hi to all umpc admirers and to those who experience nostalgia for old hardware. today we are going to talk about such device as amtek t-700 and it is quite a special one. why special? i'll tell about it a bit later. now let's just have a look at it. it looks nice, doesn't it? to tell the truth, when i first took it in my hands, it seemed to me much more cutie than kittens on the web. my first impression was that it was just a toy. indeed, it looks pretty more like a toy rather than a gadget for work with its colour composition: black body, white directional key, buttons on the side, orange track point. i'd like to thank the fathers of this device for its strongly rounded angles, as they make it comfortable in use while you are hanging it in your hands. but let's start with the beginning. we'll observe the exterior of this device, first.
traditionally, we'll start from the front side. centrally, we can see a 7'' tft touch screen, 800x480 resolution, featuring up to 16.7 million colors. surely, resolution might be better, but every day is not sunday. i'm not going to fix your attention on the viewing angles of this device and the responsiveness of the screen, as those of the relative gadgets can be characterized in the same way. so, let's move further. at the top we can see a set of led indicators. left to right: wireless network, hard disk, battery, power on/off. on the right: strain gage transducer (track point).
its color will remain a mystery for me forever. it seems to be a kind of flavor. it seems to be a kind of flavor. track point runs smoothly, but, as for me, a bit slowly, so it still runs. below the track point we can see two buttons which are, in fact, pageup and pagedown keys. below them there are two special buttons to open settings menu and to adjust screen resolution. here's screen brightness, resolution, external monitor switch and volume control. below all that stuff we can see a microphone. by the way, the package contained stereo headset, which would allow you to make records of a medium quality. in the upper-left corner we can see two keys standing for the left and right mouse buttons, which are quite comfortable in use.
below there is a 4-position navigational key with emulated input key in the middle. it's quite easy in use too, in contrast, the next two keys are not. they fetch the on-screen keyboard and menu. on the very top we can see a nicely looking cylindrical accumulator, which can be easily removed and then thrown the hell away, as it lives for about 20 min. its capacity is 2400mah. but let's put the battery back. underneath we can see a docking station port, a vent hole and a small 'eternity box' for a stylus-pen. actually, the whole gadget is an 'eternity box' for it. in this context, i'll perform a trick for you a bit later. let's now leave a stylus-pen and continue.
on the left side — up to down: charging port, 2.0 usb port and on/off wireless networks slider. on the right side — up to down: ñ-ñ-combo port for the stereo headset. jack 3.5. volume control buttons having some plastic pop-outs to get the volume level adjusted by touch. indeed, sometimes that's the thing that any modern device lacks. below there is one more 2.0 usb port, underneath - umpc on/off switcher combined with keyguard function. despite the fact that the switcher has special pop-outs, its position can be hardly changed with a single finger. that's why we have to turn the device around and switch it on and off forcefully. at the very bottom there is a ctrl+alt+del key.
let's turn it around and enjoy the reverse side view. awesome. the stickers are the first to catch your eye. i've got them almost completely faded to black, so i'll tell about them later. on the top there are two battery fixers. the dynamic speaker is right here. there should have been 4 rubber feet, but they were lost as the most part of the package. well, i've almost forgotten. i promised to perform a trick. i take a stylus-pen in my hands, turn the device around and stick the s-pen into a special hole and... voilã we've got a support stand. surely, everybody knows that an accidental press will be enough for the stylus-pen to pop-out or even break down. and that's exactly what happened to it.
i don't know what kind of 'genius' person could come to the idea of using s-pen in such a strange way. but i'd like to look in his eye and say â«never do this thing again. never again!â». although, except for this obviously useless function, the s-pen has a useful one. you can expand it to make it more comfortable to operate the device. well, it's time to move to the most interesting point — the device's interiors. i'll just tell you that the inner part of amtek is almost the same as in the relative gadgets. it is naturally built upon the basis of the via c7m “esher†cpu of quite a melancholic 1 ghz clock speed. the same cpu was installed in gigabyte m704, but with 1.2 ghz clock speed.
let's remember that it's manufactured according to the 90nm technology. the graphics engine is called via vn800/vt8237r and its memory range is not applicable, so a part of ram is used instead. the previous model had only 256mb of ram. you may probably ask why so little, as they could install more. by the way, there are modifications having more ram, they've had the same name but with plus prefix. this is definitely the model i'm keeping in my hands. it has 1 gb ram and 600mhz bus frequency. it has 2.5'' 60 gb hard disk, which is called seagate st96812a. this umpc was specially created for running on our precious windows xp. so, when in operation, you can see some insignificant lags, but i'd forgive them as there's no lack of ram at all.
but a noisy vent really gets on my nerves. the problem is that the vent installed here is quite small, so it blows out insignificant amount of air. while running, this metal thing gets hot and it may warm your hands up through the cold winter nights, as you were probably supposed to spend your time with this device. well, at least, that's what the amtek company expected you to do. let's now leave the hardware and dive into history. and while you are doing this, you may watch how amtek deals with games. so, in march 2006 the major international exhibition 'cebit' devoted to it and telecommunications took place and microsoft, intel, samsung and a number of other companies including amtek presented the origami project. at the same time a special term 'umpc' was invented to define the form-factor of these devices.
the project supposed to have all these companies united as one to develop and produce a number of devices having combined the following: os windows xp, touch screen, low power consumption and wireless transmission technologies, such as wi-fi and bluetooth. the price was expected to be within the range of 500 and 1000$. this project originated the forthcoming ultramobile computers. it's remarkable also for the fact that such major companies do not often get together to produce something new and even less often it brings good results. as you've understood, all this stuff is running on os windows xp. here are some points. microsoft company is in the list of origami project for a reason that it developed some software for touch devices. at that moment, the major part of mobile devices used either series 40 platform or microsoft product called 'windows mobile'.
there were also palm os and others, but we are speaking about 2006, so it's clear where the experience in touch-oriented apps development could be from. so, microsoft delivery package contained the following features: handwriting input recognition, 'notes' — a program, which, in fact, imitates usual stickers to write on something and then stick them to the necessary place, and also to make a record and then play it. here's a short audio track. unfortunately, i don't have the rest of the package, so i'll tell you about them. games: ink ball, sudoku and some other interesting programs. the plot of the first game is that you need to slot the ball,
which flies over the playground and bounces from the walls, by drawing dashes with a stylus-pen. besides, special utilities to customize settings and manage umpc parameters were added to the operating system. this particular device should have had touch pack, which has very beautiful interface to provide access to settings and software, but i couldn't find and install it, so there's no touch pack. well, traditionally, i'll demonstrate office programs in operation. today i'm not going to tell you about ms office, i'll show you open office, which is an alternative office program. let's type something. well, practically, it's 'hello world'. i'll also show some videos for you to see how well multimedia functions here.
here's, for example, a video. here's. for example. 'the symphony #9' by beethoven. well, the main thing is that the dynamic speaker can outcry a noisy cooler. by the way, i forgot to mention the price. it was about $1,000-1,200 in russia. let's draw a conclusion. the device is quite easy in use, unusually and brightly designed, but at the same time it's functioning the way it should. as for the pros, i believe, they are compact size, user-friendliness and a good touch screen (for 2006). as for the cons, strange design decisions, low battery capacity, a bit low efficiency indexes, unability to install extension modules and quite a huge price. so, if you liked my video, please, subscribe, share with friends and remember to visit kirill leifer's channel.
he tells lots of interesting things about rare and old devices. see you! now i'm going to show you a legendary game ''space rangers''. the first episode was out in 2002. if you are eager to know more about it, i can make a special review. i'm not going to comment on the game now, as i think it demands a special video.
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