NEC LaVie J Series Available Soon, With Wireless USB

The NEC LaVie J Series should be available later this week.

It’s a 12.1″ widescreen, lightweight (under three pounds) ultraportable notebook with an Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 (1.2GHz, 2MB L2).

It’s unique in that it’s one of the first offerings with a Wireless USB hub (basically you have a wireless hub that you plug a USB mouse, printer, scanner, etc., into, and your notebook can automatically connect to the hub without any physical connections).

There are going to be three models:
- LJ750/LH - 2GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive, 802.11a/b/g/n
- LJ730/LG - 1GB Memory, 80GB Hard Drive, 802.11a/b/g
- LJ700/LH

Akihabara News mentions that the low-end LJ700 does not come with Microsoft Office 2007, implying the other two do. These will probably only be available in Asia (at least under the NEC brand).

Announced: NEC LaVie LA700/DD1F

NEC has a new ultraportable laptop coming out, the NEC LaVie LA700/DD1F. Not much information currently available, and so far it looks like it’s initially only going to be sold in Asia.

Specifications:
12″ Widescreen Display - 1280×768
Intel Celeron M383 (1GHz)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Intel Video Chipset
512MB of RAM (Max 2GB!)
Dual Layer DVD Writer
80GB Hard drive space
Less than 1300 EUR/$1600 USD

Of note, it comes with some kind of a remote control, similar to what you see with Windows Media Center machines.

Source: Akihabara News

NEC LaVie G Type J Limited Edition - More Details

MobileWhack has a few more details about the NEC LaVie G Type J Limited Edition, that we just mentioned:

* Only 200 units of this black limited edition version
* Launch date of February 28th (Japan only)
* Rated battery life of around 6 hours.

NEC LaVie G Type J - Limited Edition (Black)

Akihabara News has information about a limited edition version of the NEC LaVie G Type J, that comes in a black casing. This ultraportable has a 12.1-inch display (non-widescreen) and is powered by a Pentium M 753 (Ultra Low Voltage) CPU. It weighs just over a kilogram, and one very unique feature - can withstand 100kg of force on the enclosure.

For pictures, please see Akihabara News. This version is, so far, only available in Japan.

Announcement: NEC VersaPro UltraLite (VY12F/VJ12F)

Akihabara News had the scoop on the new ultraportable from NEC, the NEC VersaPro UltraLite. the VersaPro UltraLite (model #’s VY12F/CH-W and VJ12F/CH-W) is powered by a 1.2GHZ Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Pentium M, come with a 12-inch XGA display, and has up to a 7-hour battery life (with 9 hours possible, possibly through an optional battery). It weights just 2.2 pounds.

Currently it’s only available in Japan.

Press Release (Japanese - use Google’s Language Tools to translate)

Story at Akihabara News with expanded pictures.

Announced: NEC PC Parafield (No Hard Drive!)

NEC has announced the NEC PC Parafield, currently only available in Japan. It’s a 12.1-inch ultraportable with a Pentium M 1.73GHz processor, and most importantly - no Hard Drive - it stores the Operating System (OS) and applications in 3GB of Flash ROM, and has an additional 512MB of RAM for system/application memory. As far as we know, there are no others with this kind of setup that are currently available.

The emphasis is placed on security and using the PC Parafield as a Thin-Client replacement. User created or stored data is present in the RAM, and when the machine is switched off, the data disappears - leaving would-be thieves unable to retrieve it. This does create the problem of backing the data up before turning it off, which require a network connection, or strangely enough, a USB device that the NEC spokesman mentioned - (editor’s note: wouldn’t this leave you right back where you started, with data on media that can be copy/retrieved?).

It retails in Japan, for around $3700 USD. As far as plans on producing and selling it to the outside market, NEC Spokesman Hitoshi Onodera said “We’ll launch it and see what the market response is before considering an international launch.”

We will be watching this closely, as Apple Computers recently entered into several large, high-profile partnerships for Flash ROM, leading to speculation that there would some kind of Flash-ROM based Apple computing product (other than an iPod).

Source: Yahoo News/PCWorld.com

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