Both MSI and Gigabyte are planning on releasing their ultra-portables in the second quarter of this year.

While a fair amount of info on the MSI Wind UMPC has been released since CeBIT, very little is known about the Gigabyte – it is a surprise contender, and it’s appearing that we won’t know the specs until it’s release later this summer. There is no pricing info on the machine.

The MSI Wind, however, is known to be priced between $480 – $1000. A wide range, but at least it gives the possibility of being a cheap machine.

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An intriguing ‘laptop’ has appeared on the web today, and it is anything but standard. This new machine, lacking specs or the makers name, is made of a couple pen-shaped devices.

The machine operates via a couple of thin ‘pens’ that are Bluetooth enabled. These devices project the screen and keyboard onto any flat surfaces.

There’s no other features listed, no other information at all. There is one picture of the person who is presumed to be the created, but nothing is official.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this design.

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The Rock, a 12.1″ laptop, is hardly the size of an ultra-portable mobile machine. It only weighs 1.2kg, however.

The thing that makes this interesting is the architecture it is based on – that of the now-popular netbooks. It has a 6-hour battery life, and is low power at 1.6Ghz. This machine is intended to be a larger web-surfer.

The surprising part? Though this machine is based on the same platform of the netbooks, and is hardly powerful enough to compete with other notebooks, it is priced at a whopping $2000+.

It makes me wonder what they have hidden in this machine. For this price, one could by a very nice 17″ gaming machine.

Asus’ R50 UMPC, the little brother to the highly-touted R70, was ignored after CES at the beginning of the year, where everyone focused on the R70. News has finally surfaced on the little gadget, with Asus being frustratingly vague.

The device, which sports a 5.6″ screen, will be released sometime before June, and will come with the option of a Linux or Vista OS. What retailers will get the device first, or what it will cost is unknown. Asus says the machine will cost more than $500. How much is unknown. $600? $2000?

This could turn out to be a nice moderately priced gadget, but the electronic rumors are suggesting the price will be higher.

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A promotional video for Lenovo’s Ideapad U8 has been released on their official blog – the video is available on YouTube.

The Ideapad is a small UMPC from Lenovo that is designed to be powerful and fast. The device sports a 4.8″ touchscreen and supports one-handed web surfing via EDGE or 3G. It also features live GPS, note feature for hand-writing notes, MS Office support, and a 12-key numeric pad. It runs off the Atom chipset, and appears to be loaded with Linux.

Whether this will make State-side or to Europe is yet to be seen, but it is being released in Asia. Pricing info is not available.

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VIA has just announced their new VX800 chipset for ultra-mobile devices.

The VX800 is the next generation of integrated northbridge/southbridge and GPU intended to help UMPC’s reach a higher processing speed and power. The most significant change over the previous generation (VX700) is the addition of DX9 capable graphics hardware.

The processor:

- clocks at 250Mhz
-has a VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine
- has 128-bit 2D engine with hardware rotation.
- HD video processor with VMR
- up to 256MB frame buffer

This new chipset is designed for mini-notebooks and UMPCs that are more powerful than the new high-end Atom powered books. The new chipset is to ship in April.

The upcoming Asus EeePC is to sport a multi-touch trackpad similar to the one found on the Macbook Air.

The touchpad will allow the user to scroll and zoom with two fingers on the trackpad via sliding and pinching motions.

These pictures and the information was leaked via the FCC website.

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MIU’s HDPC is an amazing little gadget for a small(ish) price tag.

MIU aims for the HDPC to be an all-in-one gadget, and it looks like they have succeeded. The HDPC is a small unit close in size to the old HP Jornada’s. It has the following specs:

- 4-inch LCD 800 x 480 touchscreen.

- 1Ghz VIA C7M ULV processor and 4GB of DDR2 memory.

- Cellphone radio (unknown type).

- 1.3″ 60GB hard drive or optional 4GB SSD plus miniSD and microSD expansion slot.

- 7-hour battery at full power, 90(9?)-hour at low power.

- 802.11b/g WiFi

- Bluetooth 2.0

- 2x USB and a docking port, stereo speakers, QWERTY thumbpad and mouse.

- 5 megapixel camera and camcorder.

- DMB mobile television.

- The ability to add an external GPS.

This awesome little device is truly all in one – you can record video and take pictures, watch movies, surface the Internet, read eBooks, store (a lot) of data, watch tv, use the device as a SatNav, make phone calls…plus more.

The device is expected to be released in July, and will cost $500.

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Amazon spilled the beans when they make it public on the main site.

A joint between HTC and Sprint Announcement is to be made Monday, making the 3G HTC Shift official. Amazon.com lists the price at a whopping $1499.

Read the specs HERE

While information and speculation has been circulating the Internet about the G10IL, ECS has finally offered some official details on the subnotebook.

The machine was introduced first at CeBIT, and was named the GSMA winner for it’s Mobile Broadband Notebook competition. The official details state the machine will be:

- 11″ LCD screen

-  Built-in Tri-Band HSDPA and HSUPA (ie, super 3G technology)

-   Three USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, and 56k modem, WLAN, Bluetooth, and a 4-in-1 card reader.

-  1.3MP Integrated Web Cam

ECS says they are also planning on releasing  10.2″ and 8.9″ versions of the machines.