Wayne pinged the Gear Diary Team with a special find on AVING USA this morning. It’s a blocky little beast, but the HDPC (Hybrid Dual Portable Computer) is slated for the Korea market, and it will be running dual OSs - supposedly Windows XP / Windows CE 5.0 or Linux Qplus.

Wayne said, “Unless the currency converter I found online is off — the price of 400,000 to 500,000 KRW converts to about $350 to $ 450, but I have no idea how much overhead import adds. This thing has 4GB of RAM….weird design but still…..looks like a T-Mo sidekick for adults….damn near the same US price (est).”

Hmmm, we’ve been down the dual OS road before, haven’t we? But I’m always up for a look…

SEOUL, Korea (AVING) — MIU(www.miubit.com) introduced its new wireless IP-based hybrid portable device dubbed ‘HDPC (Hybrid Dual Portable Computer)’ in Korea market, which is equipped with dual OS(Windows XP/Windows CE 5.0 or Linux Qplus).

Adopting a keyboard of general PC and a 4-inch display with 800×480 resolution, the HDPC supports dual-mode function and wireless internet function. It is the concept that user can make a choice of any type of soft/hard ware according to users’ needs.

As the name ‘HDPC’ signifies, user can converge the stand-alone technologies of existing portable devices such as car PC, navigation, mobile phone, PMP, mp3, UMPC, electronic dictionary, internet phone, PSP, digital camera, voice recorder, mobile IPTV into HDPC.

The HDPC is expected to be available in July 2008, and the price would be between 400,000(KRW) and 500,000(KRW).

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How long have I been saying that I wanted to buy an HTC Shift? It’s been a desire of mine for quite a while, but I think I may have finally squashed it. Of course, it is easy to say that as I sit typing on my new MacBook Pro, but that is neither here nor there.

I was able to hold and check out a Shift while I was at CES, and although I found it to be a very solid and cleverly designed device, I have come to realize that I am probably not this portable computer’s target audience. Why? Because if I honestly examine my motives for buying one, I would have to admit that while I like the idea of having and using one, it wouldn’t be very practical for my use…at all.

But could it be what you need?

To give us the highs and lows of this portable computer, is a freshly posted review at Boy Genius Report.

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I’ve been quite the busy little Windows Mobile bee over the last couple of days. Inspired by Aura Mae’s comment that she used the HTC Advantage as something of a computer replacement, I set out to see whether I could achieve the same. Any boy, was I blown away by the results!

The Advantage’s 5inch screen (which is the same size as some UMPCs) and VGA resolution means you can cram more into the screen - especially when you use the RealVGA utility to run it as its native 640 x 480 resolution. This, combined with a big helping of third party software, turns the Advantage into a capable notebook replacement.

Is that an awesome-looking Today screen or what?

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Well here ya go, the unboxing of the device that never was: The Palm Foleo

Ah a new toy that was never meant to be. What to do, what to do…I know, Play Time.

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Dear Artie

You and I got off to a great start. We had some wonderful times, sitting in the sun together, my hand gently stroking your chassis. Granted, you were a bit slow at first, but as I got to know you, I realised that you were just waiting for that special someone to come along and unlock your potential. So I put in the hard yards and made a lot of compromises. I did all I could to make our relationship work.

And we were almost there, when you dropped the bombshell. You had a faulty touchscreen. Not a hardware issue per se - more like a driver problem in Vista. Worse, I did a Google search, and to my horror I discovered that other people had posted about your “little problem” and were awaiting a solution.

Artie, I hope you realise that, if not resolved, this touchscreen problem will amount to an irreconcilable difference, and I will have no choice but to part ways with you. I refuse to let my emotions cloud my judgment. This has got to be fixed, or I’m leaving. I’m only being this frank with you because I truly care about you and want you to change for the better.

Yours sincerely

Jenneth

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One of my favourite gadget blogs is jkOnTheRun, and in James’ latest post, he discusses one of the quandaries of being a gadget reviewer: which one(s) do I take with me today?

Once I decided to bring a full-sized Tablet PC with me I had to decide between the Fujitsu P1610, the Lenovo x61 and the HP 2710p. The P1610 was my first choice being smaller and lighter than the other two but since my work was going to be writing I felt the smaller keyboard of the P1610 might not be the best choice. I can touch type fine on the Fuji but for extended touch typing sessions the small keyboard can get a little uncomfortable so I decided a bigger device would better serve me this time. I thought about bringing the Lenovo with me because it’s such a sweet, fast device but it’s also the biggest of all these devices and I’d have to bring a bigger gear bag than I wanted. That would entail having to transfer anything in my smaller gear bag to the larger one and that’s a hassle for a simple trip to the coffee shop. The HP 2710p is a fast and smaller Tablet so I decided to take that one for this trip.

My dilemma’s actually a different one - not so much which device I bring (as I tend to standardise on one particular device of each type for weeks - even months - at a time), but how many. If I could get away with it, I’d bring them all with me, in which case I’d need a small shopping trolley to carry them all! My iPod and/or Zune for listening to music, Artie for writing, surfing the Net and playing Scrabulous, my Nokia N95, my Canon EOS 40D for taking photos, my Panasonic HDC-SD1 for shooting video, my Canon M80 for backing up my camera’s memory card, my Nintendo DS Lite for playing games and - of course - my Battery Geek Portable Power Station to keep everything charged.

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I have always had a passion for gadgets, and it seems that I am always the guy with the newest, most cutting edge device. I have been intrigued by the concept of the UMPC since its inception as the Origami project. I had only once had the chance to play with one and it was the 1st Generation one based upon the Celeron processor. I was not impressed enough to drop my hard earned cash for one. With the introduction of the Samsung Q1P, based upon the ultra low voltage Pentium I decided to go for it. I asked Judie if I could do an unboxing for Gear Diary, and she generously agreed. [Ed. note - it's more like Steve generously offered to do the unboxing, and I happily agreed! ] Since I don’t have a video camera, pictures and a short write up will have to do. Hope you enjoy it.

The device came, as you can see, not very well packaged in my opinion. I ordered from Dell because I got a good deal, but Dell did not get any points with me on packaging.

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Hi everyone. I’m going to try to give my thoughts on people’s reaction to Palm’s Foleo. Honestly, I’m really amazed by how seemingly angry and dismissive people are about the Foleo. It makes me wonder if something else is motivating such harsh responses.

I think about people’s response to Apple’s iPhone which, while not everyone feels this way, is that people have this anticipation about Jobs and Apple - almost a  “what is Apple going to do right next?” And this seems to be in contrast to, what I think, is the disappointment and frustration people have come to have over the years about Palm which seems to go something like “What is Palm not doing now?” or “how is Palm underwhelming us now?”

How do I feel about Palm? Well, I haven’t used a Palm or Treo since 2003. I’ve been using Pocket PC phones since that time (the i700 and then i730). I like the Palm Pilots but don’t trust their operating system. Too many anecdotal stories of Palm Treos resetting on their own. And then there’s the turtle like pace with which Palm seems to move to offer new innovations. So this in particular seems to be a big point of frustration for many people.

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G-A says “Feast you eyes on the Fujitsu UMPC”? Well I am, I am!

“Unveiled at WinHEC, the Fujitsu UMPC features an 800 MHz Intel Sealey Processor, a 40GB hard drive and 1 GB of RAM. Besides that, the UMPC features 2 cameras and a 5.6-inch display so you can easily bring this bad boy wherever you go.”

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Bob Russell from MobileRead Networks just sent an email which I thought would be fun to share…

In it Bob wrote, “I thought you might be interested to know that Rhapsody music service sent me an email ad that highlighted a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet right at the top, front and center. The picture is a link takes you to the Nokia site with a nice ad that claims you get the full Rhapsody experience while connected. I get that with Comcast broadband service, and I have to say it’s really nice.”

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