I bought a Fujitsu Siemens P1610!

Since my last post about 5" vs 7" screens, and following a massive 7 hour round trip to collect it, I am now writing to you live from a Fujitsu Siemens P1610!

Yep, I've actually gone even bigger than a 7" device and bought myself Fujitsu's 8.9" touch screen convertible tablet UMPC (or Ultra Portable PC to use Hugo Ortega's definition).

And to Hugo's point, I think its reasonable to classify this device slightly differently to the UMPCs that I normally deal with such as the OQO, VAIO UX, Everun, etc. because it is considerably bigger in size. As I said in my previous post, that was the attraction. I want to try a more traditional clamshell device.

I wanted something that is extremely small and light but that I can still easily flip open and type comfortably on with a screen that I can easily view in this configuration. Using the VAIO UX's 4.5" super high resolution screen on a desk with a bluetooth keyboard is very hard on the eyes, and using the thumb keyboard to write long pieces is very hard on the thumbs!

The P1610 has a great keyboard which I can very easily touch type on (at full speed I reckon - I have reasonably slender fingers though, your mileage may vary), the screen is a great size and the device is super light. Mine with its extended battery weighs approximately 1.18kg.

The little Fuji caused quite a stir when it came out at the end of last year and there are some interesting YouTube videos from James Kendrick here and Hugo here.

I was lucky enough to find a P1610 with built in 3g and the extended battery and I'm finding it to be a great machine so far.

I will keep you posted with my progress.