The BT Shop is now selling the Vye Mini-V S37 ultramobile computer (UMPC) with 7 inch touch screen, 120GB hard drive, keyboard and camera, with prices starting at £650. This is more than twice what a hard drive-less Asus Eee PC would cost, if you could get one running Windows Vista Home Premium, and rather more than the £499 high street price of full-sized laptops.
The Vye site says:
The S37 can combine your conventional notebook, desktop, PDA, smart phone, GPS Navigation,MP3 and MP4 Player, all in a design not much bigger than a paperback book.
The most alarming bit of the specification, however, is the processor speed: 600MHz. That doesn't sound like a good idea for Vista with Aero, even if you stick in a 1GB or 2GB Flash card for Vista to use via its ReadyBoost feature. Pushing the processor speed up to 800MHz pushes the price up to £799, which is even less enticing.
The Asus is a very slow machine, but gets a lot of forgiveness for the price. I suspect UMPCs like the Vye are going to have to get much closer to £299 before they generate any real excitement.
