Where does he get those wonderful toys?

From Fujitsu FMV

From Fujitsu FMV

...well, at a little known (or perhaps well known, depending on what circles you travel) used OA store called Kyushu Hard.

OK, lets ignore the Engrish naming conventions for a moment (it's far better then Hard Off anyway). OA stands for Office Automation. In other words, Kyushu Hard is a reseller of used computers, copiers, laminators, projectors, and a plethora of other technological (not-so) wunderkind.

Pictured above is my new (to me) used Fujitsu FMV-7100MT5. Ever since I saw a similar sized item at the store, I have been somewhat in the market for a new ultra-lite notebook. While not as light as the Panasonic Let's Note I was looking at, at 1.2 kg it is a far cry from my 2.8 kg Dell Inspiron 6400. But with the reduced weight come some hefty limitations.

The most noticable of this is the lack of any form of optical drive. No CD, DVD, or even legacy floppy drive. To compensate, there are 2 USB 2.0 ports, plus a built-in LAN port. The OS is, I believe, hard-coded into the BIOS, and as such has no theoretical need for anything like a optical drive. That would never satisfy my computing needs, even for on-the-go computing, but some virtual DVD-Drive mounting software should be more than sufficient. Transferring gigabyte-sized files may prove some sort of problem in the future, but for now this is not a real issue.

The hardest part may be if I have a hard-drive failure. Miniaturization means that instead of a standard 2.5 inch note-book HDD, it has a diminutive 1.8 inch 40GB HDD. Should that fail, a retail replacement could cost upwards of $200 dollars.

Size-wise this is effectively a B5-sized notebook, though in reality a little larger. Roughly, it's 27cm wide, 21.5 cm deep, and about 3.7 cm tall at it's wider end. The screen is a 12.1 TFT LCD, with a max resolution of 1024x768. Processor is a 1.0 GHz Celeron Mobile, with 512 MB of RAM installed.

In it's current vanilla state, it's boot times are impressive, going from off to usable desktop in about 37 seconds. While this will be sure to decline with installed programs, I intend to keep it as clean as possible.

I think the sweetest, and at the same time most galling, aspect is the price. My 4-year-old, admittedly much better though much heavier, Dell is STILL being paid for thanks to a 3 year installment plan. Financing included, that computer (for which I have already had to buy a new, non-OEM battery) will end up costing me some $2200 CAD. My new Lifebook is 5 years old, used, and cost me (assuming 1:1 penny:yen conversion) $280 dollars. Not to mention that I got a free optical mouse and wireless LAN card to boot.

Yeah, pretty happy cat at the moment.

OK, lets include a little coda here:

Day 45
10/14 (1507) Biking Commute, Walking 15 minutes

0700-1200: Coffee x2, Banana, Scrambled Eggs (2), Apple Danish, Yakult
1200-1700: Shrimp Wonton Noodle Soup
1700-2000: Tandoori Chicken, J-Veggies, Veggie Juice, Saltines

Weight: 89.4 kg
Body Fat: 27.7%

Not only did my weight go back down, so did my body fat. Also, I've been over-estimating how much chicken I was eating, and on the days I get my chicken breast from the grocery store, I'm eating about 85 grams, as opposed to the 150 grams I thought.

So yeah, good day!