Well I am in the market for a UMPC. It's going to be used for car tuning/monitoring and watching video via SlingPlayer around the house.

I was wondering if anyone has/uses or has used the following UMPCs:

The WiBrain: http://www.wibrain.com/

http://www.umpcportal.com/products/product.php?id=181

It gets great reviews and from what I have seen on YouTube it is very usable, plus it has a touch screen, it is small and would mount on my dash with the GPS dock add-on which would make it double as a GPS when I needed it.

The other contender is the GigaByte M704:

http://www.umpcportal.com/products/product.php?id=153

Same deal, a bit bigger, roughly the same specs. 2 USB ports instead of one, etc. etc.

Both would be great for me, although I was leaning more towards the WiBrain simply because it's cheaper and is available with Ubuntu pre-installed. (Cuts down on cost). I'd be formatting it anyways.

My main question is can the RAM in these two machines be upgraded. I can get the M704 shipped on Sept 1st and the WiBrain shipped now.


What would you choose? Or do you have an alternative? I need at least 1 USB port on the device.

The WiBrain Linux version does not come with BlueTooth but I wouldn't need that anyway.

I decided to get the hp tx2524ca. It's a tablet PC. Here's the link: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documen...=reg_R1002_USEN

At work we sell the European version tx2520ea, spec looks pretty much the same from memory. Very nice laptop with a high spec, I think it's sold for £699 in the UK which is a great price considering the extra features:

Touch screen
Fingerprint Reader
Card Reader
N WiFi

Only downside I could possibly see is the hinge for the rotating screen, but the design has been used by them for at least 2 years and I respect HP so Im guessing the design works.

Yeah I thought the hinge was going to be a problem, but it's really sturdy. I've been writing on this talking to people on WLM all day and it works great... especially after a clean install of Windows haha.

Heh, that's the dilemma that I have been pondering for a few years now: portable PC functionality in a small handheld. UMPCs are too big, and something extra to carry. PDA-phones are small, but their functionality is limited.

But slowly PDA phones are becoming more powerful, and I actually find it exciting to keep up with them. I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg of seeing what they're capable of doing. Years from now, I can see them completely replacing the PC. Just think, you sit down at your desk, put the PDA phone in its cradle, and control it with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Or perhaps, keyboard and touchscreen monitor.


I bought a customized tx2000z back in January shortly after it was first released. A few months later they released the tx2500 series, which the main difference is that it has a Radeon HD 3200 instead of a GeForce Go 6150. It's a nice little laptop. I bought this small case for it, and it fits perfectly (except for the charger).