iterations. The styling is certainly a step up from the Eee PC, but perhaps that Eee body rework we heard about earlier will throw off the new competition. The Wind is expected to be priced between €299 (US$458) – €699 (US$1072), depending on options chosen. All in all, the sizable keyboard, price point and decent display size have our attention for sure. There is no word on a release date as yet, but we’ll keep you posted. [PC World Italia via Notebook Italia]

The X7150 also has updated HTC VueFLO, so that it detects the device’s orientation and rotates the screen. The rest of the hardware remains the same as the earlier Advantage: Marvell PXA270 624MHz and Qualcomm MSM 6275 processors, 5-inch VGA screen with 3-megapixel camera, 128MB of RAM and tri-band HSDPA. Looks like the new battery has about 5 percent less capacity, but we guess that the flash drive should make up for that difference. [ZDnet]

While the Shift also has GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA network support, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it looks like if you buy it from Orange in the UK, you’ll only be able to get a data plan with it. [Slashgear]

It’s about as powerful as the first Pentium M chips (Banias), but while those idled at 5W and averaged 24.5W, this little guy sips as little as 0.1W in its idle state, with peaks up to just 2W on the 2GHz model. It’s really cheap to pump out too, tapped for the US$200 OLPC at one point.

It comes in a couple different flavours up to that 2GHz version. To get athletic performance—it’s a full-fledged x86 chip, not a half-baked cutdown—out of an anorexic processor, Intel worked all kinds of design mojo, like a new quick-wake deep sleep state. It’s still a bit too hungry for smartphones, though. So, while it’s a neat piece of silicon, as Ars says, it’s still got a ways to go, specifically with stiff competition from ARM and TI. But that’s a good thing.