ArsGeek

For just about a week now I’ve been using the smallest laptop I’ve ever seen as my primary computer at home. Here’s my review of this little Vista tablet and what it’s like to really use it. The VyePC Mini-V S37.

First things first – the S37 model that I received is not like most of the other ultramobile PC’s (UMPC) out there. The S37 is the worlds first mini-laptop. That means it’s got a full keyboard (not full sized though) and all of the things you’d associate with a laptop. It’s got a touch pad, left/right buttons, a pointer located on the screen casing, 2 USB ports, sound out and mic in ports, a CF slot and an SD slot, VGA and Cat-5 port. It’s also got built in wireless and a bunch of extra buttons on the screen housing for use as a laptop or for when you use this as a tablet. The tablet feature is quite nice, with it’s 1024 x 600 resolution touch screen (or 600 x 1024 depending on how you set it), built in pointer, mouse buttons, rotation control and camera control. If you’d like to see what that resolution is like in a 7″, Intel 945GU Express Chipset controlled screen, click the picture below for an image that’s just about a 1:1 representation of the real screen.

I’ve always been intrigued by UMPC’s – the ability to have a full computer that can almost fit in your pocket. There are some devices which are smaller and come close, PMP’s, phones with mobile operating systems, but you can’t load Vista on these, nor can you load up a complex game, run Office 2007, or do any of the other processor consuming things real computers can.

Hence, a real computer with a 7″ screen. Granted, it’s not a power house of a machine but you can’t expect that in a package that’s less than 10″ at it’s widest point and weighs less than two and a half pounds. The unit I reviewed featured an 800 Mhz Intel A-110 processor, 2 GB of memory (which I find impressive) and a 32 GB solid state drive which makes for some really snappy access times. Not bad for it’s size, although I did find Vista a bit underpowered. I’d love to see a 1.2 Ghz processor in here, which would give this more of a kick.

The touchscreen is easy to navigate with the included stylus. At the 1024 x 600 resolution it’s a bit hard to handle with your finger, unless you’ve got some small fingers or a very specialized manicure. The pointer included next to the screen is a nice touch when using this as a table, as it allows for easy navigation without pulling out the stylus, as are the mouse buttons and the four control buttons.

What’s it like using the S37 for a week? There are some very good points and some hard to get over points. Let’s start with my first experience. Typing. Typing takes a bit of getting used to. The keyboard is not a full sized laptop keyboard which makes it a bit challenging to type on. I don’t have huge hands and I was able to do it, but it took about an hour of constant use before I really felt comfortable with it. Even then, I went from my average 80 WPM to about 45 WPM on the small keyboard. It certainly is better than thumb typing though, or using a virtual keyboard and a stylus. I’d have to say that I’m glad they included it, rather than going for a slide out, blackberry style or an on-screen only keyboard.

Doing work on an 800Mhz machine can be a little challenging. I’m so used to fast switching programs and keeping seven or eight seperate windows and programs running at one time. This tends to really slow this little machine down so I had to get used to keeping just a few programs up at one time. Office, Thunderbird and Firefox were about as much as I could handle at once before getting a bit frustrated.

Where the S37 really excels is as a touchscreen browsing device, not just internet browsing, but browsing through PDFs, documents, ebooks, websites or your favorite movie. As a media device this thing rocks. Watching a movie fullscreen on it’s 7″ display with bluetooth headphones on and being able to get email updates at the same time – that’s just nice. You can use the onboard buttons to easily change the screen rotation as well to turn this into an ebook reader that fits quite nicely into your hand. It also has a 1.3 MP camera that you’ll see on the left, which is a neat addition.

Gaming on this is about what you’d expect. Vista’s built in games work just fine. Mahjong is quite fun to play with the stylus. For fun, I installed 2005′s game of the year, Medieval Total War. It wasn’t the smoothest experience but it was playable for at least twenty minutes, which is all I gave it. Suffice it to say that if you want to play games with more than small demands on your GPU or processor this is not the machine for that.

So how about the road warrior? Is the S37 perfect for the hard core traveler? The short answer is – it depends. I found that running Vista on this gave me a battery life of just under three hours. However the unit I was reviewing had a 3 cell battery, not the standard 6 cell battery. With the larger battery you can expect to get more than 5 hours of life.  You can use the usual tricks to extend it a bit – turn off the wireless radio, crank the brightness down, etc. This will give you an extra 20-30 minutes on top of your average battery life.  If you need a very small machine that you can easily slip into your carry on luggage and then pop onto a desk or plug into a projector then you’ve got a great tool at your disposal. They don’t call them ultraportable for nothing.

Compared to my 12.1″ display Lenovo, this thing is tiny. You can see how it would be easier to lug around. It’s a pound and a half lighter, much smaller profile and has the added bonus of being a touch screen/tablet. This fits into my gadget pocket in the backpack, not in my designated laptop area. Having a mouse and keyboard to plug into it as well as an external monitor makes it a fairly decent desktop as well. Again the 800Mhz processor slows things down a bit but isn’t unbearable. I can say that I wish for one more USB port to be squeezed in. When attaching a USB mouse and keyboard, you’ve just taken up all of the available ports. I know I could get a hub but it’s just one more thing to carry around.

And how is that touch screen? It’s not bad. There’s a bit of a matte finish, it’s not quite as bright as your standard laptop screen but this is easy to get around when you’re training Vista’s handwriting recognition or cruising through the web via your stylus.

I’ve found that the bottom line with the S37 is that I’d never want to use it as my primary computer but I’d be happy to use it as a travel mate and keep it around as a secondary laptop or use it as a primary touch screen device. I can think of a number of dedicated jobs it could do very well – acting as a primary computer anywhere you’d need a standard tablet – inventory, medical fields, diagramming, presentations – I’m sure you can think of other applications for this as well. As a hot rod PMP this think kicks other PMP’s out of the water. With a $2000 price tag, the solid state model is a bit on the pricey side – so it’s important to note that there are models with standard 120GB drives available for significantly less. Working with an SSD computer is a lot of fun but the 32GB limitation might be tough.

YAG factor? That’s a tough one. It’s either going to be high, or low, depending. If this is your primary computer that you’re traveling with, then it’s going to be very low. You can effectively leave your PMP at home – this thing will play your videos, your music, display your pictures, (in Powerpoint if you want to get evil), browse the web and handle the functions of your computer. If you’re popping it in your bag with your laptop, your phone, your MP3 player and your PMP then it’s pretty high. although unless you’re like me and reviewing it you probably won’t be doing that.

Are UMPC’s worth it? That depends on whether you can live with the above factors. For sheer fun, this computer is amazing. I’m a gadgeteer and I love toting around a 2 pound Vista machine. There’s something just cool about that. I think realistically we’re still looking at the first generation of UMPCs. We’re going to see some pretty radical advances over the next few years where computers can easily be this small and do lots of amazing things. Is the S37 worth it? If you’re looking for a very small computer or a true UMPC, then yes. The full keyboard is a definite plus. Compared to other UMPCs it’s not underpowered and actually packs a great deal of RAM. Bluetooth, wireless, VGA out, USB – it’s got lots of ways to connect to the world around it and it’s easy enough to take with you.

For more information and to compare models, here’s the comparison PDF from VyePC.

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