A flurry of UMPCs! (well, at least in Japan)

The King of all UMPCs at least in sales is still the Asus Eee PC pictured to the right. In fact, it's at a price point below $500 in Japan! About $300. Comes with WinXP as well. Looks good, but lacks OneSeg for me.

The second best seller is the Fujitsu FMV LOOX U/B50N on the left. It's available with OneSeg tuner, and also can be used in Tablet (PC) mode which is great. There's also a SSD version out there.

Kohjinsha has their own take on the UMPC craze. It's pretty cool looking, but as the company's history with PCs in general is relatively short, the problems show. Many people have been returning their machines and "trading up" to a LOOX. Too bad, as I was even tempted in getting one. :(

Has the same features as the LOOX: OneSeg and tablet mode. Big issue is that it comes with Vista pre-installed. Even with the Intel Atom chip, just not enough juice.
Dell is also in the UMPC game. Funny, I haven't seen this here in the U.S. In any case, I tried the PC myself, and was deeply not impressed.

The keyboard feels very cheap, the trackpad isn't really responsive, and overall, it just feels ghetto. It's a shame too. I think Dell just put this out there to see what happens.






Lust rating: of all of these, I could take the LOOX. :)

More goodness on the Fujitsu LifeBook® U810 Mini-Notebook

...if you're in Japan. Forget the goofy looking dude, check out the antenna. That antenna is built-in to the U810 to receive digital TV broadcasts only in Japan - OneSeg.

so, if you were in Japan, you could be riding the train and watching "Gilligan's Island." Of course, in Japan, you'd probably be watching something like 「笑っていいとも！」

Either way, with OneSeg (AKA WanSeg, AKA 1SEG, AKA ワンセグ) and the LifeBook U810, you're covered!