Gigabyte January 2008 update part 1

We had the opportunity to visit Gigabyte last week and we thought we'd share some of what we saw and heard with you and to try to let you know a little bit of what to expect from Gigabyte over the next few months. When you think about Gigabyte, you normally think about motherboards and maybe graphics cards, but the company makes so much more and this time we had a chat with some people from G-Style which is the notebook department and Gigazone which is the case, cooling, PSU and display department.

Let's start with the notebook news or rather UMPC and MID's as Gigabyte is looking at releasing some rather interesting devices this year. Gigabyte has been in the notebook market for a couple of years now, but the company hasn't exactly had any headline products, although its first UMPC, the U60 is a rather attractive and interesting device. The U60 will be joined by the M704 later this year and we wrote about it here, although the product page has been taken down for now. The M704 won't replace the U60, it will rather be an addition to the product range.

However, later this year we'll see some Intel based UMPC and MID products from Gigabyte and they'll be rocking the upcoming 1.6GHz Diamondville processor and the Shelton platform. We didn't get too much information on these models, but we were told that the new UMPC model will feature a tablet pc style design with a touch sensitive display. The MID will feature a pull-out keyboard and both devices should have 1024x600 resolution displays. If all goes to plan, then Gigabyte will be showing both devices at CeBIT in Hannover in March.

The news from the Gigazone department contained one surprise, Gigabyte is getting into the display market again. This time Gigabyte is going for the widescreen market and they've come up with something that they call the comfortable pixel-size zone. According to Gigabyte, most people find a resolution of 86 to 97 pixels per inch comfortable to look at and it also prevents eye strain. This means that Gigabyte won't have any displays that don't conform to this, so expect to see 19, 22 and maybe 24-inch widescreen displays later this year.

Other news included an upcoming 3D Aurora case, namely the 580 model which will feature a slight re-design as well as eSATA support on the front I/O. Apart from that we know very little about this new case, but we were promised an early look at this case once it gets ready. Gigabyte is also going to expand its range of power supplies and with a new 1200W model in the lineup it looks like Gigabyte is trying hard to appeal to high-end users. However, there will be some more affordable PSUs from Gigabyte later this year as well and from the sound of it, we'll continue to see some new and innovative features from the company.

Part 2 will be up a little bit later and it'll cover some new motherboards and some new graphics card features, so stay tuned for more Gigabyte news.