It has been just under a month since I took delivery of my Fujitsu U820 UMPC from Newegg. This is not a device for everyone. Perhaps it is not even a device for anyone, except the handful of those of us who choose to use it. I would never try and sell anyone on this device for meeting their everyday computing needs. It is unquestionably a niche product, and a very expensive one at that. But I do want to take a post and answer some questions that I have had from a few friends, such as "Why?", and now that I have "How?"

First it might be worth it to cover why I was in the market for another UMPC after having gotten rid of my Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium earlier this year. The Sammy had been my second UMPC, preceded by the original Q1b. I really liked both of my Q1's, and put them to a good amount of use. But several design issues prevented any of my uses for them from being optimal.

The Q1b was predominantly too slow. The Q1 Ultra Premium, while peppier, was too thick, and had bad ergos. While it was not very heavy, it just did not fit in the hand naturally, nor did it pack well in a bag with another laptop. My other issue with the Q1 Ultra was that, despite its decent performance while in run, it seemed to take forever to come up out of standby. And its low profile form-factor meant that it was not well-suited to being left on and accessed routinely, since no matter where I had it set up I had to hunch over to see it.

As is the usual, I had a set of requirements when I went in search of the new device. I was looking for something that I could leave on all the time and could walk around the house with comfortably in my hand. I envisioned walking around the house taking notes, maintaining my checkbook or grocery list, or system administrator notes for various projects, or article ideas. I needed something that could help me keep my thoughts organized and was instantly accessible. I foresaw doing a good bit of web-browsing and eBook reading on the device. Below is an excerpt from my Evernote notebook as I organized my thoughts on what it was I needed:

• display larger than a smartphone's

• can be left on all the time, or instant on, low power requirements

• expect to use predominantly at home

• if in use on travel, expect to use in short durations (ie maybe not carry power supply? USB power available?)

• must have pen-interface, but active digitizer no longer required. Do not anticipate using this to draft lengthy notes, for that will use TabletPC, now that it will be more readily available

• must be flat, thin (thinner than previous Samsung Q1's...need to look up old height spec of Q1 and Q1 Ultra), easily manageable while held in the hand

• will use at work to potentially take quick side-notes at my desk (how to sync or xfr to tabletPC?), but would not use, say, for taking notes in ****/p>

• keyboard not required, but would be nice

• can not be as large as a netbook (so 7" screen max?)

• hard drive would be nice to be large enough to hold entire itunes music (but I can only have five machines...combine with purchase of DRM freeing current collection, and go to only DRM-free downloads - ie iTunes Plus?)

• if HD too expensive, can go with less, or an SSD, or can it use CF card from the LE1600 and I'll just put subsets of the iTunes archive on there. Or do I stream from the NAS?

• no more than $500 • must be available now; no pre-orders

With those requirements on the table, I gave strong consideration to a MID. The problem with MIDs then was that most of them were unable to satisfy the last requirement. Many were only available via pre-order a month ago. And even then, most run on the Atom Z520 processor, which runs roughly 300MHz slower than most netbook Atom CPUs. I was willing to accept less than full laptop performance, but I was worried about dipping lower than the standard Atom 1.6GHz processor.

In the end-game, I down-selected to the Fujitsu, various incarnations of the Kohshinja S-series , and the iterations of Tablet Netbooks that are coming out (most notably by Asus and Gigabyte). The Kohshinja variant that was cheaper than the Fuji ran on a slower processor, so, again, performance was a concern. The Asus Tablet Netbook, the Asus T91, got poor reviews. Additionally, I was concerned about buying a netbook with a screen that large and trying to work on it without an active digitizer. This had been one of the shortcomings of the Samsung Q1. It's largish (for an UMPC) 7" screen made inking difficult since you could not rest your palm on the screen. And the device was not comfortable while wielding it one-handed while trying to ink on it. I eventually developed a similar concern for the Gigabyte M912X, despite the fact that that device has had a more welcome reception by the Technorati.

That left the Fujitsu U820. The one requirement I was not able to shoehorn into was price. But you do what you have to do. And considering that basically every other requirement on the list was met, missing one is not so bad a ratio.

So, as I sit here in Panera with the Fuji, it is time to turn to how I actually use the device. First of all, this is the one laptop that I predominantly leave open and running all of the time. It is the PC that I reach for whenever I need quick access. At home it spends most of its time on the kitchen bar counter in its dock. It fields all of those IMDB queries that have to be answered when people are camped out on my comforter watching movies or TV episodes on DVD. I also use it to maintain my Grocery List and Checkbook, for which Microsoft OneNote is my App of choice.

It is also the walk around the house web browser and eBook reader. So it goes anywhere I would normally take a paperback book in my place. For these purposes, I use the device in Tablet mode, in either portrait or landscape. It has taken me a few weeks, but I finally figured out how to put it in 1024 X 768 resolution and keep it at that resolution as I dock it, undock it, and rotate the screen in and out of Tablet mode. This is my preferred resolution to work in on the device. 1280 X 800 makes things too small on the 5.6" screen, and taking it out of widescreen aspect ratio (which occurs at 1024 X 600) causes too many items to be skewed from my standard desktop setup.

Those are the most frequent and routine uses. Other roles the Fuji plays:

• Acts as a small video screening device. It is the smallest device I use to frequently watch movie trailers. But I also use it to watch encoded video in various formats, including streaming from NetFlix

• I have not made a test-run yet, but I intend to use it as one of the "microphones" and recording devices in my Podcast setup, and then to edit and assemble the Podcast

• I use it as a platform for managing my Flickr account, and uploading TwitPic photos. I use it for making very small edits and palette changes to photos. It has a wonderful screen and good color representation

• It is a small blogging workstation, although perhaps not as much as people might think given its portability. I (normally) keep posts on it to short lengths, although this initial report will be an exception

• Of major significance, it is now where I maintain my master log of network maintenance. I used to think of maintenance from a per workstation perspective. Since I often have the Fuji next to me for note taking, even when I am working on another PC, it made sense to use it almost like a maintenance clipboard with my PC Maintenance Checksheet

• Still have to optest it, but I have loaded Nero 7 on it and will be attempting some video ripping and encoding

• Finally, it has been designated as the new Windows Software Test Bed. I figure if screw this up and need to reload the OS, it is the one Windows workstation I can most afford to be without.

OK, that's it, true believers. Back on a UMPC now, I know (as I did during the months that I was without the Q1) these are niche products that I see a use for. Of course, you could do all of the things that I do on much larger workstations. But you could not do them in all of the places that I can with the Fuji, and you could not do so without lugging around some extra weight. Yes, I am not a typical user, and I tend to always be doing something on a computer. I am just vouching for the fact that, if extreme portability is an interest of yours, a UMPC, and specifically the U820, can fulfill certain functionality as needed in an ultra-portable form factor. Hope this helps in answering all those questions that people have been firing my way. Peace out!!!

- Vr/Z