Cowon hints at W2 MID with Windows 7, minimal design

Cowon, the Korean company best known for their PMPs with top-end audio quality has plans to venture into the mobile internet device (MID) segment with the W2.

It came out with a teaser of its brand new 4.8-inch 1024×600 Atom-based MID at the Consumer Elctronis Show 2010 at Las Vegas. This MID, with a 1.33GHz Atom and Windows 7, would occupy the higher end of the spectrum. It features a subdued design in a brushed metal model with only a few buttons. An extra dense 4.8-inch, 1024×600 touchscreen would serve as its near-exclusive interface.

As we know, if there was anything as big as 3D at the CES 2010, it was the numerous annoucements of touchscreen tablets running a variety of operating systems. Call them MIDs or tablet computers or internet tablets, everyone had something.

The Cowon W2 also has Bluetooth, Wi-FI and two full-sized USB 2.0 port and a mini USB port, a USB device port facilities for its expansion. Its storage capacity, battery life and details are not out yet. The Korean company is also supplying adapter cables, one of which adds an ethernet port and monitor connection, the other which adds component/composite TV output.

The display resolution is quite high and is the same as on a regular 10-inch netbook, despite the panel being half its size. Cowon released a few details of the W2 UMPC/MID during the CES 2010. Though the exact model of the chip is not out yet, it is likely to be a Z520 (Silverthorne) chip rather than the recently introduced but less energy efficient N450 Pineview chipset.

UMPC/MIDs have not been in vogue, when compared to smartphones, especially because they tried to be tiny versions of personal computers and bulky operating systems like the Windows 7 will chug on a 1.3GHz Intel Atom processor.