Try to buy an Atom-based mobile Internet device (MID) or ultramobile PC (UMPC). Seriously, try Froogle or Pricegrabber and see if you can find an Atom-based MID or UMPC in stock anywhere. Without some serious digging, you're going to come up empty-handed, and this is true even for MIDs like the Archos 9 that were hyped in blog posts by gadget enthusiasts. As it stands in 2009, the much-ballyhooed MID/UMPC form factor is a total flop, despite the fact that Intel has been touting it as a core part of its mobile vision since 2007.

Ars teamed up with retail channel data provider Dynamite Data to do an availability check across the online retail space for Atom-based MIDs and UMPCs. We went through a "MID Purchasing Guide" that Intel gave us and came up with very little to show for it, which suggests what many have suspected all along: the MID/UMPC is a solution looking for a problem.

Chapter I: The ghost page

But before we get to the data, take a look at the page that prompted this investigation. It's Intel's list of MID/UMPC products intended to showcase what the company's technology can do. But if you wanted to buy any of those products, you'd be out of luck, because everything there is based on Intel's old McCaslin platform (pre-Atom) and is out of production. So the MID is such a low priority at Intel that the company hasn't even updated this page.

Ars spoke to Intel Mobility Group VP Shane Wall, and sprung this ghost page on him. He was a little surprised to see that it was so out-of-date, and said he'd get right with marketing to get it updated.

We then told him that we had been looking everywhere for an Atom-based MID or UMPC in the channel, but had come up empty handed. Our Google-fu is pretty strong, and we had come up with nothing. Wall assured us that the MID, which is a form factor that includes the UMPC but that also includes portable media players and a range of other mobile, Internet-connected devices, is still a priority for Intel.

"MIDs are very much alive and well," said Walls, "and are still are very central to our strategy in the mobile handheld space. And we have a roadmap that certainly goes beyond 2012."

Intel's current MID platform is Menlow, which is also the platform used in netbooks. So from a hardware perspective, a MID is essentially a more expensive netbook that comes with no keyboard (and that's probably a big part of the problem).

Walls told us that Intel has over twenty currently shipping MIDs in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. So we asked Walls if he could get us a list of them. A day later, the list arrived, and I went shopping.

Chapter II: the search

Intel's "MID Purchasing Guide" was all of two slides, and for the US MIDs, here's the complete list:

Archos: 9" Tablet

Clarion: MiND

Fujitsu: U820

Panasonic: U1 Toughbook, H1 Toughbook

UMID: m1

Yukyung Viliv: S5, X70EX

There were a few more products listed for other regions, many marked as "coming soon."

We sent the guide over to Kristopher Kubicki, the lead tech guy at Dynamite Data, and he ran channel availability and price checks on all of the items—or, the ones that he could find, at least. Most companies that monitor the retail channel use surveys to gather their pricing and availability data, but Dynamite Data actually spiders the product webpages of a long list of e-tailers and scrapes the information from them. This lets the company track price and availability info in real time, so the data that Kris sent back today is up-to-the-minute.

The Archos 9" tablet is not yet on the market, despite the fact that the gadget press has been drooling over it since the start of this year. Recent rumors put the UK launch date in October, but nobody knows when (or if) it will hit US shores.

The Clarion MiND is an interesting case, because 23 retailers list it in stock, but the price varies wildly from just over $200 to over $600. As with every other asset in the world (stocks, real estate, etc.) such severe price volatility indicates low volumes.

"When we see channel pricing all over the place that indicates that it's not moving," Kris told Ars. Such price swings also suggest that the device may be near the end of its life, so the manufacturer just isn't putting any more of them into the channel.

The Fujitsu LifeBook U820 had the second best showing, in stock at 63 out of 77 retailers. But the retailers where it was listed as out-of-stock or discontinued included names like Amazon, Newegg, and Buy.com. Importantly, the U820 doesn't really qualify as a MID, since it's actually a netbook with a rotating touchscreen that can be used in tablet mode.

The Panasonic U1 Toughbooks were the clear winner in our Menlow MID channel availability contest: in stock at 97 of 130 locations. The Toughbook H1 was pretty much absent from the channel, listed as out-of-stock at a number of outlets.

The UMID m1 and Yukyung Viliv are available only at Dynamism, which is a specialty importer. So they're absent from the normal US retail channel.

What all of this means is that if you want to get your hands on an actual Atom-based tablet MID—and not just a netbook that can transform into a tablet—then the $2,500 to $3,000 Toughbook U1 is your only option. Ouch.

Chapter III: the future(?)

Intel's official line is that the MID is a work-in-progress, and that they're pleased with the results so far. "In terms of design wins," Intel's Walls said, "it's what we had hoped it would be at this point. And in terms of volume it's above what are internal targets are."

Regardless of where Intel has set the bar internally, the retail channel situation makes it clear that the MID is an idea whose time has not yet come. But Intel still claims to be convinced that the MID will soon have its moment. The MID was name-checked at the recent Intel Technology Summit as one of Intel's main mobile market segments, and Walls made a valiant effort to get us to look not at where the MID is, but at where it's headed with the upcoming Moorestown platform.

"Where are we in the MID story? We're in the beginning of that. The initial class of devices that we could address are UMPC, the next class is dedicated media and gaming machines. The next is the smartphone space, where the volume is at."

Excuse us, but did he say gaming?

We pressed him on it, but all Walls would say is that Intel has no products that he would preannounce. But, he quickly amended, "the full Internet" includes online games, which are flash-based. (There's that "full Internet == Adobe Flash" thing again. Intel had better milk this before the ARM port is done.)

Walls told us that in-browser, flash-based gaming is taking off in Korea and China. We were happy to take his word for that and move on, because we really wanted to hear more about this idea of a Moorestown-based mobile gaming device.

"Obviously we have a pretty good graphics part in there that we could take advantage of, and over time we'll see people taking advantage of that weith specialized devices that will emphasize gaming," Walls said.

So there you have it: Intel expects that at some point, someone will make an Intel-based gaming portable. And maybe they're right, but the real question is, will anyone actually be able to buy one?