Kohjinsha has been making some tiny PC Laptops for a while now, as I discovered from my visit to the Akihabara district in Tokyo this past April.

I received the new SC3 one week ago today from Direct From Japan. This is my first Kohjinsha, and my first UMPC to boot. There are a couple of reviews out there already (Pocketables, UMPCPortal) that take the machine to task on specs and battery life so I will list out my generally unscientific impressions on the SC3 after a week of use.

Form Factor

The SC3WP06GA is incredibly small (I got the white one). The pictures do not do it justice. It really is the size of a DVD case, and not much thicker. The unit is very light at 800 or so grams. I can easily hunt and peck at it with one hand while the unit rests on my other palm.

This form factor makes it extremely light and convenient as a mobile internet device, moblogging machine or ebook reader.

One slight downside with the size of the SC3 is, it can't really be called a laptop if it can't span your lap. I have to sit it very carefully on one leg, resting in between my legs, on my palm as I mentioned, or on a pillow.

The Fantastic Screen

The SC3 features an LCD backlit, 7" touchpanel screen. It's incredibly bright at the highest setting, easily readable in bright daylight.

The native resolution is 1024x600 which seems luxurious compared to the eeePC 700, but is not tall enough to display some Windows Vista configuration panels in full.

The touch screen has the same, almost speckled appearance as my other PC tablet-laptop (HP TX1000) but slightly less pronounced. The touch features work very well after some calibration, but I wouldn't use for full time text input since the SC3 has a serviceable keyboard.

The display design in the SC series is definitely an improvement over the other UMPCs from Kohjinsha. The screen takes the majority of the top panel, besides a tiny web camera and status lights. A multi-function rocker button sits on the left side of the screen part (controls Brightness, Page Up/Down, Volume and Zoom).

The screen can swivel 180 degrees into a tablet position. This transforms the SC3 into the best tablet I've ever owned, in the form factor of a medium sized book.

As mentioned in the Pocketables review, the screen hinge is very solid, requiring a good effort to reposition. A light bump would not even move the screen out of position.

Moblogging Machine

I purchased the SC3 primarily as a MID and a blogging tool. I plan to go on an extended trip next year, and I can already tell this thing wont slow me down. Even with the small power adapter, I could fit this into my MEC man-purse with room for a guide book and some snacks.

I love having a full browser and access to any blog/image editor tools available for Vista. The webcam, SD/MMC reader, Expresscard 34, VGA port, GPS, and mic-in/line-out make this device a winner on sheer compatibility alone.

The keyboard on the SC3 is... small. You will definitely not be comfortable writing on this this for extended periods. That said, I'm happy with the key layout they chose. The keyboard includes a full set of function keys, arrow/direction keys, one double-size and one regular Shift key, a sizable space bar and enter key.

Some have complained about the double-lettering (English and Japanese-Hiragana) printed on the keys, but these complaints seem exaggerated. There are only three keys you wouldn't know how to use if you don't read Japanese and they're only used to input Japanese! I've gotten comfortable enough to write this entire post on the SC3 in just a few days.

I do have to complain about the keyboard configuration though (maybe DFJ did this before shipping the unit out). The inputs don't match what the printed keys say! I wont fault Kohjinsha for this since it's clearly a software setting.

This is no Gaming Device

As expected, this little machine doesn't have much video horsepower. The embedded Intel GMA 500 video chip is about half as powerful as the common GMA 950, which I thought was the slowest of the slow. Don't expect any game title with the slightest bit of 3D acceleration to run.

I've tested a few old games out of nostalgia's sake. So far only Diablo 2, Icewind Dale, and Civilization 2 run with any level of playability. Of course, browser-based games such as Kingdom of Loathing, and Flash games such as Dofus run just fine and are perfect for light gameplay. Emulators like MAME, ScummVM and indie games like Barkley Gaiden run as well as you would expect.

Manga Reading Perfection?

One thing I love to do on the SC3 is read manga. The high resolution, touch panel controls, book-sized form-factor and ability to run comic/manga reading apps like CDisplayEx, make the SC3 absolutely perfect for the task. See the video above.

I promptly loaded CDisplayEx, the open source version of CDisplay, which supports an even wider array of compressed file formats. For instance, you can have a single ZIP or RAR file with a bunch of sequentially named images inside and load it it up as a single book.

When the screen is set to tablet mode, the only physical button you can to flip a page is the multi-function rocker on the side of the screen. This works fine for reading, if a little awkward when you hold the unit in portrait mode, until I realized that you can configure the tablet feature "Pen Flicks" to scroll up or down. Triple tapping seems to advance the page in CDisplayEx as well.

Now I'm glad I didn't buy the now defunct Panasonic Words Gear in Japan (I looked all over Tokyo). I finally have a high-res digital comic and manga reader with a 60 GB hard drive and touchscreen controls. The Sony PRS-500 or similar e-ink reader is still far more effective and efficient for plain text books.

Video-Philes

I'm not much of a HD/AV nut. I watch most of my videos on a diminutive iPhone screen. While the iPhone is brilliant for watching a quick few minutes of anime on a break, the SC3 blows it out of the water.

It's not just that the screen is larger, it's also much brighter and higher resolution. Not having to reformat or plan ahead for the videos I'll load on my machine is a real time-saver as well.

I can use VLC to watch most any video format, and I can use soft subtitles or create on-the-fly playlists. Yes, it's a full PC. It's finally getting through to my head.

A couple caveats:

• The SC3 has no optical drive so it's not very convenient for watching DVDs
• Youtube videos play fine, but bug out on full screen
• I haven't tested HD videos yet.

On the matter of storage capacity, the 60 GB hard drive is a might shade better than 16 on an iPhone, but you wont be able to fit seasons and season of TV on the SC3. Not with everything else you might want to put on there. That said, you can fit enough decent resolution video on a 8GB SDHC card to last you a week trip easily.

End of Part 1

I have a lot more testing to do on the Kohjinsha SC3, but I'm liking it a lot. I hope to take a deeper look at the SC3's real-life performance once I receive the second gig of RAM I ordered online.

One thing is for certain, the SC3's already become a part of my daily routine. I'm tempted to bring it in to work but I'm afraid I wont get anything official done. It's impressed me as a light productivity tool and a fun entertainment PC.

If your main requirement is portability and you need a full PC OS, you can't do much better right now than the Kohjinsha SC3. That said, do not expect to replace your main computer with this little wonder.

Here are some other UMPCs to consider:

• Gigabyte M704
• OQO Model 2
• Willcom D4