I’ve started a second blog, focused on me documenting “things I know about computers and stuff”. I’m writing it for a friend, but hopefully doing it in such a way that anyone can learn from it. It’s also me playing with WordPress, as up until now my blog has been with Blogger (now new blogger by the way!). So far, very impressed, except that I lost half my post when trying to save it 
I’m about to enter my last year as a teenager! Where does the time go?
I’m also clueless as to what I want for my birthday, over the last 18 years I seem to have been slowly accumulating everything I want and I’m now reaching saturation point. The only thing left really is a laptop, and I’m beginning to wonder whether that’s really such a great thing to get anyway.
I mean, really, the only use I can see for it will be at Uni - so I can take notes on it without having to go back to those old fashioned pen-and-pencil-and-paper-thingies (and that’s not entirely just sheer laziness, digitalised notes are much more useful!) - but, is a laptop really all that great for taking notes on? In my experience not so. Firstly its bulky - even the slimline 12″ models still require a certain amount of desk (or knee) space. Secondly, while I can type a lot faster than I can write, I can’t diagram or scribble faster on a laptop than pen-and-paper.
So… get a tablet computer? Still doesn’t really deal with the bulkiness issue, and much more importantly its the cost. Decent ones seem to start at around £1000, and that’s a little out of my league at the moment!
What I need is middle ground… and the Samsung Q1 looks like it could provide just that. Its a 7″ UltraMobile tablet computer, and whilst its raw performance specifications aren’t all amazing, if its just being used to take notes, ssh-client, surf the web, play solitaire, etc, does it need to be high performance?
The price is reasonable too, about £550 + VAT for the lower model with 512MB RAM and a 40GB HDD, or £650 + VAT for the model with 1GB RAM and a 60GB HDD.
But do I really need it? Or do I just want it because its a shiny gadget? I could get a budget laptop for £300 + VAT, cheaper if I really shopped around, do I really need this thing? Why, also, is it the only product like it on the market? If its such a great device why aren’t Dell, Sony, HP, etc selling similar devices?
I do want an iPhone though, I just can’t have one yet
