Jones

I have lived with several generations of laptops, but never owned one that was lightweight. Last week, Tony showed me an Averatec he got from buy.com that weighs 3.6 pounds and cost (then, after rebate) $750. Downsides were few… a celeron chip, only 512MB of memory, XP Home. Maybe the keyboard is a little cramped because the form factor is so small. Minor drawbacks, I went into high analytic mode and began to shop around.

Averatec has a unit that addresses my few concerns (except for the keyboard). Memory can be kicked up to 2GB, the Pentium M is available, and the unit comes with XP Professional. It costs a little more. I looked for other manufacturers. Fujitsu, Sony, Dell, Lenovo… either the price wasn’t there or the form factor was gross. After you’ve held a three and a half pound ultraportable with a 10.6 inch screen, the four to five pound solutions look klutzy. I waffled. I went back to buy.com. The price on Tony’s machine had gone up, the rebate was gone. Meanwhile, Leo’s bill for the new pump in our well came in the mail. One thousand two hundred eighty-four dollars (US).

I wasn’t that excited about the Averatec anyway. But I was on a roll. I thought maybe the current generation of PDAs has something to offer me. (I have a nice old Palm PDA languishing in the bottom of a briefcase somewhere. Never could get into it using it). So I looked at iPaqs and Axims and add-on keyboards. We’re talking about price points not that different from the Averatec. And that eentsy little screen hasn’t gotten any bigger.

I thought if I went up to the corner of King Street and Doty, that guy in the overcoat would show up and maybe he’d have what I need.

And then I unearthed Origami, and the ultra mobile PCs. I have a feeling that the UMPC is just what I need. The good news is that it’s next generation. I won’t feel like I’m buying 2024 like I would buying an Axim, or buying the end of a product lifecycle like I would with the Averatecs. And Samsung promises to be first to market with one of these beauties any day now! But I think I’ll wait until the prices come down and there are a few more to choose among.