dlmag has a MUST-WATCH video (and writeup) of the DualCor cPC.  It’s out of my price range, but if they brought the $1500 price closer to $1000, it would be a no brainer.

The DualCor cPC is a 1.5 GHz handheld that runs on XP Tablet PC edition.  At the flip of an on-screen switch, though, it runs Windows Mobile on a much less battery hungry CPU.  Really, this is a great idea!

One way for vendors to keep costs down on the UMPC devices would be to have versions that ship without RAM or a hard drive.  Considering that I will most likely want to upgrade both of those items, I’d rather get a barebones unit so I don’t have to resell those components.

This is assuming that the hard drives will be the standard laptop 2.5 inchers and that the RAM is also standard.

Today, I started porting one of my homebrew pda games to C#.  This particular game has always been difficult to play on a typical PDA.  The many touch points are hard to hit reliably on a small screen.  I think the 7″ screen of a UMPC/Origami device will be perfect.

Anyway, I’m starting to think about the game’s impact on battery life.  After several searches, I haven’t found anyone who has put together tests comparing various GDI+ effects and their impacts on battery life.  When I get closer to completing the port (probably another weekend or two), I’ll try to put together my own tests.  I’m guessing I’ll have two graphical modes for the game – one that’s beautiful and abuses the battery and one that is relatively simple and does its best to preserve battery life.