UMPC

Viliv N5 professional model unlikely to be released

Viliv-n5-noproAs you know from my Viliv N5 review, there's a filled-in port on the left side of the clamshell MID that is unidentified and unacknowledged in the paper manual that ships with the unit. However, in early versions of the online manual, the mystery port was revealed to be an expansion connector with VGA, composite video, and USB link functions. This was accompanied with a parenthetical "professional only" note, suggesting that there would be a business-class model of the device.

Well, that portion of the online manual has since been removed and based on what I just heard from Dynamism, who works closely with Viliv and is always the first to bring their products to the US, there's good reason for that. From an email:

Although the N5 manual mentions a professional version with VGA out, there's no schedule for it, and it will likely never be released.

So if you didn't want to get the N5 available for preorder today because you were waiting for the pro version, then it looks like you could be waiting forever.

I understand that a video-out port is important for those who want to connect the N5 to a desktop monitor or TV, but if you just want to use the device as a mobile computing handheld, then you probably wouldn't have used the port anyway. The N5 is purely a handheld for me so I didn't even notice that it didn't have VGA-out until people started mentioning/asking about it in the comments of my review!

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Jenn K. Lee

Jenn K. Lee is the founder of Pocketables. She loves gadgets the way most women love shoes and purses. The pieces in her tech wardrobe that go with everything are currently the Samsung Galaxy Note II, Sony Tablet P, and Nexus 7, but there are still a couple of vintage UMPCs/MIDs in the back of her closet.

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