Impressions of the Intel MIDs

We gave you a very blurry look at the interesting MIDs that Intel was showing off last night at Digital Experience and I wanted to give some additional impressions we had of the various devices.  We will be getting a more extensive look at the Intel booth soon but here's a quick take on our ten minutes with the devices.

The Lenovo MID is a nice device sporting Red Hat Linux.  The touch screen is very soft and responsive and there was an impressive set of software to make this a personal companion device.  Lots of photo display ability and video is handled impressively too.  It is not as big as it looks in the photos I've seen, it's about the size of a Sony PSP.

The Aigo is a cool MID with a sliding QWERTY keyboard that is pretty functional.  It too is running Red Hat according to the Intel folks at their booth.  It too was snappy and responsive, something that looks to be common with these Linux-based MIDs.

The DigiFriends MID, and no we don't have a clue who they are, was very similar to the others in look and feel.  Again, snappy response and will fit in your pocket.

The Toshiba MID was the most interesting to me for a couple of reasons.  First up, it's Toshiba and it's good to see one of the major players working with Intel to get one of these MIDs up and running.  Secondly, and most interesting, the Toshiba is not a MID like the others.  It does not run any flavor of Linux, no it was running Vista!  This makes it more of a UMPC than a MID by popular definition.

We'll definitely be showing you better looks of these devices as we visit the Intel booth in the main show and spend some time with them.  Maybe even some video snippets.  :)

Comments

[gork]

MIDS excite me. First, this is the answer from others to competing with the likes of Nokia and their Internet Tablets. That and it also replaces the old PDA category. There have been for a long time users of PDA's that used them as more than a PDA. I always used to use mine more a like a computer than a PDA. It was a secondary internet device and as a quick way to gain access to systems remotely. The current crop of smartphones can do this, but the screens are usually much smaller than on these mid's. This looks like a fun category and one that is exciting!

[Kenrick]

Do you mean Red Flag, not Red Hat?

[Scoobie]

MIDS are good, but I'm disappointed in what UMPC new releases there are so far, running full blown Vista and with keyboard inputs . Put it this way,are there any devices you've seen so far that would make the jk or kevin kitbag at next year's CES? That's the test for me.

[Scoobie]

I'm going to eat my hat, LG just launched an OQO price killer running full blown Vista on Menlow. Hurray, UMPCs live on.
JK/Kevin - checkout the LG stand please!