For my very first interview on Ultra Mobile Life I had a little Q & A with Steve "Chippy" Paine who runs UMPCPortal.com and just completed his incredible Solar UMPC Tour. Here goes:
Read the full Q & A after the jump.
Steve: There's a huge difference between a regular laptop and a power-optimised UMPC. Take, for example, this core 2 duo laptop sitting on the desk next to me (it's my wifes!) If I was to set it up for battery optimised usage I could probably get it down to 12 or 13 watts drain. The moment I start using it however, the processor kicks into action and before you know it you're draining 20 watts from the battery. The Q1b, in comparison can drop to an amazing 6 watts when idle and stay under 10 when being used for simple operations. Thats half the power utilisation of a modern laptop. But its not just about watts. The weight and size play an important role. I simply wouldn't have been able to fit a normal laptop in my baggage.
Bjorn: Please us about the particular UMPC that you used on your trip, I believe it was the Samsung Q1B. What sets the Q1B apart from the myriad of other UMPC choices out there? Is it particularly low powered or is it easier to use?
Steve: I've tested a lot of UMPCs over the last year and the Q1b is the best there is for such a project and in fact, it has become tightly integrated with all of my work now. You get the power-saving features of the VIA CPU and chipset, the ability to use it as a tablet-only device and with the organizer pack and keyboard I can instantly turn the Q1b into a table-top UMPC with a full keyboard. The organizer pack also helped well with protection. The final feature, and one I think we'll see on a lot more devices in the future, was a built-in cellular data radio. Using this I was able to connect easily and efficiently to the internet everywhere I went and in fact, the WiFi remained off for the whole 10 days. You can't find this combination of tablet-style UMPC, keyboard, case and HSDPA in any other UMPC at the moment which is quite amazing seeing as this UMPC was one of the first generation of UMPCs. The price was good too! There are improvements that could be made though and at the top of my list would be 'daylight readable screen.' A mouse pointer and some more programmable buttons would also have been useful and of course, more efficiency always helps!
Bjorn:You mentioned on your blog that you felt your solar power collection and conversion system didn't seem to be very efficient. If you or someone else were to take another solar UMPC tour how would you improve the efficiency of your setup?
Steve:I'm currently writing up a detailed report on how this can be improved. There are some changes that I'd like to see to UMPCs to help here, for example, wide-voltage input for UMPCs so that you can directly and safely connect them to a solar panel, but the simplest trick is to limit the use of buffer batteries. I charged a Li-Ion battery pack from the solar panel and when using it I removed the battery from the Q1b only adding it back when the Li-Ion battery got down to towards empty. Using the battery this way prevents loss through the charging of the UMPC battery and can save 20-30% battery life which is a significant amount. The lead-acid battery I took proved to be too much trouble to use. I found that it didn't have the power at low charge to drive any of my equipment and was, in effect, just a 2.2KG weight that I carried for 450km! I'll be focusing on Li-Ion batteries if I do this again in the future.
Bjorn:Finally, I see you have a ton of VIA C7-M logos all over your bike and your equipment, what's that all about? Who is VIA and what's a C7-M?
Steve: VIA were kind enough to have sponsored the tour which to be honest, I couldn't have done without some help. VIA design and sell the CPU and chipset used in the Q1b, the CPU being known as the C7-M.
I want to thank Steve for taking the time to answer my questions and for undertaking this massive Solar UMPC tour to help the rest of the world understand how UMPCs are making all kinds of new things possible. Also, keep an eye on the solar UMPC blog for more wrap up comments from Steve, like what his improved solar power setup would be.
Visitor
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
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