When Elonex announced it would be selling an Ultra Mobile Computer (UMC) for under £100, it caused quite a stir. 200,000 people signed up and paid deposits of £10 each to pre-order one of these machines, designed primarily for students. The Elonex ONE is a peculiar hybrid of innovation and reinvention of older technology.

Closed, the computer is about the size of blockbuster paperback, something by Tom Clancy or Stephen King. Open it up and the first surprise is that the keyboard is in the lid and the computer sits behind the 7-inch screen. It's heavy enough to overbalance backwards, so Elonex has thoughtfully provided a little strut which folds out to support it.

One of the reasons for putting the keyboard in the lid is to give it more room. The keys are well spaced and there's room for dedicated ones for e-mail, Web and music and one for the ONE's main menu. It's a membrane keyboard - think back to the Sinclair Spectrum - but is reasonably easy to type on.

What is less easy is moving the mouse pointer. To keep costs down, rather than using a touchpad or TrackPoint device, there's a big button in front of the space bar which you rock from side to side to direct the pointer. Trouble is, it's much too sensitive and very difficult to zero in on small on-screen icons and buttons, though this may not be a problem for those used to texting.

The machine runs a variant of Debian Linux and comes complete with applications for word processing, spreadsheet, Web browsing, e-mail and media playback. There's a PDF viewer and both an MP3 player and a media player, though these applications are hampered as you can't set them full screen. The players, and several of the games, display so small on the screen that they are difficult to use; at least two of the games appeared not to work on the sample we had.

With a slow processor inside, response to quite a lot of the software is sluggish. Anybody thinking Linux will be snappy in comparison with Windows won't find much snappiness here; it takes two minutes for the ONE to start up. Abiword and the spreadsheet are useable, but it's easy to type ahead of the keyboard buffer, which can be confusing.

The ONE has both WiFi and Bluetooth as standard and once you've scanned for wireless networks, it's easy to get onto the Internet. An interesting feature of the computer is that you can disconnect the keyboard from the rest of the machine and use the duplicate mouse pad and buttons on the back of its case to operate the unit.

Verdict
The idea of getting a sub-notebook for under £100 is appealing and you do get a useable computer in the Elonex ONE. You have to work at it, though, as there are some definite rough edges to the software installation, as well as problems with the speed of the processor.

Company: Elonex

Contact: 0871 222 3456

Tags: elonex elonex one tom clancy stephen king pointing stick web browser trackpoint windows