One of the absolute cheapest ways to compute – other than a smartphone – is by using an Ultra-mobile PC or UMPC for short. If you’re thinking, "Didn’t they stop making those?" Nope. They’re still made and one can easily be bought for under $100 new, but before you say "COOL!" and run out to get one, there’s a few things you should know.

Tiny screen, tiny resolution

The UMPC spec these days is usually a 7-inch LCD screen with an 800×480 native resolution. That’s not a lot of pixels to work with. Given that most web pages require a minimum 1024×768 resolution, web browsing with one of these things isn’t exactly easy. You would have to purposely seek out mobile-friendly versions of web sites (like m.facebook.com for example) just to browse the web normally with one of these.

Must run mobile OS (or very lightweight desktop OS)

The front-side-bus is slow (usually 266MHz), the memory is usually 128MB, the storage available is usually 2GB total.

UMPC’s are primarily designed to run Windows CE, and that’s usually what they come shipped with. Could you install an alternative OS? Sure, but it would have to be something like Android because you would even have a difficult time getting Xubuntu running on one of these.

Chiclet keyboard keys – and not that many of them

The keyboard keys are really small and mashed together in a non-standard layout. If you hate netbook keyboards, you’d hate the UMPC keyboard even more.

So what’s good about it, if anything?

The good comes in the fact it’s cheap, has wi-fi b/g, and a real 10/100 RJ45 port. It can do basic web browsing functions, but it’s best use would probably be as a super-compact media center or on-the-go server administration tool.

"But I can use a tablet to do these same things." True – but not for under $100 new. Not yet, anyway.

The UMPC is also quite good as a kid’s first computer (which is in fact its primary purpose – it’s used a lot in schools in other countries). You know the kid is going to bang it around and beat the crap out of it, so for under $100 the sting of that won’t bother you too much.

Where could you get one?

You usually have to buy direct. Here are three you can check out.

• Unbranded UMPC – Price: $82.66
• Sylvania Netbook (not really a netbook, much more a UMPC) Price: $99.00
• MenQ EasyPC E790 Price: Unknown but somewhere under $100.

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