It would seem that it's becoming somewhat of a trend among the Taiwan-based hardware manufacturers to also develop portable (or ultra-portable) computing systems, designed especially for those people that spend quite a lot of time on the road. That's also the case with Gigabyte, which has come up with a whole range of such products, including here the device you're about to see as follows, namely the M704 UMPC.



First of all, it's important to mention the fact that, as the name says it, this thing is one ultra-portable device, as it measures 190 x 120.8 x 30.3 mm, at a weight of just around 780 grams. However, despite of its small size, the device's display is quite OK, measuring 7 inches in diagonal and providing a maximum resolution of 1024x600 pixels.



In the case of their M704 UMPC, Gigabyte has decided to go VIA all the way. Thus, the portable device is built on a VIA Esther Mobile Technology platform, users being able to choose between two available CPUs, namely the VIA Esther ULV C7-M (1.2GHz, 400/800MHz, 128KB/128KB L2) or the Nano BGA2 90nm.



Regardless of the CPU the user might choose, it will be accompanied by VIA's VX-700 chipset, with UniChrome Pro II graphics integrated, as well as 768MB DDR2-533 RAM memory (on-board). Additionally, the device provides support for 1.8-inch (5 mm) 4200 RPM IDE HDDs, with storage capacities of either 40 or 60 GB.



The connectivity options of the M704 are not exactly out of the ordinary, since we're dealing with an I/O Port Media Card Slot (SD/SD-IO/MMC), 2 USB jacks, Audio Jack (Mic-in and Headphone out), VGA, and a very important Docking Connector. This connector allows the device to be hooked-up to an external docking station, which further enhances its networking capabilities (LAN Ethernet 10/100 Base T).



Even if it's quite an interesting device, the fact that Gigabyte's M704 sells for around 835 Euro (1200 US dollars) makes it quite unattractive, especially since the market is currently being flooded with a lot of much more affordable netbooks.