Wow I never thought I’d see the day. One of my favorite websites, Woot.com, has the UX390 up for sale today! At a wonderful price too. The 390 from Woot will only run you $1,299 + $5 shipping. By comparison the UX390 direct from Sony was $2,349, and the best place you can buy it on the web right now is from Amazon at $1,599. Hurry up and get over to Woot to pick up this great deal. Here is a review of the specs -

• 1.33Ghz Core Solo CPU (U1500)
• 32GB SSD
• 1GB RAM
• Windows Vista Business
• Black casing

For those of you new to Woot, the site offers one great deal every day with limited stock. Meaning that UX390 could sell out quickly, and it won’t come back. Get over there if you plan on purchasing one.

If you enjoyed our last recommended touchscreen friendly game you’ll probably have fun with this one as well. The game is called Desktop Defense. Defense games should be immediately recognizable to anyone who has had much experience with an RTS (real time strategy game such as Starcraft) but anyone new to the genre can easily pick it up. This is flash based game that the UX handles with no problem. Give it a try over at handdrawngames.com. If you need more space to fit the game in your browser window make your browser full screen using F11.

The goal of the game is to prevent the enemies from getting from one side of the square to the other. While it may sound easy this game involves lots of planning and strategy. You have the option to place several different types up square shaped buildings which fire at the enemies as they attempt to go from one side of the square to the other. Each building has its own unique range, damage, cost, and can be used effectively in different situations. Its generally a good strategy to make a maze that the enemies must walk through with your buildings, but of course there are air units which will fly right over top so you better have the fire power to take them down.

This game works well with touchscreen because everything can be done through a button on the screen. Placing buildings is just a matter of tapping on the building you’d like then clicking anywhere on the playing field to place it. Upgrading your buildings is also done easily by tapping on the already created building then finding the large upgrade button which is easy tapped with a stylus. While this game can definitely be played well with the touchscreen you may also want to give it a try with a full keyboard which will let you use useful keybindings to speed up your play. Play it now!

Hint: From the main menu go to Fun>10k Gold to start out with 10,000 gold, its my favorite way to play.

After watching a video of the Mtube being demoed posted up at UMPCPortal I started to think a thought that you might find strange. I began to wonder if the Mtube UMPC was in fact, too small. While I haven’t actually been able to handle the thing in person I watched in pain as the person demoing the unit attempted to navigate the tiny on screen buttons with a stylus.

The device is mostly free of hardware buttons, has a 1GHz VIA C7 CPU and a 2.8-inch touchscreen running at 640×480. While there are definitely devices that have screens just as small and have been successful products, I wonder whether or not such a small screen is even fit for use on a UMPC. It almost seems like it would limit much of the things you would be able to do on the hardware. Lets not forget that because this device is nearly button-less all of the navigation and interface must be done through the screen taking up even more of the screen real estate. They better have some amazing interface up their sleeves or I really can’t see this powerful (for its size) device being very useful.

Engadget has posted some thoughts about OE 2.0 after trying it out hands on at Microsoft’s CES booth. While there weren’t very many specific reasons given it doesn’t sound like they were too impressed saying “it certainly wasn’t an experience“, and “probably the least fun we’ve had with OE in a long time”. They were testing it on an HTC shift and said that everything seemed to work like it should, but they didn’t sound very excited about any of its features.

While they surely have their own opinion, looking at the screenshots it actually looks pretty nice. The picture password image is an underwater view of many fish, specifically the sides of many fish which would allow plenty of room for finger tapping. Playing back the right touch of each fish will enter the password and unlock the device. Also it seems like they have integrated a podcast catcher within OE in addition to the RSS feeder. The touch optimized web browser looks decent as well, hopefully it will include inertia scrolling by default and have large menus and not just large buttons. Click through to check out all of the screenshots.

[Engadget]

I never thought I’d see the day… I’ve been keeping my eye on DialKeys for a while and thought it was going to turn into vaporware, but finally there is a sequel to the on screen keyboard that shipped exclusively with certain UMPCs. DialKeys has released a beta version of its second on screen keyboard that it is appropriately calling “Gen 2″. Luckily this new version should work on any UMPC and isn’t locked to those that the original came pre-installed on. The beta is a free download (62MB) which will function until March 14th and can be downloaded from DialKeys.com.

The new software supports many different keyboard skins including a Tablet PC focused side screen keyboard to make it easy to gather survey answers. Another interesting one is the Hexapad skin which is designed for portrait oriented UMPCs or Tablet PCs. Check out the screenshots from jkkmobile then head over to the site and give it a try for yourself. Personally I still think on screen keyboards won’t be practical until we have capacitive/multi-touch on our devices.

While you might not agree with the definitions here at least someone is trying to set things straight. Engadget is reporting that Dan Monahan, Intel’s Global Internet Segment Manager of Ultra Mobility has laid out some bullets for them defining the two -

UMPC -

• Business-class device for enterprise users
• Runs a “heavy” OS like Vista
• Optimized for office-use applications like Excel, Word, etc.

MID -

• Consumer-class lifestyle device
• Runs a ‘lightweight” OS with quick startup like Linux
• Optimized for things like media playback and web surfing
• In 2009 (or so) Moorestown-based devices will be classed as MIDs only

Feel free to drop a comment with your thoughts on this. Listening to their CES podcasts it sounds like jkkmobile and Steve from UMPCPortal are all on board the UMPC train, and I don’t blame them, we’ve all been using the term for years. Thought I still feel like there is room for the MID. To me the term MID defines an instant on, lifestyle companion. I don’t always need a full desktop OS with me everywhere I go, but when I do, I have the UMPC.

Madness? THIS IS SPARTA! CES 2008! There were tons of new MID/UMPCs announced at CES and it can be quite hard to wrap your head around all the new devices and all of their specs. Luckily the table master over at UMPCPortal has your back. Head on over to UMPCPortal.com to check out up to date information on all of these new MID/UMPCs, and even compare them!

Its been a long an rocky road for the reference design of this device that we saw rebranded many times. Long though it may have been, the “The Everex / Packard Bell / FIC Nanobook / Cloudbook / CE26″ as Engadget calls it has arrived. I don’t have any issues waiting for a new piece of technology as long as its been evolving and improving, and I think that is exactly what the Cloudbook has done.

Why is it called the Cloudbook? The operating system is called Linux gOS “Rocket” which is a very low specification requiring OS that replaces many of its default applications with online apps which are sometimes referred to as residing “in the cloud”, hence the Cloudbook title. The operating system relies heavily on the Google Suite (Reader, Docs, Calendar, etcetera). The Cloudbook can be viewed as a direct competitor to the Eee PC based on many factors such as size, specs, and most importantly price. Here are the specs of the Cloudbook right next to the equally priced 4G Eee PC.

The Cloudbook wins in a few areas and ties in the rest. While flash based storage is definitely faster, I think most of us would take a 30GB HDD over a 4GB SSD. The Cloudbooks biggest ally in overtaking the Eee PC may be in its distribution partner… Walmart. As the worlds largest corporation by revenue, Walmart is a great place to help the Cloudbook get exposed to its target audience (casual PC users) who have probably never heard of an Eee PC. The only problem I see is that an operating system supplemented with online applications probably isn’t the most user friendly, so casual users who pick this up may put it down just as quickly. Whereas the Eee PC’s OS is specifically targeted at engaging first time or casual PC users.

Its that time of the year again, CES 2008 is on in full effect and with it Intel has come to the show floor with many MID/UMPC prototypes but the terms are used interchangeably with no apparent trend. It would be nice if we could say that a UMPC is a small handheld device running a full desktop OS, and an MID is a small handheld device running a lite, touch optimized OS wouldn’t it? Unfortunately it seems like the OEMs can’t even make up their mind on how to define this new genre of device.

First of all we have plenty of “MIDs”, Intel essentially claims all the products that it brought to CES are MIDs, and they are running on the Menlow platform. However LG has a Vista equipped device, using the Menlow platform, and it is calling this device a UMPC. HTC is apparently no longer classifying the HTC Shift as a UMPC, and one company is calling its product an MiND for Mobile Internet Navigation Device. On top of all of this it seems like Intel and some of it’s OEM partners can’t even get along, a Melow based device made by Toshiba is being shown off in Intel’s “MID” section, but Toshiba is calling it a UMPC.

I’m sure there will be more confusion in the weeks and months to come as many sites are claiming 2008 to be the Year of the MID [UMPC?]. Will consumers or companies ultimately define which term refers to what type of device? Maybe MID will consume the term UMPC, or maybe MID will be a sub section of the UMPC. Only time will tell.

Engaget noted an IOGEAR and DisplayLink Wireless USB demo at CES. The DisplayLink adapter (reference design prototype shown in picture) adds multiple high-resolution displays between a laptop, desktop, (or conceivable handtop/UMPC) and a WUSB-enabled monitor. IOGEAR’s new WUSB-VGA Video Adapter supports outputs up to 1680×1050 at 16.7 million colors without noticable lag-time with mouse movements and keyboard inputs. The actual device should hit the market about mid 2008.This would make an interesting technology to include with or even built into a MicroPC, no?