Via Origami beats Samsung Q1 to market

Via has beaten Samsung to market with its Origami ultra mobile PC, with the Pace Blade Easy Book E7 now available in the UK.

But despite expectations that it would be much cheaper than Samsung's Q1, its price will be just £49 less.

The low-drain C7-M processor should have allowed the Pace Blade UMPC to be sold for a much lower price than Intel-based models like the Q1.

Speaking in the UK, Colin Brix, Via's chipset platform group international marketing specialist, commented: 'We sell the chips cheaper [than Intel]. Whether [manufacturers] want to save that cost and pass it on to customers - that's their choice.'

At Winhec in the US, Charles Holthaus, who worked for chip designer Centaur when it was taken over by Via, disputed Intel's figures for the performance per watt of its mobile processors.

The Via Origami shown at Winhec,  branded Tablet Kiosk Eo in the US, sells for $850 (£490), including a satellite-navigation module, a price that could put it in competition with high-end PDAs as well as traditional notebooks.

But in the UK the same model - under the Pace brand - costs £750, and does not come with the GPS module. The Samsung Q1 will sell in the UK for £799 when it comes out on 1 June.

Holthaus said Via's Origami design was rushed out because the high cost of low-voltage Intel processors created an opportunity for the company.

And he said Intel's way of measuring performance per watt was more suitable for high-end servers and did not reflect truly how much power a processor will drain from a battery doing typical mobile tasks.

In PCW's tests of the Samsung Q1, which uses a 900MHz Intel ultra low voltage CPU, we found battery life to be closer to 2.5 hours than the claimed 3.5 hours. However, Via is claiming only 2.5 - 3 hours battery life for its UMPC.

But could Via compete when Origamis start to use Intel multi-core processors, which offer both performance and power efficiency?

Holthaus said Via had considered going dual core. 'We haven’t disclosed it on any of our public roadmaps yet but it is certainly technically feasible for us. We already have [two] discrete processors on motherboards today.

'The next evolution will be to put those on the same die. We haven’t committed to that product yet.'

The C7-M chips were also small enough to put two on an Origami motherboard, Holthaus said.

Additional reporting: Rob Jones

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