Unlike in other industries, trends in technology rarely come full circle. The chances of, say, the MP3 player being replaced by the shoulder-sitting boombox are laughable at best. Yet it probably won't be long before acid-wash jeans or bell bottoms are back on the racks (again).

Imagine my surprise, then, when the Kohjinsha SA series appeared in November 2006 looking just like the Handheld PC (H/PC) from 1996. I know it looks exactly like a regular laptop, too, but the H/PC is what immediately came to my mind. I had one in 1998 (the NEC MobilePro 750C) and have been a fan of mini clamshell designs ever since. It turned out to be an unfortunate preference because the form factor got bigger after the demise of the H/PC. Take Sony's sub-subnotebooks, for example: Vaio PictureBook series (8.9" screen) --> TR series (10.6" screen) --> TX series (11.1" screen).

I'm glad that the heart wants what it wants because the compact clamshell is back, and it's smaller than ever.