Sharp Willcom D4 - Gallery, Walk-Through (Akihabara)
August 15, 2008
Akihabara News has put together a large gallery and a video walk-through of the Willcom D4 running Microsoft Windows Vista (in English).
The Willcom D4 has a 5″ high-resolution LED-backlit touchscreen display (1024×600 is high-resolution for something that small) and is powered by an Intel Atom CPU. This means that technically it is the smallest Intel Atom-powered device running Windows Vista (or XP if it was loaded) that you can find. They’ve managed to pack a 40GB HDD into it as well, and yet it still weighs around one pound (0.45kg).
They’ve included a 720p HDTV-formatted HD video (WMV) of the Willcom D4 as well.
A few days ago, pocketables published a review of the ultraportable device. They’ve included benchmarks (including Windows Vista’s internal Experience benchmarks) as well as photos of the D4 in its various configurations (pseudo-laptop, tablet, etc.). They’ve also included photos of the extended battery.
Read
- Akihabara News
- Pocketables
First Impressions of Acer Aspire One (SL)
August 14, 2008
I mentioned yesterday that I had an Acer Aspire One arriving, specifically the hard drive version of the 8.9-inch netbook.
Well it arrived yesterday afternoon, and I’ve had a chance to go through a few charge cycles and give it a good work out both last night and this morning on the way to work. This is a bit longer than most “first impressions”, but it’s due to the fact that I was able to do quite a bit right out of the box with it.
Construction
First off, the construction of the Aspire One. The build quailty feels very well made. It doesn’t feel like there is any wasted space. That said, now that I understand what’s involved in upgrading the memory and hard drive, I believe I’ll wait until this weekend. Both definitely need to be done at the same time. You don’t want to be taking the rubber feet off to get to the screws more than once.
It is incredibly lightweight - much lighter than I initially expected. I will trade off some weight for increased battery life, no problem, so moving to a six-cell battery when they come out (other than the price) won’t be an issue. The footprint of the Aspire One won’t be increasing too much.
Keyboard
The keyboard is solid and has no real give or flex. I would like a bigger Enter / Return key plus a larger delete key, but such is the sacrifices we make for something this small. I was surprised at how fast I was able to acclimate to typing on something that small.
Touchpad
I’m still getting used to the button placement on either side. The touchpad scrolling and zoom in and zoom out features are taking some getting used to. The touchpad scrolling works just fine with most websites as long as you pay attention to keeping your finger along the right side. Scrolling with Google Docs and Evernote works just fine as well. The touchpad buttons are a little loud - I find myself double-tapping on the touchpad rather than clicking on the buttons.
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Things to Like and Dislike About the Acer Aspire One
August 13, 2008
Kevin Tofel over at jkOnTheRun has posted five things he likes and five things he doesn’t like about the 8.9-inch Acer Aspire One.
Among the likes: Build quality, the display, and the battery life. Among the dislikes: Upgrading the memory on the Aspire One and the SSD.
I’m bringing this up because by this time tomorrow, I should have an Acer Aspire One in my hands, and will definitely be going over it during the next several days (actually for quite a while to come). Reading his comments (as well as the video he and JK posted) has been driving me nuts, while I’ve been waiting on my HDD version to ship.
I decided to forego the SSD route - part of what I’ll be using this for (and it will used as a personal machine by me) required me to have quite a bit of storage, so chances are I will be replacing the 120GB hard drive with something in the 320GB range. I’m also going to be upgrading the memory.
I’ll be documenting this as I go along (including any and all upgrades). Because I bought this for myself, I expect to be doing quite a bit to it - I maybe even replacing the wireless card for some networking hardware that I’m testing.
The model I bought:
- AOA150-1006 LU.S040B.110
- 120GB HDD
- 1GB Memory
- Windows XP Home
- White
Read:
- jkOnTheRun - 5 things to dislike
- jkOnTheRun - 5 things to like
Lenovo ThinkPad X200 - Hands On, Review (Slashgear, ThinkPad Today)
August 13, 2008
SlashGear has just published a hands-on of the new 12.1-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X200. They mentioned one of the major things that ThinkPads are known for - the keyboard, which was solid and sturdy (and spill-proof as they point out - liquids are channeled through the machine to drain out of the bottom if accidentally spilled on the laptop). They mention the performance is better than the ThinkPad X300 in some cases, since the X200 is using a more powerful Intel Core 2 Duo CPU.
ThinkPadToday.com published their review of the X200 a few days ago, and were impressed by the build quality and weight as well.
Dell Latitude E4200 & E4300 - Photos
August 12, 2008
Both Engadget and Electronista have published up-close photos of the 12.1-inch Dell Latitude E4200 and the 13.3-inch Latitude E4300.
They didn’t limit themselves to the smaller models of course, included are images of the 14-inch E5400 and E6400, and 15.4-inch E6400 and E6500. Obviously a lot of thought was put into the designs. You can also catch some of the new colors being added to laptops in the Latitude series, including Regal Red.
Engadget:
- Good image of the E4200 keyboard
- Another good image of the keyboard/right side
- An overall image of the laptop
- Monitor stand/E-port
Read:
- Engagdget
- Electronista
Gigabyte M912V Review (LAPTOP Mag)
August 12, 2008
Joanna Stern over at LAPTOP Magazine has published her full review of the convertible 8.9″ Gigabyte M912V, one of the most interesting of the netbooks / sub-notebooks.
The model reviewed , the M912V can be had for $699 USD (a very good price given that it has Tablet PC functionality, something that is hard to find in something this size for under $1000), however it may not be available in the US and/or Canada, and maybe limited to Europe and Asia. The display is not as good as the 8.9″ Fujitsu LifeBook P1620 (which is powered by a conventional Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) CPU instead of the M912V’s Intel Atom), but as Joanna points out, The Fujitsu runs well over twice the price.
- LAPTOP Magazine - Review, August 11, 2008
