First, the upside. This 1.1-pound device is the essence of portability. Its long battery life makes it a good traveling companion, and it’s one of the most affordable UMPCs on the market. But its keyboard is unwieldy, and its extremely low-powered processor and measly 512MB of RAM render it fit to run only the most basic applications.

At 3.3 by 6.7 by 0.9 inches (HWD), the Everun fits into a coat pocket. It has an attractive 4.8-inch widescreen, but the built-in QWERTY keyboard is poorly designed, with keys that are way too small to be very productive.

There are two mouse buttons and a touch sensor, but they’re oriented at right angles to the keyboard; consequently, although you navigate in landscape mode, you must flip the UMPC to portrait mode in order to type. At least the Everun has an accelerometer that detects the unit’s orientation and adjusts the screen image accordingly.

The Everun lasted nearly 4 hours while playing a DVD movie, despite its puny 26-Wh battery. (Dynamism.com, the main North American distributor for Korea-based Raon Digital, offers an optional battery that it claims will last almost 11 hours.) The trade-off for such prodigious battery life is an extremely low-powered AMD Geode processor. That and 512MB of RAM consign it to running Windows XP and not much else-maybe an office app and a Web browser- at any one time.

The Everun does include 802.11g wireless and built-in Bluetooth, with A2DP support for stereo headset. The model I tested had a 3OGB, 1.8-inch hard drive. A solid-state drive can be had for an extra $1OO, but it holds only 6GB.

The Raon Digital Everun is a bare-bones UMPC, best suited for a traveler with the lightest of computing needs. Windows Vista? Multitasking? Fuhgeddaboutit. At $799, the Everun is arguably the most affordable option. But if you want a UMPC, you’re better off springing for the OQO model 02, even at twice the price of the L30H.

Price range
Raon Digital Everun L30H: $799

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