At the start of last year when we first came up with the concept we were able to work closely with Samsung who had just launched a brand new cutting edge UMPC with SSD. Ok so what does that all mean?
Well UMPC stands for Ultra Mobile Personal Computer and it’s the latest development in computing jointly developed by Samsung, Microsoft and Intel. It is a full PC running a special version of windows XP tablet designed by Microsoft with wireless and Bluetooth ability. UMPCs have been around for a year or two but the really exciting breakthrough for us was that the Samsung Q1 was the first commercially available platform to offer us SSD
SSD stands for Solid State Drive which is exactly what it says! It means that there are no moving parts whatsoever - instead of a hard drive there is a solid state unit. Which means that it s tough - really tough and designed for people who want to use a PC on the move and subject it to all sorts of rough treatment – Samsung were quite surprised when we first approached them and said we had a use for the Q1 SSD in special schools! Those of you who have used VOCAs with children with challenging behaviour will know exactly what our children can do to a high tech machine.
High Tech is exactly what this is, mind. It’s already a second generation UMPC. And the new Q1 Ultra platform comes with built in camera and video and even has an embedded QWERTY keyboard, but all of these feature can be disabled or obscured by a custom designed case if prying fingers are a problem!. Have a look at the Q1 Ultra page for more details.
