Laptop upgrades are not difficult to complete yourself, and there are three key upgrades that you can easily accomplish to make your laptop run faster.  These will also give your laptop a higher resale value when you decide to replace it.

One of the most simple laptop upgrades to complete yourself is to upgrade your operating system. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Media Center, upgrading to Windows Vista is a good idea.  You will be able to take advantage of the many features of Windows Vista, as well as enhance the speed of your system.  An upgrade to Windows Vista for the Home Basic edition is under $100 and is worth it to enhance the efficiency of your system. (More…)

This is one of those uber-applications that has me excited about the UMPC as an overall platform, striking a good balance between power, form and function.

I’m very excited to try this out for myself. Too cool. And it looks like the Slingplayer interface has made the right balance for ease-of-use on the UMPC. Fantastic.

[Apparently this video originated from www.mobilitytoday.com]

Samsung is on a roll with the Q1 announcements this week. After promising big things for Texas via increased retail penetration in Texas Best Buy stores (and Fry’s stores nationally), Samsung today said that they will be bundling a keyboard with all Q1s (at least in the UK).

Mark Jennings, Samsung’s UK notebook business manager, said: ‘The free organiser bundle and additional range of Q1 accessories, in particular our extended battery and power options, builds on consumer demand for flexibility and mobility in computing devices.’

Mark goes on to lie talk about how the Q1 has already exceeded all expectations.

Read the full article here.

Add one more thing to the list of things that are BIG in Texas. After some extremely limited availability via a couple of online venues, the Samsung Q1 is headed for broader distribution and direct placement on retail shelves where people might actually see it. Especially Texans.

According to a press release that hit the wires this week, Samsung is making the Q1 available in all Fry’s electronics stores and in various Best Buy stores across the great state of Texas.

“The Q1 was in high demand from the moment it debuted on the Best Buy and CDW websites,” said David A. Nichols, Director, Display Marketing, Samsung Electronics America. “That demand is what’s driven us to make the Q1 available at all Fry’s Electronics stores plus the Texas-based Best Buy outlets. In addition, we’ll soon be announcing yet another distributor for the Q1.”

We’ll be checking out those stores soon to see how the UMPC is being positioned at retail.Our expectations are, naturally, low.

Those generous bastards at Microsoft have apparently given the lowly UMPC a second lease on life after a slower than expected start. Gee, did they even wait 2 months before forcing themselves into this make-or-break decision? Seriously, one day this is going to make a heck of a Harvard Business Review case study (on how NOT to launch or market a product).

According to eWeek in an article entitled Microsoft Preps UMPC for Second Chance, “You’ll see an additional wave of UMPCs available in the holiday timeframe. We are seeing a lot more tier-one players get a lot more interested in releasing the UMPC.”

Sweet. No need to buy one now, eh?

Microsoft has been working with some… partners to help lower prices and deliver machines in different shapes, styles and colors. There’s room for designs that target women or teenagers, while others might aim for a business-oriented crowd.

This is music to my ears! It’s about time that MS got cracking on targeting their original demographic: consumers. Of course, the price needs to come down. We’ll just have to see what UMPC 2.0 has in store for us… and it’s coming sooner than later. Just don’t forget that you’ll need UMPC marketing 2.0 to go along with your new platforms second chance at life.

Read the full article here.

It was only a matter of time before made-to-order UMPCs joined the off-the-shelf variety we’ve seen thus far (though, you’d be hard-pressed to find a UMPC on an actual retail shelf right now).

Pioneer Computers has debuted their Dreambook UMPC (nice name!) and it is available pre-configured, or you can tweak it to your heart’s content, including accessories. For instance, you can choose your amount of memory, the size of your HDD (including how many partitions to have) and whether to have integrated bluetooth or not. From there you can include a TV tuner, DVD-Rom drives and a number of other, more useless, accessories.

You can take a look at the Dreambook and the ordering options for it here. I am in no way affiliated or associated with Pioneer Computers (they are Australian, afterall!).

UMPC? Check.
Wireless mouse? Check.
Wireless keyboard? Check.
Low-cut dress? Check!
Wicker chair draped in Grandma’s favorite quilt? Check.

Clearly, we’re playing World of Warcraft on the UMPC again. And we’re back on the Samsung Q1 as well. This looks to be the powerhouse of the current gen UMPCs. I would love to get an eo running this (and a few other games) and do some comparisons. Unlike the post from earlier this week, you get to see a bit more of the game in action this time… and it’s looking pretty smooth.

And also unlike earlier this week, there is no embedded video available. But here’s the direct link!

I was on an American Airlines flight today and was bored and tired enough to actually watch the in-flight entertainment (which was a collection of clips and shows from CBS). Ironically, one of the clips was a CBS news story about the “exciting new UMPC,” featuring Intel’s own Brad Graff (whoever the hell that is). Brad was enthusiastically showing off the famous Intel UMPC prototype (you know, the one shown in the right hand column of this page). I found it kinda interesting that they did not show off an existing and available model. It was a missed opportunity.

Anyway, the central theme of the segment was around answering this question: “With the availability of PDAs and laptops and phones and Blackberrys, what place does a UMPC actually have in this crowded market?” Good question!

According to Intel (and the dreamy Brad Graff), the answer came as a complete surprise to Intel and the UMPC partners… after 6 weeks of prototype testing with a variety of potential market targets, the ultimate consumer of the UMPC was was Identified as “the Soccer Mom.” Who knew?! A new platform for a completely new and untapped market. Jackpot!

“It was totally unexpected. They loved it!” beamed Graff.

Well, I bet they don’t love paying more than a grand for one, Bradley (no matter how big of a dreamboat you think you are personally). And I’m sure that Soccer Moms aren’t searching their local Value Added Resellers for one either.

I grow tired of asking this, so it’ll be the last time. Where is the rebel base original consumer vision for the platform? What happened to the consumer targets of this device?