Ultra PCs

Only 4 days left to write and tell Microsoft why you'd love to be a happy new owner of a UMPC. If you do tell them, and they like what you say, you can win a Samsung UMPC and a Slingbox! So get those old rusty essay skills dusted off and get to writing!

UMPC Contest via Origami Project

Mike Cane, featured guest host and mobile-madman for jkOnTheRun, got his lucky hands on the Nokia 770 while at LinuxWorld Expo for a full featured review.

So far: it's smaller than we imagined, it's as slow as we imagined but getting better, and it does A LOT more than we imagined. Flash and Java will be available for the launch, even though demo units were lacking. However, to further show Nokia's commitment to the device, and really open up the possibilities, they have stated that text messaging and VoIP will be in the next firmware/OS update! Don't forget, it's 802.11b/g based, so that means potentially free phone calls while sitting at Starbucks [damn that's old and cliche-esque, let's try something else:] while getting a lube job in SoCal.

Thanks Mike!

The worse epidemic of portable gadgets of all shapes and sizes is the tangled mess they leave in your bag. Sure, portable typically means sans wires, but they all have them. Thingamajigs don't just charge wirelessly. Well, I guess they can, but do yours? No! Most likely you, like all other geeks, learned to wrap and tie a long cable faster and easier than tying your own shoes. But even with wrapping skills in hand most of us are too lazy to mess with it each time we use a device. Well in that regard, Cableyoyo comes to your rescue. This device is thin enough it can be pocketed and not show a geekyline (That's the pantyline created in your pants pockets by all your gadgets.) You can easily throw multiples of the Cableyoyo in your tech bag and not worry about untangling whenever you need gadget juice. And, it works with ALL the handhelds we cover here on Portagame.

[Cableyoyo via GadgetMadness]

Just a short, quick note that I moved the former OQO and Flipstart sections to a new category titled Ultra PCs.

I still hold my claim that there is a big future for Ultra PC gaming. One day my friends, you'll be able to play any current PC game in today's market on a viable handheld.

Portagamers meet Nokia 770, Nokia 770 meet Portagamers.

The 770 is NOT A PHONE. It is just Nokia's latest attempt to venture out of the cellphone market (not like the N-Gage, which is first a phone, second a video game system). The 770 IS an internet tablet. It's mostly designed for jumping on the web, checking email, listening to MP3s, watching MPEG4s and streaming internet multimedia. But tucked away in its feature set is one important and probably overlooked feature: games! That's right, this tablet isn't just for the Armchair Stock Brokers out there. No, this is for guys like me that hate lugging a laptop around just so I can check Portagame's comments and get a quick gaming fix from time to time.

Other companies have tried similar tablet things, but failed miserably. I see the Nokia having a very fair shot in this small, but expanding, market. First off, it's open source! The 770 runs Maemo code, an open source toolkit based on Linux, Gnome and GTK+. This makes it fairly easy for developers to cook up applications. I foresee many ports of favorite games and emulators headed our way.

Second, its form factor is sexy small. 5.5" wide by 3.1" tall and only 3/4 of an inch thick! And it only weighs half a pound. You eat hamburgers bigger than this.

Third reason for success is the multimedia. It has a decently sized screen that is just over 4 inches wide. At an 800x480 resolution, that's not bad at all. Oh yeah did we mention it was a touch? Also, it supports MP3, WAV, Real, MPEG1&4, AVI, PDFs (yeah, PDFs), and a plethora of other formats out of the box. We're sure more codecs are to come too.

Fourth reason should be the price, but his hasn't been formally announced yet. jkOnTheRun guestimates an approximate $350 USD retail sticker:

is expected to cost about $350 making it a very attractive option to some of the larger Internet appliances that other companies are getting ready for the market

We're excited to see a handy device such as the Nokia 770 in our future. I wouldn't place it as a competitor to the Palm or PocketPC markets, but more as an attractive alternative for a PMP (Personal Media Player). Whatever, we're just excited for the games.

Emulators, get your compilers ready!

Handtops.com keeps a close eye on ultra pcs. You know, the ones that can fit in your pocket and fully run 32bit operating systems (and their games...and their games!) We love the gaming potential of these micro form factor pcs.

Now, Handtops.com is telling us that you can actually buy a ultra pc in the states. Gasp! Now what will we have to speculate on? Yes, it's true, the OQO model 1 is for sale along with plenty of launch quality accessories. With a starting price at $1899, you can order the model 1 directly from OQO. For that price point, we can finish paying off our car loan. But, tempt us not gadget devils, the OQO would be a nice way to get a C&C fix while on the road.

OQO Beautiful...we've waited so long! Now, on October 14, we'll finally have a chance to own you!

According to a corporate email sent out by OQO, their handheld PC will leave the shackles of "Vaporware" as it materializes into reality. The purchase price is still expected to be in the $2K range, so we'll be saving all our pennies and ad clicks (Hint Hint Wink Wink: See right side bar) in order to get our hands on this sexy piece of plastic, silicon, and LCD. Oh, the prices we play for love. Soon, we can d0rk it up and walk around playing Half Life, StarCraft, and all the C&C games and wear our geekdom on our sleeve.

Thank you Engadget for the news (and the picture )

This one gets filed under Duh. The fab FlipStart PC by Paul Allen's startup company Vulcan, is going to be produced with Windows XP as it's OS of choice. Smack me into consciousness, because I don't think I saw that one coming. Paul Allen and a Windows product. Who would've guessed?

Ok, I don't mean to appear ignorant. I'm very excited for the FlipStartPC to start running demos in my town and have been following the system fairly closely. It appears to be a solid offering and both Gadget Madness and BIOS do an excellent job bringing us this news. I'm sure some nut will crack it open and have a BSD or Linux sourceforge project on it soon enough.

The OQO UltraPC makes an appearance in recent news clip from News.com. The video features Jonathan Betts-LaCroix, OQO's CTO, being intervied by David Berlind from ZDnet. He mentions specs, drop tests, release dates and pricing (approx.), and pulls the battery pack off to show how thin it is. Worth the three minute clip and very work appropriate. Very.

OQO, Inc., annouced at CeBit that they have hand-selected a round-up of 40 companies to trial-run the OQO uPC system. We suspect that these include companies in the health, travel, and logistics industries as the system seems best-suited for such. We still aren't too sure as to how it will fit in the Gaming industry, but feel it's still a cool-enough PC that we'll keep reporting on it. OQO was once thought to be vaporware, but production is actually starting to solidify and become a reality.

[source Engadget]

Too bad I don't work for one of those 40 companies. I would love to demo it.