Before CES started (technically it starts tomorrow, but it might as well just start today considering the number of product announcements), I talked about a new UMPC from E-Lead that looked like it could improve on many of the problems with the Eee PC, but there were almost no details. Now, the details have arrived from Pocketables and the Noahpad website. Just from a quick glance at the details of this new Noahpad I can tell that E-Lead looked at all the problems with the Eee PC and tried to fix them. I say tried because I am skeptical about how well many of their solutions will work, but at least they tried.

One of the biggest complains about the Eee PC is the small keyboard. The Noahpad features two big trackpads that are also supposed to be able to mimic the feel of buttons. This is supposed to make typing easier because the keyboard is split into two parts (the two trackpads) so there is more space. In addition, the Noahpad can be opened all the way so that it looks like a tablet with the keys on the back and the screen on the front. In this configuration, a layover appears on the screen of the keys so that you can type even without looking at the keyboard. (This is really hard to explain, but this picture and this picture from the Pocketables website make it much easier to understand.)

Another frequent complaint about the Eee PC is the small screen. While the Noahpad has the same size screen (7″), they claim that their 7″ screen works like a 10″ screen. That sounds complicated, but the idea is really quite simple. On your 7″ screen, you see part of what you would see on a 10″ screen and you just scroll around with the over sized trackpads. Once again, this is hard to explain, so I am just going to quote from the Noahpad site:

“Noahpad UMPC uses the virtual screen technology to display portions of the standard 10¨ window on its 7¨ screen while maintaining the resolution of 1024X768 pixels. With the unique touchpad controller, users can easily move the window around on the screen, effectively expanding the viewing area from 7¨ to 10¨ .”

The Noahpad does not just attempt to fix problems with the Eee PC, though. The Noahpad is also designed to be able to preform the functions of a digital photo frame or car GPS navigation system. Unfortunately, the Noahpad does not have built-in GPS, so you need an external GPS reciever. In addition to all this, the Noahpad uses some sort of external battery to provide 10 hours of battery life.

The Noahpad certainly sounds cool, but it still remains to be seen if the features, such as the combination trackpad and keyboard, really work as they are supposed to. Also, there is no price point yet. Mobile Whack is claiming the price will be in the range of the Eee PC, but I can’t verify that. Still, this new UMPC certainly looks cool.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Hardware, Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.