Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/05/h9-umpc-runs-linux/

Looks like Maemo with some minor changes... to be more succint, it looks like a ripoff of Maemo's UI. Chances are though, this thing will never see the light of day outside of China.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

It looks a LOT like maemo - especially the little >> button on the bottom left. Wow.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Nah, it can't be Maemo: It has a mobile office suite on board.

AND -- IT'S A PHONE!!!

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

I contacted the company. We'll see if they respond and if I can get more information.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Given the historical dodginess of adherence to copyrights and patents in that corner of the world, I'd say the Hildon UI has been ripped off left and right. Notice the desktop icons too? Windows Media logos... on a Linux based box?

Apparently a price of $490 has been given?

http://www.pocketables.net/2007/02/h9_linux_umpc_p.html

Took me quite a bit of tracking, but here's the home page:
http://www.porient.com/2006dn/index.html

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

I'd be very interested to learn more about the PDA and Office functions they note -- not to mention the integrated cellular radio and GPS!

It's a seemingly poor english translation, but it looks pretty compelling. I would not mind a second device that was a bit larger than pocket size for home reading...

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

It's USD 490.00 is you order 500 units, apparently.

Oh, and I just found out that their "mobile office" is just a set of viewers! Wankers...

Edit: Does anyone know what input method(s) the thing has? It's ostentaciously absent from the descriptions.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

4000mAh battery - geez, that thing could stay powered forever!!! The hardware spec seems a mish mash of good and bad - it has PCMCIA (hmmm) but only one flash card slot? I'd rather they ditched the HDD and added a second slot.

64MB ROM/128MB RAM seems a bit on the low side, the CPU is a bit long in the tooth but I do like the integrated GPS.

If it *is* running Maemo (which I doubt as I suspect it's nothing more than a lame Photoshop) then I think it has the potential to be a good thing.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

It's also rather big (a 7 inch screen vs N800's 4.1 inch) and heavy (half a kilogram! not even cargo-pants will take that[*]), doesn't have Bluetooth (or they forgot to mention it in the specs), its input methods are a well-guarded mystery and with that spinning platter of metal will probably need the 4 Ah battery like there's no tomorrow (if it really sucks in 2 amps, as the power tab suggests, that huge battery is going to last exactly two -- as in: 2, dos, twee, deux!! -- hours!).

And I still have no idea what "EMS Memory" actually means.
____
[*] I just realized I inadvertently made a boyband-pun there. My first ever.

... and hopefully my last.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

I remember EMS memory from the good old daze of real-mode DOS. Hell, I even wrote code for it. Originally a hardware implementation (very expensive ISA cards) on 8088 boxes, it was later emulated by 386 memory managers. To address memory beyond the infamous 640KB barrier, it provided a 64KB window somewhere between there and 1MB, where you bank switched chunks of physical RAM in and out, usually as 16KB pages. Hey, maybe this new UMPC is really a DOS time machine! Does it come with Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordstar? ;-)

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Hmmm lotus and wordstar are / were office apps...

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

I did a side-by-side picture and spec comparison.
I doubt it represents any threat to existing UMPCs or Nokia Internet Tablets. It's big like a UMPC but comes with all the limitations (except mass storage) of the Nokia tablets:
http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com/2007/...some-idea.html

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

The differences from the Hildon UI are such that IMHO it's a clone, rather than the Maemo we know and love:

1. Number of shortcuts on task navigator.
2. Clock on task navigator.
3. Desktop icons etc.

If it is Maemo (which would be very cool: Nokia would be forced to separate Maemo releases from Nokia hardware and software releases), it's either a fork which they've been developing in-house for a while, or they've got a private deal with Nokia: otherwise we'd have seen more traffic from them on maemo-developers.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

...or it's Photoshopped :-)

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Very nice write up Daniel, and how many of these things can China, Japan, Korea etc. keep kicking out ? And I love and read tech sites like Engagdet, Gimodo etc. but exactly how many of these devices actually make it to market ? Mainstream USA/UK markets ? Where one could go to their local electronics/big box store or online shop to buy these products..

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Good Point TT -- even if this is everything they say it is and even if it runs Maemo, it will not be something that magically appears in CompUSA or Fryes (don't know any UK or other country stores). You'd have to track it down through Dynamism or something similar...

Regardless, It's still interesting to be considering what will happen next on our platform.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Thanks guys. If I understand Maemo correctly, the skin CAN be customized to include applets like a clock. But then, I'm no programmer. ;)

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Well, I am ;-)

"Skin" is usually synonymous with "theme", and Hildon Desktop themes can't add a clock, or change the number of shortcuts on the left hand side.

If by "skin", you meant user interface (UI), then yes - it could be changed to add a clock, and change the number of shortcuts. However, that then goes back to my "it's a fork, if anything" argument, as the source available from maemo.org does not support that customisation without rewriting large swathes of code.

The only areas easily changed on the Hildon Desktop are the home screen applets (clock, RSS feed reader) and additional status bar applets. Anything else needs the framework itself changing.

HTH,

Andrew

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

I'm going to side with blatant ripoff. Whatever it is, it's available now (or appears to be) so I doubt it's photoshopping. The company has 12 years of experience behind making cell phones, etc, which reminds me slightly of a company who made this 770 I have kicking around.

It's common in that corner of the world to rip off UI, hardware design, etc. Remember the PSP clones that had those old LCD Tiger games in them? Hilarious.

We won't see this thing unless it's via import in my opinion... but it's an interesting direction. Sounds like it'd have the same support we've come to know and love from Nokia.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Competition is good!

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

After reading about this UMPC H-9 here , I sent an email to ' BPETD Co. ', asking them about it. The following is the quote from their reply :

>Thank you very much for your inquiry for our UMPC, Model H9.
>The price of the product, based on 500 pcs, is USD490.00, fob Shenzhen.
>If you only need one, price should not be lower than USD 800.00

:eek: :( :eek:

>As you know, the Chinese New Year is coming near, we will start our the
>longest holiday right now.
>That's to say, if you need one sample, we will prepare one for you after
>the new year holiday.
>For more product information, please visit our website:
>www.porient.com
>
>Your kind attention and prompt reply will be highly appreciated.
>
>Happy the Chinese New Year !
>
>Thanks & Regards,
>
>

This makes me think that after creating such a UMPC, they are trying to make a quick buck off of the people who may think about getting one such Device.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Even if based on Maemo, it is only a ripoff if they don't make their software available for download. Otherwise this is just a "fork", which is ok. It would be more usual not to fork at all, and contribute changes back to Maemo, but this isn't required.

Even if it isn't mostly Maemo, it seem likely that Maemo can be made to run on this hardware which would provide an interesting addition to the Maemo family of devices.

Re: Is that Maemo or a blatent ripoff that I see?
 

Arjun: Want a good read?
http://www.engadget.com/tag/keepinitrealfake

Everything in that category... Guess where it comes from? ;)

And put me on the list for a sample unit ;)