Tag Archives: UMPC

Supplied by expansys
Price: £496.56

First Impressions

The Gigabyte M912M is an unusual product because it straddles the feature sets of many current devices on the market today- at first glance it appears to bring standard laptop features to the Netbook form factor and for good measure throws in a tablet style swivel touch screen. This idea is good in theory, but does it work in practice?

The first point to bear in mind when considering the merits of the M912M is the price which somewhat dwarfs the similarly dimensioned Netbook style devices on the market, and actually out prices many standard laptops which can be bought from £250 now.

The box and accessories are as you would expect- everything you need is included, but there is nothing special jumping out of the contents to make you feel that some considerate touches have been thought about. The Gigabyte itself also does not inspire many emotions when first used- if I am honest it looks cheap and the shiny black front married with the matt silver casing creates a look that is dated. The inclusion of Windows XP, which makes a lot of sense, also dates the M912M a little- although XP will do everything you need very well, it does not have the same visual sophistication of Vista.

Opening up the M912M reveals an 8.9″ screen which is well sized and takes full advantage of the dimensions of the panel it sits in. The screen swivels to offer a tablet style form when needed- this has advantages if you want to watch a film or play a touch enabled game and is the main advantage of this device. The quoted ‘latchless’ design does make the screen easy to open, close and swivel, but is also one of the negative aspects of this product; at no point does it sit securely when opened and swivels too easily in my view. It feels secure when shut, but at any angle opened it struggles to stay still. I do like the tablet arrangement, but would happily sacrifice one second of time when opening it to have a more secure latching mechanism.

In use

The general speed of the M912M is very good and it appears that the hardware and software have been matched well. The screen allows for fairly complete web browsing and is more than adequate for document editing. The size of the device does make for a smaller than average keyboard, and this one feels comparable to one of the early Asus EEE PCs. I am writing this review on it and rattling through at a good pace so this is not an area that many will complain about. The weighting is slightly off for using it on a lap- the screen part is fairly heavy and does cause the unit to want to lean back unless it is held by your palms when typing. To be fair, this is an issue with almost all small laptops.

There is a complete feature set onboard which offers great flexibility for anyone who needs laptop features in a smaller than average package. Connectivity is excellent with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.1 and HSDPA expansion options. From the moment you pick up this device, you should have all of the options you need to be connected whenever you are.

The 160GB hard drive is ample and can be supplemented using one of the 3 USB ports, or via the SD slot. There is no CD/DVD drive onboard, but it would be pushing the bounds of what is possible to expect one when the dimensions of the M912M are considered.

The included software is relatively sparse, but is effectively the XP standard set with some add-ons to cater for the touch screen. There is a ‘small’ onscreen keyboard (standard) and some configurations to allow PenMount use. The touch screen itself is extremely accurate and finger navigation was a breeze- it appears that the touch side of things has been carefully implemented to allow almost universal use over all of the standard XP applications.

The more I used the Gigabyte, the more I grew to like it and could see it passing as a portable device for working on the move. The heavyweight communication options of course help and it would be difficult to find anything that is missing, or not easily expandable.

Conclusion

The M912M is a complete device which offers a lot to anyone who wants to do everything on the move, and I for one have grown to like the way the unit has been put together. The screen mechanism could be better and the price is difficult to judge because this set up is fairly unusual. If I had to call it, I would air on the side of it being priced ‘very’ slightly too high because there is stiff competition in this area and so many options that a product needs to really stand out to have a major impact. At £430 it would be a bargain without doubt, but for those that need the feature set the price will not present a barrier to purchase.

The M912M still competes well in many areas and the flexibility onboard makes it a device which could suit the vast majority of potential customers well.