Ultra Mobile PC
Microsoft has set up a separate website for this new project: www.origamiproject.com What comes into view is a string of advertisements Words: "Want to know where I am? I'm at the beach, I'm on the top of a mountain, I'm in an underground tunnel, I'm in a car, I'm with you, want to know who I am?" Microsoft calls it Project Origami, Intel Then call it UMPC
As of the latest time on March 9, pictures of the product have been released on the website of the Origami project - UMPC product pictures provided by Samsung and Asus respectively:
Some of their performance features:
Use Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 operating system;
Use 7-inch (or smaller screen) 800 x 480 resolution rate;
Provide WLAN and Bluetooth connections; If the plan goals can be achieved, the advantages of this thing in portable products will be obvious - it will not be a one-size-fits-all product, but you will find that it is suitable for many products Ultimate:
What does MP4 mean in front of it? Think about what video formats a mini PC can play? It can be said that as long as it is through software, all formats are supported, and then coupled with the cooperation of wireless connections;
What does GPS mean in front of it? As long as it matches the receiving head, it is naturally a GPS device - this has already happened on PDAs with weaker performance than it. What if UMPC launches standard optional accessories (aimed at GPS);
What is a car multimedia system? When the first two functions are added together, isn’t it just a car multimedia and navigation device?
What's more, combined with a wireless environment + SKYPE-like network calling software, its smaller version can even be used as a terminal product for wireless voice communication;
...... .
Isn’t it very ambitious? Whether you are a portable multimedia terminal or a portable information processing center, imagine that the performance is the same as our PC, but the size is smaller and therefore more portable. Such a thing, How versatile is it?
Of course, these are just assumptions. Does its price, its hardware and even software develop together as planned? It's still an unknown number. Just like Microsoft's previous ambition to replace laptops with tablets, the actual situation is: it has been three years since tablets were launched at the end of 2002, and the market is far below Microsoft's original plan, and users are mainly limited to vertical Application market, such as professional practitioners in the medical, insurance and real estate industries; market research agency Gartner Group believes that even by 2009, the highest tablet shipments will not exceed 7.2 million units, and the lowest will only reach 1.6 million units. Compared with the annual shipments of personal computers (PCs), which can easily reach hundreds of millions of units, this is a drop in the bucket.
So, this new gadget brings us a lot of room for imagination, but what the future will bring depends on the market. After all, this is the only way to test it!
How to position such a product? A UMPC that is larger than a PDA (with correspondingly enhanced performance, of course)? A UMPC that is smaller than NB (and also reduces certain aspects of performance due to size)?
In fact, in the plan of Microsoft and Intel, it is a new type of product positioned between PDA and NB (more strictly speaking, it should be the tablet computer that Microsoft was trying to promote before): Origami plan is actually revealed The original development direction of tablet computers has changed: smaller!
Brad Graff, Intel's marketing director, said that the prototype mini tablet computer UMPC uses a 7-inch screen, an x86 microprocessor, and can use the Windows XP operating system like a PC. The current product power can maintain approximately 3 hours, the price is less than US$1,000. In the future, the product plan will be developed towards pocket type. In addition to increasing the battery life to 24 hours, it will also be equipped with a swivel-out keyboard. It is hoped that the price can be further reduced to about US$500. (An interesting fact is that the prototype displayed on site still uses standard components for the time being, so the power only lasts for 15 minutes).
So, if (note, I said if) their vision can be realized, then there will be such a thing in front of us: a 7-inch or smaller screen, running a general-purpose system (this guarantees The unification of standards thus brings about the realization of various extended functions that third-party software can provide), targeting the increasingly developing wireless network connections, and most importantly, the price of $500!
In fact, apart from the price issue, we have already come into contact with similar products - SONY's U8C