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Why I Bought It

Currently, I have a desktop computer, various server computers, and a handheld computer (a Handspring Visor Edge, Palm compatible). But it's been a long time since I owned a laptop. My previous laptop, which I had in college, weighed seven pounds, and carrying it on my back four miles on my bike each way to and from campus every day was a great way to get in good shape. The summer of 1999, I was in better shape than I've ever been in my life, before or since, because of that thing (well, that and twenty other pounds of college textbooks).

The desktop machine is powerful; I use it for my work. The servers never move, and never get used directly. The Edge is portable and very convenient (I can fit it in a jeans pocket with room left over for my wallet!), but even though I've got WordSmith on there, I can't really use it for software development. It's great for document-proofreading and for jotting notes, though, since I always have it in one of my pockets somewhere, and it never seems to run out of battery power, no matter how hard I try.

But I don't have anything that fills the gap between the desktop machine and the handheld, and that's where the U101 fits in for me. I want a machine that's small and light (am I overcompensating for my previous laptop? I don't think so, but who knows?), and the U.S. laptop vendors don't design for size or weight; their focus is fast and spacious. "Light" for them is three and a half pounds and "small" is twelve inches long (maybe they're overcompensating for something, eh?).

"Bigger-is-better" is very much an American concept, but big and heavy is not what I need. I'm willing to sacrifice speed and power for size and weight. So I'm buying Japanese.