Smart Home Blog

Chinese company has introduced its Linux-based ultra-mini PC – LimePC M1. It’s equipped with a full PC desktop (based on Debian), touchscreen interface, Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT processor, up to 16GB of Flash, 802.11g WiFi, v2.1 EDR Bluetooth wireless and four-plus hours of Lithium Polymer battery power.It’s also planning to produce a model with HDD.

The new LimePC M1 is gonna be available later this year at price $300. The target of LimePC is Chinese market. But if it’ll be released in the rest of world it can be a good competitor of Nokia Internet Tablet. If LimePC will have open OS of course.

[via Linux Devices]

Pepper Computer, Inc. – producer Linux-bases UMPC PepperPad (its hardware part is given to the other company now) is not dead! The company faced with finance problems. So, there is a big changes in that company. The most important is an open sources of Pepper Linux IMHO (PepperPad uses that OS). It’s good. Especially after an amazing popularity of Nokia’s Internet Table Family: 770, N800 and coming N810. Hope that open source Pepper Linux will involve a lot of fans to produce a deserve competitor to Windows-based Origami UMPC.

It seems that Windows monopoly in the UMPC area is gonna be ended. TVease, producer of HTPC based on Ubuntu and MythTV, is planning to port full Ubuntu Linux distribution including OpenOffice, GIMP, MythTV to the Windows-based UMPC Samsung Q1. Since that company produces media centers with MythTV inside I suppose that the target of that port is a possibility to run full featured MythTV on UMPC.

Linux folks already tried to run (not install) Ubuntu on Q1 in LiveCD mode. So, TVease decided to expand and improve that. Well, let’s see how it’ll be. We expect release Ubuntu for Q1 of at least official announce on August.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Engadet published live photos of a new Linux-based UMPC PepperPad 3. The unit is 22 mm thick, 0.9 kg weighs and the screen size has been trimmed down to 7-inches. It’s based on AMD LX800 processor and offers SDK to develop some applications. Others improvments since last version include: 3x faster web browsing and enhanced video performance, “faster” 802.11g WiFi and USB 2.0.
The price of new PepperPad is tagged at $700 which is near to Samsung Q1 and TabletKiosk. It’s definitelly geek gadget! I thougn to use a Nokia770 as Plutohome control panel – Orbiter. The new PepperPad 3 may be better canditate for it.

See also:

• Hacking the Pepper Pad

• PepperPad official site

UMPCs – Ultra Mobile PCs are coming to our life. They are going to replace PDA and Notebooks in some cases. So, it’d be nice to to know all refinements before starting to buy UMPC. The big and great The Carrypad UMPC Buyers Guide can help potential owners of UMPC to find appropriate model. The author talks about OS choices, disk size, form-factors, screen size and battery life. At the end of the guide the author gives an example of ideal UMPC

• 5-7″ 800×640 Touch Screen

• Detachable Mini Keyboard

• Wifi, BT2.0, SD slot, USB2.0

• 600mhz advanced processor. (powerful enough to run good quality mpeg-4 video)

• 3 hour battery

• Min 10GB storage

• Reduced OS

• Price: $600

I’ll need to buy some UMPC (Origami) in the nearest future to use it as Plutohome Orbiter. So, I’ll follow this guide.