Long story short, I bought a Kohjinsha SH6 UMPC. I wanted (needed even) a small, light, portable computer for mobile blogging, travel, business meetings and presentations. It needed WiFi, a decent keyboard and ability to run non-trivial applications like OpenOffice and and SSH client.

Earlier in the year, I had hopes raised when the Asus Eee 701 was pre-announced at US$199. Small, light, decent battery life, Linux and cheap, so cheap in fact its obvious limitations didn't matter. When it was finally launched in Singapore (also at the SITEX show), it was S$600 (over US$430) and sold out as fast as they could process the credit cards, marketed as a kids machine, more akin to the OLPC. In the low-end configuration being offered, I could see myself getting frustrated very quickly.

Other contenders were:

Kohjinsha SH1 (AMD Geode, 512MB, 40GB, WiFi, WinXP, 1Kg) for S$1,199.

Fujitsu Life U1010 (Intel A110, 1GB, 40GB, Wifi/BT, Vista, 0.6Kg) for S$1,988.

Raon Everun, (AMD, 512MB, 30GB, WiFi/BT, WinXP, 0.4Kg) for S$1288

The SH1 had a small screen, was underpowered and badly let down by the keyboard (which was changed for the SH6). The Fujitsu was a lovely machine, very well engineered but too small to type on and the touch-screen was borderline unusable, plus it was expensive for a second machine. The Everun was an interesting device but doesn't have a proper keyboard and couldn't be used for any level of serious typing.

The SITEX show (Nov 29th - 2nd Dec) had the local Kohjinsha distributor selling the new SH6 with an upgrade to 2GB RAM for S$1144. Now that's a bargain.

The first problem was it kept blue-screening after a few minutes use. Several re-installs of Vista from the recovery partition made no difference and a trip back to PA Mart at Funan IT secured a replacement RAM chip and all was well.

That teething problem aside, the SH6 has been a reliable machine and I've loaded it with everything I need to work locally and access my files remotely. Vista is not great, really, it's a disappointment. I live in permanent anxiety, constantly checking for software updates to fix security holes in a way that I have never felt using a Mac. Still, I have it locked down pretty tight, use Firefox in paranoia mode and only use flash drives for storage of valuable files.

The WiFi is fine, subject to Vista's exceeding slow network interface handling. Singapore has free wireless hotspots but I have found their range and performance to be patchy.

The Bluetooth is rubbish. PA Mart blamed the wireless chip used by Kohjinsha but the fault is with the poor network stack bundled with the machine - BlueSoleil. I just have no idea why you need a 3rd-party application (commercial, though bundled with the SH6) to use a BT mouse on Vista. The cute mouse-cum-laser pointer I bought connected straight away to my Mac (running 10.4 Tiger).

At 1Kg, I tote it around in a padded crumpler bag all day without shoulder strain. It's not a speedy machine and I have it tuned for lower performance and longer battery life, which is around the 2.5 hour mark. Less than I wanted and fixing that is the next issue.

So the 3 problems needed solutions are:
1. BlueTooth software stack
2. Internet access while on the move
3. Extended battery life when required

Overall, I'm very happy with it. It will be superseded by machines delivered in 2008 but you have to buy at some point and it meets my current needs.