TG Daily mentions that Intel’s “Ultra Mobile PC” is on track for a first quarter release:
The UMPC is Intel’s platform initiative in the handtop segment – which currently is only represented by the OQO computer. Intel first showed a UMPC prototype last August at its Fall developer forum with the promise to roll out the product in 2006. Sources now indicate that Intel is on track to take the wraps off the platform sometime this quarter: Samsung, Asus and Founder will the first companies to launch UMPCs.
This is going to be interesting – WWAN, GPS capabilities, standby times of up to a week, all in a device not much bigger than a paperback book – this is somewhere between a PDA and a very small notebook (the OQO as mentioned, and the Toshiba U100 series are good examples of this size) and may have a physical keyboard. As mentioned in the article, the OQO hovers around $2000, which has been considered a barrier to entry by some – if these devices are substantially cheaper, it could change quite a few things in this segment of the notebook market.