CES Reports: The Medion Ultra-Mobile PC

One of the devices we were very intersted in checking out was the Medion Ultra-Mobile PC from Arima. Rob posted earlier in the week that we were actively searching but still hadn’t found a unit we could lay our hands on. Well Tuesday we finally located the missing Medion  in the Microsoft booth although things were just to crowded to capture any video of the device. That said, they weren’t too crowded for Dennis Rice to crash the device. (So, let’s see, the GBM count at CES is Rob crashing the OQO Model 02 and Dennis crashing the Medion, come on guys, take it easy on the hardware will you.)

I have to say the Medion is an attractive looking mobile device and like the new OQO it is designed to run Vista. The 6.5” WXGA screen is very clear and bright (although I found the colors richer on the OQO) and the slide out keyboard is a little larger than we have seen in other devices, with an interesting split down the middle that seems to accomodate the reach of your thumbs or fingers easier than those that are on the typical keyboard. (At least it felt better to my clumsy hands.) We snapped a few pictures of the device and in one of these you’ll see it side by side with the OQO Model 02 for a size comparison. In my brief hands on, the size of this device felt somehow more natural in my hands than the smaller OQO. Specs are now up on Arima’s site, along with more pictures. One interesting omission is that there is no built in WWAN connection at this point, which I think makes this less attractive in the smaller mobile device category.