DAWA D7 7-inch multi-touch MID

KexunGuoJi, from Shenzhen is soon going to launch a nice 7-inch MID that boasts a capacitive display with multi-touch support. Under the bonnet, you will find the 720Mhz Telechips 8901 processor, 4GB storage (expandable via microSD card slot) and 256MB RAM. Inside, you will also find a lot of wireless radios – GPS receiver, Wi-Fi and 3G radios. The Dawa MID works perfectly as a PMP too. It plays those 1080p videos like a duck soup. Now, how many MIDs can do that?

Right now, there is no information on its release date or price.

iRiver K1 MID – Runs Android OS

iRiver makes great eReaders and PMPs. Their newest offering is a MID that comes with Android OS which is getting adapted by many companies thanks to its open source nature. iRiver is highlighting its newest MID for web-browsing and other typical web-content.

The K1 MID has a 3.5-inch touchscreen and a 480×320 resolution. For connectivity, you have to rely only on WiFi as it does not comes with built-in 3G. Supports a pile of file formats and even has a DMB TV tuner. There is no official word, if it would ever make it to US, but it will be launching in South Korea later this month.  Pricing information is not available right now

SmartQ V5 hits the stores – Price $160

Many have been waiting for the SmartQ V5 to hit the stores, and finally its here. Peculiar thing about the SmartQ MID/PMP is that it is able to run Windows CE, Ubuntu and Android OS.

It may be a bit hard to believe, but folks at Smartdevices claim that it can do 1080p videos. At $160, if you ask us, it sounds a bit unrealistic.

Fennec aka Firefox Mobile updated for Maemo OS

Guys over at Mozilla have updated the Fennec web-browser.

- Go to the nightly repository. The repository is basically a large file server with folders for each combination of source code branch and language localization.
- Choose the branch you want (trunk == mozilla-central / 1.9.2 == mozilla-1.9.2). Fennec 1.0 is being released from the Mozilla 1.9.2 source code branch, so you probably want to use “1.9.2_*” branch.
- Choose the locale you want. You probably want the multi-locale bundle (”*_multi”), but you can choose a different one.
- Click on the “*_nightly.install” file in the appropriate repository. This should automatically start the Application Manager on your Maemo device and Firefox for Maemo will be installed.

It now has faster response time, thanks to the change in its installation location

COWON to launch its first MID – That too ATOM-based!

COWON, a popular PMP maker, is going to launch its first MID, W2. The main highlight of this MID is that it will use Intel Atom processor.

It will also sport built-in bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi and of course, high quality music and video playback.

Commentary: Using Atom processor gives the users and manufacture the option to use Desktop OS on a MID which means that we may see Cowon with Windows 7. Windows 7 has proved that it can run pretty nicely on hardware that does not have a lot of muscle.

Also, Atom processors are much more powerful than ARM processors that are mostly used in the MIDs. However, battery life does get a bit of hit in case of Atom-powered devices compared to ARM-processors, but still, Atom processors like entry-level Z-series Atom processors are considered very power-frugal.

So, using Atom processor may not be a bad deal at all for the consumers as-well-as for the manufacture

CHUWI W3000 MID – A MID that runs Windows CE

The W3000 is a local MID from China. It runs Windows CE OS and features an 4.1-inch display with WVGA resolution (800×480). It has a pretty decent battery, 2500mAh which should be more than enough for MID running on an non-x86 chip. It uses Telechips chip which is ARM-compatible.

It has TV-out function, built-in WiFi (b/g/n), GPS, FM radio and a micro-SD card (upto 8GB supported). It comes with a photo-viewer, music as-well-as video player. Dimension: 129 × 76 × 14.5mm

Toshiba releases 3 new MIDs – Toshiba K01, Toshiba K02 and Toshiba L1 – Run Windows Mobile

Toshiba is showing off 3 new MIDs: K01, K02 and L1. All of them sport touch screens. First MID, the K01, comes with an 4.1-inch slider touch screen and has thickness of mere 0.6 inches. Second MID, the K02 has an 3.5-inch screen having 800×400 (WVGA) resolution. It is equipped with a 10-key keyboard.

Third one, the L1 has a bigger screen than aforementioned 2 models. It has a massive 7-inch screen. These MIDs will be released by end of the year 2010 and will run on Windows Mobile 6.5.

Commentary: It is interesting to see manufactures still churning out MIDs based on Windows Mobile platform. This means that there is still a good market for the Windows Mobile MIDs since it also has its own advantages over the webOS, iPhone or Android OS., apart from the bucketfull of disadvantages when compared to other mobile operating systems.

Sigo S40 and Sigo S50 – runs 1080p videos

How about having a device that can slip inside your pocket and play 1080p HD video playback? Here is one directly from China, from a company called Sigo. It has HDMI port too so that you can watch you videos on bigger displays in full glory.

There are two Sigo MIDs that offers HD playback:

• Sigo S40: It has 4.3-inch screen
• Sigo S50: It has 5-inch screen

Supported codecs are AVC (H.264/VC-1) @ 30Mbps+ bitrates; MPEG-TS, MPEG4, XviD/DivX, Real 8\9\10, MKV, TS, MPG, AVI, VOB, RMVB and even FLV. Damn! This thing surely puts PMPs like iPod Touch and Zune HD to shame, at least in terms of codecs supported

SmartQ5 MID – first impressions

Akiharabara folks were able to get their hands-on the SmartQ5 MID, which runs Android OS. Here are their immediate impressions on it:

• This thing is slow!
• Language can be changed from Japanese to English easily.
• Exhibits “made in China” feel

The SmartQ MID has a 4.3-inch screen with WVGA resolution. It also has WiFI b/g and bluetooth connectivity. It has based on ARM-architecture and runs on Samsung CPU (668MHz) with a gig of RAM.

C-motech Mangrove – Best Windows Mobile device/MID ever?

Here is a MID from C-Motech that comes with the mighty 1GHz Snapdragon CPU. It is powered by Windows Mobile 6.5. The most interesting thing about this MID is its 7-inch display that has WVGA (800×480) resolution (which is the maximum a Windows Mobile device supports).

C-Motech has worked hard to make this look as sleek as possible. Its huge 3200mAh battery should keep your device running for days. If that was not enough, there is an optional 4000mAh battery, which we think is way too much for a device that is based on ARM-platform. Despite its huge dimensions, it still manages to stay light at 300gm.

It is every single radio that you can imagine: 3G, WiMax, WiFi and GPS. For storage, you get 512MB and for running apps, there is 256MB RAM, which is more than enough for any Windows Mobile application out there.