Stone UMPC: Nanobook design with touchscreen, Tablet Edition and more
Another take on the VIA Nanobook reference design appears to be coming from Stone Computers in the U.K. PC Advisor has a first look at the device that costs 350 pounds, which converts over to around $651 U.S. dollars. It’s the same reference design we’ve seen in the EasyNote and others, but this time around the seven-inch, 800 x 480 display is a touchscreen and that’s coupled with the Windows XP Tablet Edition. Unfortunately, I can’t see this to be an effective use of the tablet operating system because the screen doesn’t rotate around like a convertible Tablet PC. Of course, I’m going by personal opinion here because I’ve never used the Tablet OS on a standard notebook.The two-pound device from Stone should offer a 40 GB hard drive, 4-in-1 media card reader, two USB ports, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth. The VIA C7-M processor runs at 1.2 GHz and is paired with one gigabyte of RAM. Sounds good on paper, but I still can’t see much value with the tablet bits for everyday inking.
I played with one of these the other day at the recent education technology show in London. It’s ok, but I would have preferred a unit with a SDD like the Asus eeePC. The touch pad is about the size of a stamp and USELESS!!! So you need a USB or wireless mouse with you, or you can use the touch screen.
The world has gone UMPC mad. And this is the mad part. I like Stone as a PC provider we use them, but I see no market for this device as other better devices are out there.