Sascha and Nicole from netbooknews.com kindly invited me to join them for a meeting with Freescale this morning. I have a video that i’ll process later but in the meantime, here are some pics. Note that this is a reference design, not the final sexy variant that you might find in the shops.

More information about the reference design can be found in a article we posted a few days ago.

Full gallery here.

The starting point for a mobile internet device design is to look at the processing platforms available in the market. I’ve spent the last few days researching and reviewing the ARM-based CPUs and platforms and put together a full report that you can find over at UMPCPortal.

If you’re tracking news about MID and ‘smart devices’ from CES next week, keep this as a reference.

ARM Products and Platforms Primer and Resource List for Mobile Internet Devices in 2010. | UMPCPortal – Ultra Mobile Personal Computing.

Bringing a computing device to the market is, quite frankly, a nightmare. 90% of the work is in the last 10% of the detail and timescales will always slip. For the first-timer, the success rate must be pretty low. For a community project, the success rate must be even lower so we’re truly happy to see that the Open Pandora project is just a few steps away from the finishing line. (Actually, a new starting line!)

Production of the cases was due to start in time for Christmas shipping but a hiccup on the case has held things up. Fortunately, some production sample units are out there and the videos keep rolling in.

The Open Pandora product is aimed at hobbyists and hackers who want a relatively high-powered product for gaming-focused software projects. The device is just 140mm wide but contains a relatively powerful TI OMAP 3 board inside. That’s as good as the best ARM-based devices on the market right now!

Information, specifications and previous news on the Open Pandora project available here.

Available in the Asian market is this slim and cheap clamshell device that looks a lot like the UMID M1 UMPC. This one is definitely aimed at the consumer though because it’s running Android, dictionary software and a relatively low power Marvell ARM-based CPU at 624Mhz.

Screenshot from Netbooknews.com video. (Click to view)

The specs:

• 4.8” 800×480 touchscreen
• 128MB RAM
• 1GB storage
• 624Mhz Marvell CPU
• OS: Android (We suspect this is not a Google Android Build)
• SD Card Slot
• USB port
• Local price: Around $300 (US equivalent)
• Wifi/Bluetooth: Unknown
• 3G: Version coming late 2010

It looks like this one is built exclusively for the Asian market and with what looks like a relatively weak CPU, I wouldn’t expect this one to set the western world on fire. It shows what can be done though. Taking this design to it’s technology limits with the latest ARM-based platforms like OMAP 3 or Snapdragon means we could see similar designs bring a fast and fluid web and media experience to a small, good value handheld ‘pad’ device during 2010.

Thanks to Netbooknews.com. Head over there for a video presentation on the device.