CES 2008

The Toshiba's onscreen keyboard.

We're always interested to see what's coming up for ultramobile PCs, the handheld platform better known as UMPC. We've seen previous iterations from the Sony UX to the OQO model 02, to the Vulcan Flipstart, but none have totally scratched our ultramobile itch, because of awkward interfaces, poor battery life, or underpowered processors.

Toshiba is showing off a new UMPC at CES, and while it doesn't yet have a name or release date, it incorporates a number of new features that move the category forward--but it's clearly still not "the one."

The Toshiba UMPC is a slightly bulky silver box running Windows Vista. Unlike other UMPCs with BlackBerry-style thumb keyboards, this uses an iPhone-like onscreen keyboard, accessed by flicking your finger up from the bottom of the screen. A flick from the left or right sides brings out a quick-launch dock of useful apps.

While the prototype we played with had a traditional disc drive, Toshiba says solid state drives will also be available (and they make much more sense in small devices such as this). A built-in accelerometer lets you flip the screen on its side, and in perhaps the most interesting touch, tilting the screen forward and back lets you scroll up and down Web pages.

Toshiba says its UMPC will hit Japan in the not-too-distant future, but no solid plans for a stateside release--or even a name--just yet.

Samsung's Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung's 2-pound entry into the ultramobile PC category has some faster hardware in the form of a 1.33GHz Intel ultra-low voltage Core Solo U1500 processor.

The Korean electronics giant introduced the Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The system still splits the QWERTY keyboard onto separate sides of the 7-inch, 1024x600 touch screen, but the keyboard keys now are larger for easier typing, Samsung said.

The model's predecessor, the Q1 Ultra introduced last May, used Intel's earlier-generation 800MHz Ultra Mobile Processor.

The Q1 Ultra Premium costs $1,399, including Windows XP Tablet Edition, and Samsung is lowering the price of preceding models.

Other features include 1GB of memory, an 80GB hard drive, an SD flash memory card slot, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a fingerprint reader, a lithium-ion battery that will last "up to 7.5 hours," and 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 wireless networking.