The UMPC that has been on the market the longest time is the Samsung Q1 and hence has the widest selection of accessories as well. The original Q1 come with a Celeron 900 Mhz CPU, 512 MB ram and a 40 MB drive. The unit also get nice reviews because of its stereo sound and array microphones. It has 2 USB 2.0 ports, one Ethernet port as well as a Compact Flash port. The CF port immediately drew my attention because I could see the advantage of having this for photography backup in the field. Unfortunately tests show that the CF port is almost useless because of its slow speed at around 0,7 MB/sek tranfer rate!!! This is truly terrible as you could plug in any other USB based CF reader and get up to 16 MB/sek with a SanDisk Extreme IV card. When you are out in the field you want to empty that card as quickly as possible.
All UMPCs come with a wireless lan which is one of its major selling points. Being able to sit around in the sofa and surf the net or jot down an email at the kitchen table is nice. All of the UMPCs also come with a bluetooth interface except a nerfed down European version of the Asus R2H during its initial release. The bluetooth is a vital addition since it allows you to use a wireless keyboard and mouse as well as a bluetooth headset if you wish. The Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard is one that jkOnTheRun praises and many seem to like as the first accessory to get for any UMPC.
The Samsung Q1 comes in many more versions. In Korea, a special version of the original was released, the Q1 SSD. It has a 32 GB flash drive instead of the 40 GB 1.8" platter harddrive. The advantage of this is obvious, no moving parts, silent and fast operation. With access times under 1 ms and decent transfer speeds it boots up and loads any application way faster than a disk based version. It also consumes less power, a major benefit in a UMPC. The disadvantage though is price. Its a very costly disk that will double the price on the device. By many this is still considered the cheapest SSD drive available though. Expect this to become available in all portable devices. SSD drives is the future!
Recently Samsung also released two more versions of the Q1. A version pretty equal to the original Q1 but with a Pentium M 1 GHz with speedstep technology, newer chipset, a 60 gb hd and 1 GB memory. This is the most complete specification of the Q1 series giving you the best performance UMPC. Imagine how this could be with an SSD drive in it. The second version they released was one kitted with a Via C7 1 GHz CPU and fitting chipset. They also improved the screen on this version, but nerfed some features giving it mono speakers and mono mic as well as removing the ethernet port and the CF port. The advantage is naturally way better battery lifetime. People report of up to 4 hours on the standard 3 cell battery which is almost double that of the original Q1. If you can live with the specs and lower performance then this is definitaly the UMPC for you.
This autumn, Asus released their R2H UMPC which has a nice brushed aluminium case instead of the black plastic of the Samsung. It also has an integrated GPS, fingerprint reader and webcamera! It uses the same Celeron 900 MHz CPU as the original Samsung Q1. The first version sold in Europe was nerfed without either the gps or the webcamera as well as a 40 gb disk and 512 MB ram. The US version however had all the bells an whistles, with a 60 gb disk and 768 MB ram as well as the extended battery instead. One major letdown on the original tests of the R2H was the short battery lifetime with the standard battery, shorter than the Q1. The extended battery solves some of this, but at the same time adds bulk and weight to a device that was already more heavy than the Samsung. It is also said to become very hot and the extended battery supposedly blocks the wireless signal pretty badly compared to the Samsung Q1. The fingerprint reader is nice if you have several users of the UMPC and/or want some kind of security. The GPS has a varying degree of reported success, with some praising it and some simply not getting any signal on it at all. I have still not seen any review showing the webcamera except that people say it doesnt handle low light situations very well. Reports are also coming that the Asus does not have any L2 cache, which I find really strange as I thought this to be a standard implementation of the Celeron 900 MHz CPU. Other than that the R2H has a mono speaker and a mono mic.
TabletKiosk comes in several versions, actually the same CPU selection as the Samsung. The TabletKiosks however come with an SD card reader instead of a CF reader, and this reader supposedly performs like it should also. One major benefit of the TabletKiosk is the docking station / cradle. This is a feature that I think all UMPCs should have since it makes it so much easier to hook the device up to a monitor/ethernet/sound/keyboard/mouse just by docking the device. Other than that the TabletKiosk has a mouse pointer and buttons like the R2H, something that is missing from the Samsung UMPCs. Many say that they simply cannot live without the ability to control a mouse pointer, while I dont really understand why you need a mouse at all when you have this brilliant touch screen. More about this in a later post. A drawback of the TabletKiosk UMPCs is their price. They are a few hundred dollars more expensive than the competition. This can be a dealbreaker for many. Oh and it only has a mono speaker and mic like the R2H.
There are many more UMPCs coming out now but these are the major ones that you should consider.
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