What Are Ultra Mobiles?
Ultra-Mobile was coined by Microsoft in 2006. Making personal computing devices has been pursued by technology companies since the early 1990’s with the advent of the Compaq LTE. When the Ultra Mobile was created in 2006 it corresponded to personal computers, running Windows, that had screens from 5-7 inches with a touch or stylus input method. Since Microsoft introduced their Ultra Mobile Personal Computer, originally code named Project Origami, there have been many other manufacturers to enter the smaller than a laptop but bigger than a Personal Digital Assistant market. Ultra Mobile has been used to now refer to entire community of mobile computing alternatives. Devices included would be netbooks, mobile internet devices, the iPad and iPhone, and HP’s Slate and the criteria for the class has been updated to include weights under 2lbs, screens 4-14 inches, orientation landscape or portrait, and inputs physical or touch. Along with the competition to create smaller and smaller computing devices that have comparable performance specifications to your home computers competition in a new generation of processors has come about like Intel’s Atom processors.
There is dissension in the labeling of this class of mobile computing alternatives among industry insiders. Some would say that Ultra Mobile only pertains to Windows based sub tablet PC’s. It is argued that the now commonly labeled Ultra Mobile class of device should actually be called subnotebooks. If you visit Amazon.com and search for Ultra Mobile you’ll come up with a multitude of devices including OQO’s 1060107-US Model 02 5 and this Samsung laptop.
Mobile Internet devices are small, “pocketable” products that fall in between small laptops and smart phones in size and capability. While a high-performance ultra mobile device would be handy for, say, doing Web searches while on the go, the small keyboard and display add their own challenges. And with so many people attached at the hip with their smart phones, King wonders if they’ll be quick to give them up or to cart another product around. Gordon Haff, an analyst with Illuminata, a research firm based in Nashua, N.H., agrees. “Frankly, there isn’t much of a mobile Internet device market today,” said Haff. “There are a lot of questions about how that market will develop. How many devices are people will to carry with them? What form will these devices take? How do smart phones, cell phones and small laptops play out against each other?” Intel’s Yung, though, thinks he knows pretty much how it will play out. And he says smart phones aren’t going to cut it when people want to be full
