Our last Macadamian Barcamp session focused on Ultra Mobiles and Netbook PCs. The whole race to the bottom seem to have started when the One Laptop Per Child project took the initiative of creating an affordable ultra-mobile PC aimed at developing countries school children. Asus followed shortly and its Eee PC grabbed most of our attention with its slim size and crispy screen.

On top of portability, we found that most UMPCs offer the following advantages:

• Bigger screens compared to smartphones, Wi-Fi and now WiMAX support (some Phillips devices already support WiMAX, and Nokia tablets will have WiMAX this summer).
• Most can be used as a car GPS, most have GPS built-in, others can use a Bluetooth or USB GPS receiver.
• They're good for note taking, Web browsing, email writing - They're great for common tasks and while most don't handle Vista very well, they have enough horsepower to run most applications written for desktop PCs.

There's always the power versus battery life aspect, which is generally slim compared to smartphones. The One Laptop Per Child PC battery lasts longer but its intentional Fisher-Price looks and ruggedness make it only valuable for either elementary-aged children or front line military soldiers.

The Nokia Internet Tablets looks very promising since they seem to have a good balance between battery life, available applications and horsepower.

Now that most computer vendors have embraced the idea of making Asus Eee-like PCs, we can only expect UMPCs will follow the same fast-paced evolution as cellphones and competition should keep their costs low. Both Eee PC and OLPC can now run WindowsXP. This doesn't make them gain an extra gram, they might even cost cheaper but personally, I feel using them without their native OSes just ain't Kosher.

Labels: Barcamp, Netbooks, UMPC