On the way home from work yesterday my car blew a radiator hose in one of the lesser parts of town. No, I’m not McGuyver, I didn’t fix the car using the neoprene sleeve from my Q1. I found a well lit spot to park it and called my wife and a tow truck. In the past I would have been, well, unhappy is the polite answer, pissed off is more like it. But not this time. While I waited for these two maskless, capeless superheroes to come rescue me, I simply pulled out the Q1, fired up the EVDO modem (via my Elan U132 USB adapter) and with a Slingbox connection I was watching Seinfeld on TBS. George was cheating on his IQ test and I was feeling pretty smart …and relaxed.
Could I have done this with a 15″ Dell notebook? Sure. Would it have fit comfortably in a place in the car? Not a prayer. Would a big bright laptop on the dashboard have screamed “Mug me” more than a discreet UMPC sitting well below the dash? I think so.
Apparently one of the benefits of a UMPC is that it can lower your blood pressure in certain stressful situations, if you let it. My UMPC is quickly ceasing to be a device and starting to be a lifestyle.
By the way, my wife beat the tow truck and no authors were mugged in the writing of this piece.
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lol, sorry for the bad luck, but great real life use for a umpc… much can be said for laptops, but a umpc is certainly ideal for quite a few situations… just more discrete sometimes.. i am still trying to decide between spring for the R2H or going lower tech but smaller with the Raon Vega(though i know it is not umpc)…
Great story Mark. Breaking out a laptop in vehicle would mean you’re a cop in the lesser parts of my town. That wouldn’t neccesarilly mean you wouldn’t get jacked though.
I hope the second or third generation UMPCs have 3G wireless built-in. My Q1 reminds me of an octopus sometimes with the USB cables sticking out.
amateur head…
ka-ka-sh-ka 737351 Title of amateur head…