Computex was not the only thing happening in Taiwan, last week. In Taipei, VIA hosted its eighth annual VIA Technology Forum, with the main theme of Ultra Mobility.

Mobile computing has been growing fast in recent years, and still you have to pay a high premium if you want to reduce weight. Two or three kilograms may not sound like much at the begining, but if you are on the move they can become a serious ballast. Smaller, cooler, lighter pieces and longer battery life are needed for a good mobile experience. And this would be even better if you didn't have to pay more for it than any other laptop.

Intel and (more recently) AMD developed great platforms for the mobile world, with not a big performance hit and the option to reduce size... at a price. VIA, on the other hand, has developed a very efficient and cheap desktop platform (EPIA), but with little success in the notebook market. Maybe the resolute partnership of Packard Bell will be what they needed, as long as prices don't go up compared to what traditional partner ECS offered.

"With a bright 7" touchscreen display, full-size keyboard, touchpad, Wifi and Bluetooth, it's hard to believe the NanoBook weighs only 850 grams and is less than 30mm thick. Careful analysis of the ultra mobile device market has resulted in a device with the optimal balance of productivity with portability. [...] The ultra low power consumption of the VIA Ultra Mobility Platform enables the NanoBook to extend beyond 4 hours of battery life."

The VIA Ultra Mobility Platform consists of the VIA C7-M processor and the VIA VX700 chipset, that promise to consume only 7W of power together. Manufactured using IBM's 90nm SOI process, the VIA C7-M processor is available at speeds from 1.0 to 1.5GHz, which isn't a lot considering it's performance. The VIA VX700 integrates North and South bridges into a single chip. Graphics will be taken care of by the VIA UniChrome Pro II IGP with a shared memory of up to 64MB; not your 8800 precisely, but they say it supports Windows Vista. Add to that a 4-in-1 card reader and you are ready to go.

We are talking about a complete PC that's not bigger than a portable DVD-player and for a reasonable price. VIA's NanoBook won't be able to compete with the other two CPU manufacturers solutions, but if costs a fraction of what the others are asking for them, you will probably think twice whether you really need that performance.

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