Think about it. How many tress have you saved with your Tablet PC? Without your Tablet PC, all of the ink notes you taken, would of been taken on paper. Every single entry in your tablet, would of been written on a tree. I ask again, how many trees have you saved? To discover the answer, we need to take a journey back in time. Back before we had Tablet PCs.

“Guys, I don’t know what you are talking about. Yesterday I was working in my Q1 and I was thinking for myself, I’m so happy with Vista responds time in my Q1 that I’m afraid to move on to any of the new coming UMPCs.

I have been optimizing it, but not so deep as others. I do not have any more those HDD bashing. The only thing that I would improve would be the time to come back from Hibernation but I have to say also that I have a lot of programs working in my taskbar and around 70 process running all time.

And that’s in a Q1 Celeron running at 900 MHz. I tested Vista in a eo v7110 (VIA). It was slow and once the beta expired and have not comeback to Vista, I stayed in XP because I considered Vista too much for that processor. But… I had only 1 GB in that machine while in my Q1 I have 2 GB. And I mention this RAM difference because believe me, Vista does not run well in 1 GB of RAM. The performance is increased a lot just by adding that extra gibabyte.

In conclusion, I think that Vista is perfect for UMPCs but… it has to be optimized. I think that Microsoft should create some kind of optimization profiles where people can select what is better for them. And I say this because I’m that James, Kevin and other people reading our blogs can follow our optimization instructions but that’s probably 10% or less of all consumers.”

I must say I agree 100% with him on this one. This was my comment:

“James,

Your forgetting that when XP was released, people spent tons of time trying to optimizing it because it had it’s problems. Heck, when my parents bought a new notebook last year, I had to spend time turning certain things off to optimized XP.

Up to this point I’m enjoying Vista. I spend about 20 minutes turning certain things off, but once I done that, I have Vista running just as well as it did on XP. And the notebook is a Acer Celeron M 1.5, with 512MB!!!! Yes it’s Vista Basic, but Vista runs with no problems. I have no problems connecting to the network. I have no problems surfing the net.

I believe Vista will be there one day. But I think Microsoft should of created another version of Vista. Vista for Mobile(or Smaller) machines. Ultimate, Business, Premium, MOBILE, and Basic.”

My wife owns a Acer Notebook that we purchased in March. The specs are as follows: Celeron M 1.5, 512MB. Vista Basic.

When we bought the machine the sales man kept trying to upsale us to a higher priced machine. His pitch was, that this machine is too slow for Vista. After he finally gave up he recommended we get another 512MB of ram. I was planning on, but not just yet.

When I first started to use the machine, is was slooooooooooooooooow.

Applications took forever to open. However, after spending about 20 minutes, turning off features my wife did not need, the machine was performing with no speed problems at all. Was it super fast? No. But it was perfect for my wife.

I do plan on upgrading the ram to 1GB at some point, but for now, this has been one of her favorite computers to date.

This is a loaded question for me. Because over the past four years, I have owned over 80 different computers. Everything ranging from tablets, to notebooks, UMPCs, etc… But the reasoning I kept giving was, I was just trying to see if each one was a fit for me.

At least that is what I was telling myself.

In my life, I never smoked, never did drugs, nor drink. BUT, I was addicted to something. I was addicted to…

I love UMPCS. I do. However, I don’t think there is any major money to be had, in the consumer market. I wish there was, but I don’t think it’s there.

I don’t know one person I meet who wants a UMPC. People I meet think UMPCs look cool, but when I asked them if they would want one, they all say no. The consumer market just doesn’t use computers enough to warrant a UMPC. A $600 notebook to them is fine enough for there uses.

My argument was, “Well you can take it everywhere.” And their response, “Why?”. They just don’t need a UMPC in their life everywhere they go. I think most in the consumer market think the same.

I really wish this wasn’t true, but I think it is.

My question is if you own a UMPC, where do you take it? The park? Shopping? Do you really need to take it with you? I’m talking about the consumer side, not corporate.

I guess I should tell you a little about myself, and what this blog will entail. First about me:

I’m 28 years old, married, with no kids(As of yet). I enjoy playing and watching sports, with Football(NFL) being my favorite. I am a NY Giants fan living among Philadelphans in Philadelphia. A very dangerous mix.

I’m a geek, or more likely a computer geek. I have loved computers since I was 8. My first experience was on a MAC, with a game called Manhole. I loved it so much I begged my parents to get me a computer. I saved up a LOT of house choirs, and any other money I received and went halves with my parents. My first PC was a16mhz pc with 1MB of ram with a 10MB Hard drive. On it consisted of Dos, and Geoworks.

Since I had no idea how to use a pc, I kept deleting important system files to create space for any games I wanted to install. Because of this I had to keep calling tech support to rebuild the config.sys, and autoexec.bat files. After about 40 calls, I was able to understand how to fix them myself, and therefore allowed me to start troubleshooting on my own.

As I grew older I bought more powerful desktops to allow me to do more. But I craved mobility. I wanted to be able to sit on the couch, and use my PC. Eventfully I was able to buy my first notebook for $40. It was a 50mhz IBM Thinkpad, and I loved it!(I Still own it to this day, and it still works) I loved the fact that I could sit on the couch and use my PC. Of course I still kept my Desktop, as the notebook was not powerful enough to be my only PC. I kind of counted this as my first side computer device.

As time when on I bought other notebooks, but they all started to get a bit boring. I wanted more. Something more personable. Something more me. Then came the Tablet PC in 2003. A computer that allowed you to write on the screen. It looked awesome. To this day tablet PCs are still considered the underdogs of the computing world. Which is another reason I loved them. My first tablet was a Viewsonic, but I really didn’t get the concept until I bought the TC1100… What a tablet that was.

Once I learned the TC1100 was doomed, I went through over 20 different tablets. I just couldn’t find what I wanted. I was looking for a side device for my desktop. Something I could use at work, on the couch, in bed. For surfing, note taking, artwork(I love artwork, but I’m not really good at it), and games. I wanted something small, but not too small. The TC1100 was almost perfect. After 20 tablets, I was frustrated. But then came the UMPC.

In today’s computing world the UMPC is the ultimate Underdog. Most reviewers have no idea how to use them or what they are for. To me, it’s almost what I’ve been waiting for. First, it’s small. It has a 7 inch screen, and can come anywhere I want it to go. They were created in mind to be sold cheap at one point. Cheap in $499. Perfect for me, who uses UMPCs as a side device. I have a desktop, that is my world. It has everything on it that I could possibly want. But I can’t move it. I can’t take it with me.

I know I don’t need to take EVERYTHING with me, which I why the UMPC is almost perfect. If they could get the price down even more then what they have been doing, then it would be perfect.

So this blog will be about many different things, but mostly focus on mobile computing. That was a short little story about me, and if you have any questions on tablets or UMPCs, send me an email.