Having been one of the system vendors to pioneer the ultramobile PC space more than a year ago, Samsung is now onto the third generation of its Q1 UMPC: the Q1 Ultra Premium. Compared with its predecessors (the Q1 and the Q1 Ultra), the "premium" has more processing power, more battery life, a better keyboard, and more expandability on the RAM front.

According to Samsung Electronics marketing communications manager Jason Redmond, the additional features in the latest Q1 are largely a reflection of the feedback Samsung has been getting from customers on the earlier versions.

In order to include Intel's ultra-low-voltage Mobile Pentium processor, Samsung had to grow the Q1's thickness by a bit (which also allows for additional ventilation). According to Redmond, that slight bit of additional thickness also enabled Samsung to beef up the Q1's battery. He said that users can expect upwards of seven hours of battery life out of the Q1 with the Wi-Fi radio on.

As can be seen in the video, the keyboard for the Q1 involves a QWERTY setup that's split in half, with one side embedded in the bezel to the left of display and the other side embedded in the bezel to the right of the display. According to Redmond, the keys have been enlarged (compared with earlier versions) and Samsung has added a rubberized texture to them.

Whereas earlier versions of the Q1 maxed out at 1 Gbyte of RAM, the Ultra Premium is now expandable to 2 Gbytes.

Some of the other technologies that found their way into the last Q1 haven't changed. For example, HSDPA-based wide area networking (via AT&T) is still an option, as is a 32-Gbyte solid state drive. At its booth here at the Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung is showing the Q1 with SATA2-based 64- and 128-Gbyte SSDs. But Redmond said that the higher-capacity SSDs are simply too expensive at this point to work into any of the Q1's SKUs. Eventually, though, he expects the price to come down, at which point the bigger SSDs will become Q1 options.

As configured, with an 80-Gbyte hard drive, the Q1 Ultra Premium is priced at $1,399.