GIGABYTE M704
The M704 sports a larger, redesigned 7-inch sliding display (1024 x 600) and weighs 1.7-pounds. It is run with Vista Home Premium and is sure to blow everyone away. Furthermore, the M704 UMPChas a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M processor, 768MB of RAM, 40GB or 60GB hard drive. Back it up with a 1.3-megapixel camera, wi-fi, and SD/MMC card slot, then you get a high-end UMPC that you will surely love.
The casing is made of three different kinds of plastic: smooth and glossy smudge-loving black trim around the display, smooth and matte silver around the keyboard and inside the black bezel, and slightly textured matte black on the back. The end result is a device that would likely catch the eye of passerby in public places, but mostly only because it’s the largest two-handed slider they’ve ever seen.
Specifications:
Manufacturer       Gigabyte
Model name       M704
Model id       M704
CPU type       VIA C7-M
CPU speed       1200 Mhz
Graphics       VIA Unichrome Pro
OS Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Windows XP Home
Display Size      7″ 1024 X 600
Display Type      LED b/l, Soft (Finger) Touch
RAM Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 768 MB
Hard Disk       60 GB
Keyboard       YES
Mouse Pointer       YES
Battery capacity    29 (Wh)
Battery Life (tested)Â Â Â 2.9 - 3.6 hours
Weight    780g
Size (w/h/d mm) Â Â Â 190/120/30 mm
Display
Fortunately, the size and weight aren’t deal breakers by any means. In fact, once you see the M704’s LED-backlit, high resolution (1024 x 600) 7-inch screen in person, you may even forget about them completely.
As soon as I turned on the UMPC and saw the extra bright, colorful screen with very good side viewing angles, I understood why Gigabyte sacrificed pocketability for it. The display has a slight “fuzzy screen protector look” to it, especially against white backgrounds, but it still looks fantastic. 1024 x 600 is the perfect resolution for a 7-inch screen; it’s close to becoming the minimum for a truly enjoyable web browsing experience these days too.
Controls
A touchscreen is always handy to have, but since Windows is hardly optimized for fingertips and using the stylus requires readjusting your hands, a closer look at the hardware controls is in order.
The main controls are stacked on the right side of the display and lay flush against the frame. At the top is a snapshot button (for use with the 1.3-megapixel web camera) followed by the touchpad on/off button (to enable/disable the touchpad), the easy-to-use and slightly textured touchpad, Mobility Center button (for quick access to settings like resolution, screen brightness, and volume), and a convenient zoom button.
None of the buttons are configurable/re-mappable out of the box. I personally like the Mobility Center button and I’m sure that many will find the zoom and snapshot buttons invaluable, but an entire button dedicated to turning the touchpad on/off? Really? It works so well and is so generously sized that I don’t understand why an on/off button is necessary.
On the opposite side of the display are left and right mouse buttons. Though thinner and longer than other UMPC mouse buttons, they are easy to press and give off a good click.
Two internal microphone pinholes, and the aforementioned 1.3-megapixel webcam. The slide-out keyboard is another important part of the M704’s hardware controls, but since that has its own dedicated section below, here’s a look at what else the unit’s casing has to offer first.
Keyboard
The 65 keys are unevenly separated (29 on the left, 36 on the right) by a 1.5-inch divider that houses four communication buttons (Bluetooth, wi-fi, webcam, GPS/TV module power) and VIA and XP stickers to lessen the lopsidedness.
The split layout takes some getting used to if you’ve never used a similar keyboard (split keypads are most notably used on the Pepper Pad 3, Samsung Q1 Ultra, and Wibrain UMPCs), but it becomes second-nature relatively quickly. The layout is good and the keys give back the same kind of audio/tactile feedback that the mouse buttons do. The keys themselves are rather small, though, so accuracy can be an issue if you’re not careful. Typing isn’t as good as I expected it to be, with two weeks of practice yielding a typing speed of only 39 words per minute (see how this compares to my other mobile device keyboard typing speeds). With more practice and extended use, typing should improve.
The space bar is split into two, but the right half on my review unit isn’t mapped correctly. Instead of acting as a space bar, it does nothing. The Japanese printed on it suggests that the key is supposed to be used to toggle between katakana, romaji, and hiragana (forms of Japanese writing). This can likely be fixed with remapping software.
Review From pocketables
