Astone UMPC hits store shelves in Manila

Yet another player in the UMPC market has emerged. Definitely a hot item this season. The Astone UMPC is a 7 inch laptop that’s looking to grab a piece of the ultra-portable pie. See picture and specs after the jump.

One of the units was found in an Octagon store in Metro Manila.

Astone UMPC Laptop

The specs is comparable to the Asus Eee PC and Intel’s Neo Explore X1. The CPU is a Via C7-M (clock speed at 1.2GHz) processor with 1 GB memory, 30GB hard disk drive, a built-in 1.3MP webcam, WiFi, and 7″ LCD touch screen (with handwriting capability, WVGA 800×400).

Astone UMPC

The placement of the webcam is a little off — that’s on the right of the LCD screen. No Operating system pre-installed. Suggested retail price is Php19,500USD 332INR 28,170EUR 316CNY 2,420 (roughly USD$469).

[tags]astone, umpc, laptop, notebook[/tags]

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

22 Comments

Rico Zuniga says:

17 years ago

I agree, the webcam is ugly. This could’ve been really cool.
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BrianB says:

17 years ago

Dell XPS in Hong Kong is less than 50k Php.
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sylv3rblade says:

17 years ago

hmmm, the specs are even better than my 15″ laptop ^_^ looks good enough for the price range but I want Atom on it.
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Rondon says:

17 years ago

I second sylv3rblade – I want an Atom-based one too. Though I wonder if they can get a decent Atom-based UMPC below P20k. If they can’t, might as well fork out P20K for a full-fledged laptop.

Personally had my hands on the Asus eee PC, was a bit disappointed coz of lack of processing power (i KNOW it’s not supposed to playback those 1024×768 movies but … =P)
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Aldrin Cantos says:

17 years ago

I’ll still vote for the EEE PC rather than this one.
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Tahn says:

17 years ago

I want this but you cannot do anything with it apart from surf.
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andre says:

17 years ago

yeah, personally i’ll wait for more competition and the Atom/Silverthorne CPU
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erjan says:

17 years ago

another one.. wow, and the price tag is the same as teh Eee PC.

Have you tried using one?
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monkeynote says:

17 years ago

The location of the webcam is actually an expandable slot called MODULE for any kind of device such as VOIP Phone. it has a USB port built inside of it.

in europe, they call this device as via nanobook.

check out the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLR8wLDFtCU
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Divine says:

17 years ago

I have one and I find umpc very cool! it’s really cheaper than the eeepc! bluetooth enabled! I can surf anytime!
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phoebe says:

17 years ago

i already bought mine.. but… the touch screen’s not working.. how to make the touch screen work?
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roman says:

17 years ago

i like this Astone a lot compared to the eee (though i don’t have either. hehehe).

however, i’ve compared the specs of the two systems and found these two things notable, astone has a bigger storage size (30gb agains 4gb of eee), the astone can (supposedly) run longer on battery than the eee (difference of like 2 hours).

i’m quite surprised a lot of people are looking forward to intel’s new processor (atom) when the Via C7 processor already does what intel has yet to achieve through atom.
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Noel says:

17 years ago

pano ba gamitin ang handwriting capability?
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Techsoulja says:

17 years ago

This machine looks cheap, It can’t compete with the Eee Pc even though it has larger hard drive
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Rich says:

17 years ago

i still love the look of asus eeepc! ofcourse love ur own! haha!
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prince says:

16 years ago

darn! i need help with the webcam.. can someone help me use the webcam for yahoo messenger. i tried so many times with the conventional way of clicking the webcam icon. i even tried to install older versions of ym.. it simply does not register. i know that the little orange light turns on when you click that but the view registers as all black. nada. also, when i switch that on and try to access the webcam thru my computer, umpc simply restarts. wtf! pls help
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prince says:

16 years ago

regarding the touch screen guys, there is an extra cd given away when i bought this to correct the mistake. i bought mine in octagon computers. so they gave me the cd. i really enjoy this ultra mobile pc except that the webcam is not working right.. i stl need help from that one

cheers!
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jillian says:

16 years ago

what do i buy? a umpc or a pda??
i’m stuck. i need either for skype, pdf viewing, ms office, and internet.
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Ardison says:

16 years ago

For the same price I would go for Acer Aspire One. Better design. Better & faster processor-Intel. Downside is 8G HD. But add a few thousand and you get a bigger hard disk.
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jas says:

16 years ago

if ur touchscreen is not working u should have to download the application of it to work just check it out http://www.astone.au... u can have there the application.
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lykacruz says:

15 years ago

I have already this UMPC laptop. and planning to bring this in USA Florida. I just want to ask if it will work there with wifi connection and other application like the windows of it and the webcam.pls give me a respone on my email so I will know what to do?thanks
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rhea says:

15 years ago

oh, i am planning to buy this laptop because of the specs which is way better than its competitor. i do not go for the looks for gadgets like this, i really consider the specs…
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