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I’ve searched for years for a powerful ultra-lightweight portable I can work with absolutely anywhere. Fujitsu’s P1000 LifeBook is the first one I‘ve tried that really makes the grade. At 6.5”x9.1”x1.3” and 2.5 pounds, it’s certainly small and light. It gets four hours of life with its standard Lithium ion battery, or up to nine hours with an optional high-capacity battery, ample for a full day’s work in the field. The P1000’s form factor makes it easy to use on a cramped airplane seat or even standing up.

The P1000 has a sharp and brilliant 8.9” 1024x600 TFT touchscreen you can control with either a stylus or your fingertip, making it a tablet of sorts. The small keyboard has all twelve function keys and is well laid out, although the keys are a little flatter than I like.

For connectivity, the P1000 features 10/100 Ethernet, a modem, 80211.b wireless, one Type II PC Card slot, and two USB ports. The wireless has an On/Off switch, and the system’s pretty smart about going in and out of Standby mode when you open or shut the lid.

The P1000 is powered by an ultra-low voltage 800 MHz Crusoe TM5800 processor with 512KB on-die L2 cache. Since Crusoe chips don’t use fans, the system is very quiet. The P1000 comes with 256 MB RAM. For graphics, it uses ATI’s 8MB Radeon M. It’s got a 30 GB hard drive, an external floppy drive, and an optional exterior CD.

For truly mobile computing, I prefer the P1000’s small footprint, keyboard, and touch sensitivity to any of the dedicated tablets I’ve tried to date. The system comes preinstalled with either Windows XP Home or Professional, or Windows 2000. Prices start at $1,199.