UMPC Choices Pt.3

The next type of UMPC's available are the convertibles. These are what you see of the larger tablets today that have the standard laptop mode and can convert into a slate. These include the Fujitsu P1610, P1620, and the U810. As all of these are made by Fujitsu they have "heavy" touchscreens where you either have to use your nail or press pretty hard on the screen to activate something and as a result there is little to no vectoring when you lean your palm on the screen and write.

Now in terms of power the U810 (5.6" screen) trails behind with the A110 processor while the P1610 runs a Core Solo and the P1620 runs a Core 2 Duo processor. Now for me a UMPC will not have to be the power house of my desktop but it has to be able to run most programs with fairly decent speed.

Price is also a major factor of a UMPC. The U810 can go from $800-$1000 while the P1620 will run you up to $2000. That makes me wallet lighter by just thinking about it. Now eBay is my sweet place. You can find used P1610s for about $1000-. I don't mind if it's used as long as it gets the job done and is not horribly beaten up. Since P1610s are an older model they aren't manufactured anymore and any online retail place that still sells it will sell it for $2000 still which is just ridiculous.

So from the convertibles my obvious choice would be the P1610 for its bang for my buck. The Core Solo processor is still probably faster than the Centrino in my laptop right now, or at least it seems from some benchmark tests that I have compared and the price is decent. I like the convertible for the fact that when I need a keyboard I have it and it has a PC card slot which I can store a MoGo bluetooth mouse since the P1610 uses a trackstick instead of a trackpad. I could just never justify spending $2000 on a UMPC or $1000 on one that doesn't even do everything I want to do. As well on the plus side it has a SD card slot which is SDHC capable with the latest driver update.

Considering my choices so far, it has been narrowed down to the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium and the P1610. The next line-up will be the 5"- screens.