A New Revolution

1.22.08

Is there a market out there for ultra mobile personal computers also known as umpcs? I would say yes. I’ve owned a Sony TR series for a few years now. I have also owned one of their UX50 palm pilots for even longer. One’s too big to carry around everywhere even with it’s 11 inch or so screen and the other has a keyboard way to small to type on and no word processor application.

Enter the umpcs, so far the Asus EEE is out there and soon to be released Friday is the Everex Cloudbook. These laptops boast a 7 inch screen and a total width of about 9 inches and less than 2 pounds. That’s getting really close to the size and weight most ultra mobile productive people want in a laptop as they head out on the road to the cafes, offices, the games, or just where the stories are. Heck, you can even be productive at parties unintrusively with these pcs if you so desire.

I don’t know about you guys but I like to write, whether I’m taking notes on some new fangled techno gadget, writing a journal that I never seem to be able to do regularly, or just writing something down that I don’t want to forget, you never know where inspiration will hit. And when it does, it’s a shame to lose it and let that moment pass without putting it down somewhere for the future. An old school paper notebook is nice but this is the computer age, it’s time to get with the times and these pcs are the way to go. Like I said, it’s getting close to the size and weight we want because we’ve been taunted and told of the future where we’ll be using things like electronic pads from Star Trek that look so light and are connected to each other or e-paper that is supposed to be thin as paper, not draw any energy, and have the ability to be updated like a flexible computer screen, that still seems to be a great deal of time away. I guess we’re closer to Star Trek now with our palm pilots, blackberries, and treos, but even tablet pcs don’t really have a good way to interface with us yet in tablet mode and allow us to put in large amounts of information on the fly. The keyboard still seems to be the best way. Another solute to these umpcs for not going the way of the tablet even though it sure would be fun to see. But as always, the size looks good but I’d always like lighter, I’m sure we all would. I look forward to the newer and better models to come in the days ahead. With the recent Apple Air announcement and a thin laptop conceived by Lenovo, we can only hope that that technology will become cheaper so our friends, the Linux developers can produce some thin ultra mobiles in our future priced for the masses.

Well, I’m hoping to get my hands on a Cloudbook this Friday if it’s released on time and I’m dreaming of all the things I’ll be able to do with it. All the places I’ll be able to work, all the times I’ll be able to have a computer and get online when I have only dreamed of it in the past. Hopefully it will be so light it really will feel like a cloud. It seems like we’re getting closer to perfection every year. In just these last 2 months, Asus released it’s candidate for the next revolution in computing and when I thought, “I’d really like more memory,” Everex readies it’s own challenger with 30 gigs. I just hope it lives up to the hype and pushes us further and closer to having small, light, low priced, reliable machines. It’s what I’ve been waiting to see and experience. Is it too much to ask for? We’ll find out.