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With starting this website, I thought it would be a good idea to have reliable access when moving around Japan. So this weekend, I purchased a new laptop and a EMobile access USB stick.
The laptop is this model: Acer Timeline 3810
Main selling points for me were mainly the weight & battery life. I hope to get some good use out of it for various uses including managing this site. So far, I'm very pleased with the operational aspect... despite it having Vista as a default OS. That's fine though, I'm going to reformat it and install Windows 7 anyway.
In addition to the laptop, I picked up a EMobile USB stick (D31HW) on the Super Light Data Plan (21mbps).
I already was making use of an older model that my company supplies, which was running at 7.2mbps. So far in initial tests, I do notice vast difference in site load times when using the newer EMobile USB stick.
You can get the details of the EMobile plan and other products here: EMobile Japan - It's in Japanese and there is no English page available except for basic company information.
All in all, I paid about 105,000 YEN for everything I picked up this weekend.
I'll follow up later with more details about my thoughts on the laptop after I get some heavy usage on it this week. I already know what to expect from EMobile, I'll do some comparison about speed and locations I visit around Tokyo though.
Couple of notes on EMobile: The current USB stick I have DOES have an English install option and it will work with Windows 7. (In addition to the usual Windows XP and Vista versions in both English & Japanese.)
Disclaimer: I don't work for EMobile or the Acer company. This is strictly a independent review of products I am using personally.
The laptop is this model: Acer Timeline 3810

Main selling points for me were mainly the weight & battery life. I hope to get some good use out of it for various uses including managing this site. So far, I'm very pleased with the operational aspect... despite it having Vista as a default OS. That's fine though, I'm going to reformat it and install Windows 7 anyway.
In addition to the laptop, I picked up a EMobile USB stick (D31HW) on the Super Light Data Plan (21mbps).

I already was making use of an older model that my company supplies, which was running at 7.2mbps. So far in initial tests, I do notice vast difference in site load times when using the newer EMobile USB stick.
You can get the details of the EMobile plan and other products here: EMobile Japan - It's in Japanese and there is no English page available except for basic company information.
All in all, I paid about 105,000 YEN for everything I picked up this weekend.
I'll follow up later with more details about my thoughts on the laptop after I get some heavy usage on it this week. I already know what to expect from EMobile, I'll do some comparison about speed and locations I visit around Tokyo though.
Couple of notes on EMobile: The current USB stick I have DOES have an English install option and it will work with Windows 7. (In addition to the usual Windows XP and Vista versions in both English & Japanese.)
Disclaimer: I don't work for EMobile or the Acer company. This is strictly a independent review of products I am using personally.