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…)

Just got my new issue of PC Magazine. The cover story this month is entitled “What’s HOT Now!” And who is a featured cover model? None other that The Sony Vaio UX180P pseudo-UMPC. Wait till you see the centerfold!

Not included on the HOT list? The Microsoft spec’ed UMPC. Maybe next year…

We know that Dell has been exploring their UMPC options, but it seems that they are starting to hint at their place within Dell’s portable computing roadmap a bit more directly. At one of Dell’s “Technology Days” last week, Alex Gruzen, general manager of Dell’s Product Group, gave a few choice quotes. Our fave?

“Until now, [the tablet market] has been just way too limited” for Dell, Gruzen said. However, once tablet features are available inside Vista, the market “starts to look interesting.”

Could a portfolio of Vista capable UMPCs and full-blown TabletPCs be far behind? I think they are right around the corner. Read more at eweek.

You likely already know that Tabletkiosk’s i7210 and i7109 are actually “old school” designs, clones of the original Founder Mininote UMPC that was unveiled along with the Samsung Q1 and Asus R2H when the UMPC launched. So what is happening with the actual Founder version of their Mininote? For one, it has only been available in China… no one on the outside has really had a chance to see it, but they are apparently selling like hotcakes (they are available in red and black and sell for roughly the same price as their TabletKiosk counterparts elsewhere).

And now the Founder Mininote is going global, and will be available for the rest of the world in about 2 weeks. For more information, check out one of Founder’s international distributors here. It’s a bit overpriced.

The Ago7 UMPC (the same machine as the first TabletKisok eo model) is now $799. That’s a good price cut. My speculation is that agoPC maybe getting ready to launch a new model (in TabletKiosk’s footsteps) and is certainly aware of the impending arrival of the Asus R2H at $999.

Available exclusively on its website, http://www.agopc.com, the 512MB RAM/40GB HDD ago7 model is $799 plus shipping. “At agopc our mission is to broaden the UMPC’s appeal,” says President and CEO David Carroll. “At this price point, those new to the platform will find a high quality UMPC like ago7 very attractive.” Mr. Carroll noted that ago7 now costs nearly $200 less than an identically configured model from their competition.

Does it come in different colors? Yuck.

Many of you may have overlooked a hidden gem on the Windows download page (probably about 99% of you), so here’s a reminder that there are no less than 25 addons for your UMPC running WindowsXP Tablet. Of these,there are some remarkably useful addons, such as extended desktop. Personally, I like the paint program… it works much better than MS Paint and there are also fun things like pool and maze. Oh, and its all FREE. So what you waiting for? Go check it out.

[Thanks Alan]

Just in time for our poll on “must-have” accessories, comes word that high-quality UMPC screen-guards are finally available. Boxwave (who makes a screen guard for everything, including screen guards for screen guards), now offers, uh, screen guards for the Samsung Q1 and the TabletKisok eo v7110. And they’re only $27.95 per sheet (that’s one heck of a profit margin!).

You can order them here. Full disclosure: I get nothing if you order from that link. NOTHING! Boxwave, however, puts $27.90 ($27.95 - the actual cost of the screen guard) in their pocket.

[Via UMPCBuzz]

Ultranauts’ new Asia chief, Alan Liu, has had a Samsung Q1 since day 1 (techniucally, he’s had it since before day 1, but that’s another story). Alan’s got the scoop on why the UMPC will reach critical mass, with or without the region that Microsoft calls HQ…

Now, I can read and write Chinese, no problem… but if you ask me to type a document into MS Word, I would tell you that my 90 year old grandma could do it faster. Why? Because I dont know how to use a keyboard to type Chinese. Am I embarrassed? Not at all… there are millions like me in Asia. But all this is before character recognition in the new Windows XP Tablet Edition that comes with UMPC became more easily available and in the proper form factor. Now people that used to think “why the heck do we have a Chinese keyboard that has the alphabet on it? I’m not going to use that!” may continue to do so and write away on their UMPCs naturally and easily.

This single thing, combined with a culture that prefers smaller gadgets to larger ones is (we’re looking at you TabletPC), is a massive reason why the UMPC is taking off fast in Asia. There’s no looking back now.