The poor man’s UMPC
By Marc Perton
Ever since I heard Microsoft and Intel were working on a concept for an “ultramobile portable PC,” I wanted one. It sounded like the perfect secondary (or tertiary) computer: large display, good battery life, hard drive, lightweight, wireless-enabled. Unfortunately, reality has a way of intruding upon even the best-laid plans, and when the first UMPCs were finally unveiled, they seemed somewhat less desirable: pricing was close to laptop levels (“under $1,000”), battery life on the initial models was said to be on the low side, and processors, memory and other features meant that the machines would be close to obsolete from day one, since it would be a struggle to run Windows Vista on them. That’s when I changed my plans. I decided to get a bare-bones tablet computer for the lowest possible price. After all, what did I want to do with my tablet? Surf the net, read email, check in by IM. That’s about it. I considered the Nokia 770 and Palm LifeDrive, but rejected both: too small. I wanted something with close to a normal laptop-sized display. So, I went onto eBay and began searching for old tablets. Sure enough, I found the perfect thing: the Fujitsu Stylistic 3400. I bid on one, won, and had it within a week. Once I updated the drivers and installed a PCMCIA WiFi card, I was up and running. (This was actually the hardest part. Without an Ethernet port, CD-ROM drive or even a floppy drive, I couldn’t load any software. The 3400 has a USB port, but wouldn’t recognize any thumbdrives without a driver update. I finally ended up using the computer’s modem and built-in dial-up software to open an AOL account and download drivers for a thumbdrive.) The 3400 is hardly a UMPC. It weighs over 3 pounds, runs Windows 98, has a 400 MHz PIII, 6GB drive and just 192MB RAM. But it runs Internet Explorer and Firefox. And more importantly, it runs VNC and RDC, which means I can use it to connect to my desktop boxes and access their files and programs (the pic above shows me accessing my Mac via VNC). Battery life is on the low side, but fine for my needs. And for just $150, I’ve got a wireless, go-anywhere computer. At that price I may just buy another one to use as a digital picture frame!
Ever since I heard Microsoft and Intel were working on a concept for an “ultramobile portable PC,” I wanted one. It sounded like the perfect secondary (or tertiary) computer: large display, good battery life, hard drive, lightweight, wireless-enabled. Unfortunately, reality has a way of intruding upon even the best-laid plans, and when the first UMPCs were finally unveiled, they seemed somewhat less desirable: pricing was close to laptop levels (“under $1,000”), battery life on the initial models was said to be on the low side, and processors, memory and other features meant that the machines would be close to obsolete from day one, since it would be a struggle to run Windows Vista on them. That’s when I changed my plans. I decided to get a bare-bones tablet computer for the lowest possible price. After all, what did I want to do with my tablet? Surf the net, read email, check in by IM. That’s about it. I considered the Nokia 770 and Palm LifeDrive, but rejected both: too small. I wanted something with close to a normal laptop-sized display. So, I went onto eBay and began searching for old tablets. Sure enough, I found the perfect thing: the Fujitsu Stylistic 3400. I bid on one, won, and had it within a week. Once I updated the drivers and installed a PCMCIA WiFi card, I was up and running. (This was actually the hardest part. Without an Ethernet port, CD-ROM drive or even a floppy drive, I couldn’t load any software. The 3400 has a USB port, but wouldn’t recognize any thumbdrives without a driver update. I finally ended up using the computer’s modem and built-in dial-up software to open an AOL account and download drivers for a thumbdrive.) The 3400 is hardly a UMPC. It weighs over 3 pounds, runs Windows 98, has a 400 MHz PIII, 6GB drive and just 192MB RAM. But it runs Internet Explorer and Firefox. And more importantly, it runs VNC and RDC, which means I can use it to connect to my desktop boxes and access their files and programs (the pic above shows me accessing my Mac via VNC). Battery life is on the low side, but fine for my needs. And for just $150, I’ve got a wireless, go-anywhere computer. At that price I may just buy another one to use as a digital picture frame!
