A bad pun: “Because you really need one“.
I had the good fortune this week to “play” with two Ultra Mobile PCs.

The first was the (Korean made) Wibrain B1S. Before seeing it for the first time, I had heard it described as being similar in size to a VHS videocassette. It is a bit longer though, and quite a bit heavier. I’ve seen a number of different models reviewed and referred to, but from CNET the size is 7.6 in wide by 3.2 in depth and 1.1 inches thick, with a weight of 1.2 lbs.  It has a 4.8 inch,  1024 x 600 pixel ( WSVGA ) screen. The processor is a VIA C7-M running at 1.0 GHz or 1.2 GHz. This is basically the same processor found in the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC. CNET has specs of 512MB RAM, but the WiBrain B1 I’m testing has 1GB of RAM. It also has a 32GB Solid State Drive, which makes it run quite silently, with the exception of the fan.

A picture of the WiBrain B1 can be seen on the WiBrain.com homepage. The most notable feature of this tablet UMPC is the split QWERTY keyboard, which – once you get used to it - is actually quite usable. On the bottom left is a set of keys for scrolling, left mouse-click, right mouse-click and volume. On the bottom right is a touchpad – a fairly standard laptop touchpad. Due to the size of the UMPC, you tend to use most of these with your thumbs. Although there is a Linux and a Windows Vista version of the WiBrain, the one I’m looking at has Windows XP with a touchscreen driver. That is quite a difference from Windows XP tablet edition, but probably keeps costs down.

One the interfaces front, the WiBrain has one USB 2.0 port, built in Bluetooth and 802.11b/g wireless.