Medion UMPC now available for pre-order in the UK
Reader Paul Phillips let me know that the Medion RIM UMPC is now available for purchase in the UK on the Medion web site. The RIM is listed for GBP 799.99 with a VIA C7 processor and a 30 GB hard drive. It ships with Vista, too.
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Can I get it with XP SP2 instead? (lol)
RIM? Paging Research In Motion legal department…
At that price, the only people who will have one will be the Medion RIM UMPC tech support guys :D
and with a tiny 30 GB HDD, you won’t put many files in it either. Vista is supposed to require 15 GB; add some drivers, some Medion utils, retract a few GB for formatting and you end up with little more than 10 GB of free HDD space!!!
60 GB HDD on Vista devices is the MINIMUM!!!
I agreed entirely with the comment about the hard drive! I’d much prefer XP Tablet edition on a device with only 30Gb.
As for the comment on the price, I’m not sure where you live, but that’s actually not a bad price for a UMPC in the UK. Prices here are *much* more expensive than the USA. :(
Vista does not take anywhere near 15GB – my installation of Vista Ultimate with all sorts of extras takes 9GB – and that is after I have installed a lot fo other software which, presumably, added to some of the folders underneath.
Bruno
Bleh,
Far to expensive still. The UK always gets screwed over in terms of pricing for computer components. When are the vendors finally gonna realise that $800 is not that same a £800. Granted the units get taxed heavily over here thanks to those good ol financial black holes Labour(our governing party atm) keeps funding (i wonder if we’re still trying to pay off the 1st and 2nd world wars or something? or does it just get lost somewhere? they just keep us in the dark on that matter), but $800 even with import duty (rough calculation of 20%) Plus VAT (17.5%), (so atm that £587.72) and you can’t tell me that shipping each unit is gonna cost more than £45 per item considering that they can batch ship them by the thousand (£633.72). This is calculated on top of the profit that calculated in dollas so really the figure should be less than this before profit is calculated in £’s (so lets take off 20% on the $800 for profit thats around $160 = £82.09 so estimated total atm is 551.83). Now i don’t think i’ve missed out any other taxes but granted there will be a cost involved for transporting around uk and storage but i doubt that costs much per unit. So consider that they now have £249.17 to play with for that so lets round off to £200 (minus the 49.17 for transport and storage costs). Thats a wooping £200 profit or $389.83.
To me that calculation sounds about right. No wonder other country’s call the UK treasure island
So bleh again…
damn , i couldnt follow all the math but I know we are being ripped off. I was waiting for this thing to come in at around 600 GBP ( meaning I can buy on ebay for around 400 in a few months time) because I really like this unit, but damn thats a huge price , I’m gonna wait for the other manufacturers to jump in first . hopefully more budget minded companies coem in because at the moment it looks like you have a to pay an unfair premium to get in .