VistaCrew

The market of UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) is starting to burn! A lot of PC manufacturers are aware of this market segment as many people are starting to get affordable, low cost mobile computing devices. For this reason, UMPCs emerged with capabilities to allow users connecting to wireless internet as well performing simple office tasks. We knew that people nowadays mobilize frequently and UMPC had offered an advantage for this sector. UMPC is small, lightweight and ultra-portable whereas anyone can take it anywhere, use it anytime and most importantly, connect to the Internet easily thanks to the widespread of WiFi networks. Read more about UMPC after the jump!

Few big guys of the PC manufacturing world are starting to ship UMPC devices. In fact, Fujitsu was considered as the pioneer of UMPC since it has introduced numerous ultra-small PCs over these years. Though, price of these ultra-small devices costs a bomb. But for now, Asus ignited the battle for low cost, affordable UMPCs with its Eee PC series. Eee PC had opened a brand new market in the computing world. With price hikes and constantly increasing living costs, people are demanding for cheaper and practical mobile devices or laptops which has features more than enough for daily uses.

Technically-wise, specs of most UMPC nowadays are rather quite disappointing. In order to reduce costs and also fitting in for small form factors, most manufacturers offers rather basic specifications which suits well for basic computing needs. Thus, no gamings or multimedia extensive applications! unless you can bear with its “slow-ishness” performances… :p Screen is also rather small with 8″ ~ 9″ ranges. Elderlies might face problems reading the screens. Somehow, the main purpose of UMPC is to help people to perform basic computing tasks such as web browsing and office works on the go… So, it is to believe UMPC suits those amateur users which demand for entry-level “easy-to-use” PCs. If you are a tech savvy person, perhaps you would want to think twice before getting one…

So, let’c take a look at UMPCs offered by various manufacturers:


Asus Eee PC

Asus made a successful entry into the UMPC market with the Eee PC. Though not very highly configured, but it’s more than enough for your daily works! Not forget to mention, it’s one of the smallest in size! Now has wide range of colour choices.


MSI Wind Notebook

MSI entered the battle with Wind Notebook. It’s rather similar to its Taiwan counterpart, Asus’ EeePC… But it has more attractive design and colour choices! Wind Notebook is powered by Intel’s new range of Atom processors designed for ultra-portable mobile devices.


HP 2133 Mini-Note PC

HP is also joining the party! with its 2133 Mini-Note PC… It has the best design seen by far… Building quality is also in top notch (undoubtly, its a HP!) and cool! However, performance is a major setback due to its VIA powered processor. Somemore it was loaded with Windows VISTA!!! Really doubt on its performance on such high resource consuming OS…


Dell E series

Yes… Dell is also entering the battlefield! No much information yet but it is to believe Dell’s price-factor could make it a major hit in town!


Kohjinsha

Oh… nearly loose out this little mighty from Japan… Kohjinsha is a sole manufacturer of UMPC and their products are mostly equipped with “tablet-like” displays which can be twisted and turned! Precisely, it’s a UM-Tablet-PC! Currently not very common in Malaysia but it’s starting to gain attention!


All right… in the fact there’s more brands and models out there and it is to see that the arena of UMPC is burning up! So, will you try to get an UMPC for yourself? Sure it will depend on what purpose you planned to use it… But anyway, it is a trend worth to take a closer look at it!