Wibrain B1 UMPC needs a makeover

Here’s what I want to know. How can Korean company Wibrain call itself "Tomorrow’s Communicator" when the business-class UMPC it’s been talking about and is now preparing to ship in mid-October looks like this?

The in-house named B1 UMPC, with that weird pie-pan scroll wheel and larger-than-life touchpad flanking its 4.8-inch (1024 x 600) touchscreen, sports a design from neither tomorrow, today, or even yesterday. Conservatively speaking, I’d pin that look to the early 80s . . . say, somewhere between shoulder pads and aerosol hairspray?

The outdated (and frankly, downright hideous) look is really quite a shame because so far the specs are quite good. It’s got the best connectivity options covered (HSDPA, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1), a nice selection of VIA C7M processors (up to 1.6GHz), various hard drive and RAM options (up to 80GB HDD, 1GB RAM), and a very appealing price range (about $650 to $760).

At the moment, the B1 seems to be exclusive to Korea, but I’m sure if demand is high enough and importers have poor eyesight, getting one in the U.S. shouldn’t be too difficult.

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