A Sharp new weblet
 

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

... and its running Vista as seen on picture ... i'll stay with Nokia ;)

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

It's too big. This is what some people want to turn the tablet into, a giant brick. It is also 1500 USD! Not exactly a direct competitor for the IT's.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

windows... zum kotzen.

yeh! im too.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

A conventional hard drive is a deal-breaker, especially for that kind of cash.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Pfft . . . hardly. :rolleyes: What some people want is to not have all of the useful features sacrificed for an iPhone-like form factor. ;)

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Haha, we have had this conversation before. You and your big 5+ inch screen fitting pants. Funny you should mention the iphone, as it seems many people like the slim, touch only, capacitive screen toting iphone. I like the slim profile and think the N810 is the perfect size, but I would prefer to keep my stylus over the capacitive screen. If we did switch to a finger only screen, many projects will be much more difficult to use, such as KDE. I like KDE, but it was a little too slow for my taste the last time I tried it. I will try it again. Ok, now i'm going off on a tangent...

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

It looks nice, but the default Windows desktop is the totally wrong interface for it. Look at that line of tiny tiny icons on the taskbar.

Hard drives, lots of RAM and a quick CPU are good things in a portable device. Eyestrain isn't.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

The question (as always) is: does it run linux?

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

This is essentially a UMPC with a sliding screen instead of a folding one. Completely off base here, though I don't doubt there is a market for it somewhere.

Looks like a nice keyboard, though. The N810's would do quite a lot better with higher friction, rubbery keys...

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Just by the way, this is a topic that is very much Been There, Done That

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...084#post170084

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...536#post169536

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Well, at least I provided a photo so the comparison/contrast has something to hang on. And an actual price.

On the one hand, the D4 is twice the weight. Twice the volume. Three times the price (or six-plus times the price if you're talking N800).

On the other: it has 230,400 more pixels on the screen. 3.3 times faster CPU. 8 times the DDR RAM. 5 times the movie space storage.

I think that Nokia's ability to produce a fabulous web tablet at a price we can afford goes too much unremarked. I'm sure Nokia could make a D4-level device at a D4 price. But then they'd be just one among many. What other manufacturer has matched the Internet Tablet's weight, screen and price?

"More, bigger, faster" has driven computing development since the first microcomputer appeared in the late 1970's. We can ask Nokia for more, bigger, faster too, if we fall under the delusion that the web we want will come with that.

But it won't. It requires the painstaking adherence Nokia has taken to the needs of the walkaround web needs: smaller, lighter, cheaper have to be balanced against the basic "show me everything on the web" requirement.

Nokia seems to be the only company willing to go against the more-bigger-faster trend. I wonder how many of us on this forum would have tablets if the entry device was a $1525 D4?

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

No "essentially" needed — this is a UMPC. Newsworthy for the new CPU, maybe.

But really, this is the handiest comparison device we have. And it behooves us to stop and look at what else is around now and then, so we either ask Nokia to keep up with the competition or we thank Nokia for leading the way.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

To be honest, i don't see the point. for that much money.
More devices trying to be all things to all men.
When roaming gprs streaming comes down to a reasonable cost, or
wimax takes off i don't see a point in much more than the N810.
But i suppose these things drive innovation!

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

The achilles heel of this sort of device has got to be battery life. I'll wager you'd get about an hour and a half.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Woah.. $1500 eh.. I'd rather buy a compact laptop for that money. For tablet uses, there is this odd cheap thing around.. what's it called again.. oh yeas Nokia Internet TabletS. :)

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

@JoeF - Regardless of the battery life, the Achilles heel is still Vista :D

hmmm while this thing is interesting I'm definitely gonna stick with Nokia :) I would LOVE it if this inspired Nokia to upgrade the memory and connectivity of their tablet lines a little though :) Also... $1500? I'll just buy a MacBook thankyouverymuch!

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Not me. By the way, you can bring your N800 up to 32GB of storage for $180 (or less) these days. But come on, we don't need that kind of space. After all, we're not running Vista or something! ;)

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

But the Pandora is more-faster-smaller-cheaper. So what does that tell you about Nokia?

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Yes I do need that kind of space. I want as much of my data in my pocket, thankyerverrimuch.

Except of course that the Itablet won't let me do very much with that data; it's apparently for surfing only...

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

That Nokia managed to put out a useful, affordable web tablet two years before anybody else.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Affordable, I agree on...

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Yep, agreed, stylus is a big win.

Some of us could really use that kind of space, honestly.

I hope so too. :)


As far the Sharp product is concerned its two deal-breakers are price, and size. Once inch wide means it's gotta be pretty awkward to hold and use. My fingers start to ache after using my N810 for a while, I can't imagine how uncomfortable this must be.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

When work pays for it, the price is off the table (in many ways). Seems like many people have work related uses. But those same people seem to play in a unix environment (or *nix), so that might be a problem, but it seems like you could load another package on here, so you could get your *nix on there too.

It does seem drool-worthy. Lot's of stuff in a nice tidy package. Personally, the NXXX series are much more pocket-worthy, and I'm not looking to replace my desktop (or laptop for some), I just want something that fits in my pocket to bridge the gap between my work desktop and my home desktop. Admittedly, Nokia hasn't made that yet, but with the open software environment that they have made, other folks are rapidly creating the software to bridge that gap for me, so I haven't given up.

With that said, this seems like something close to the holy grail for some. I won't knock it. I loved my Sharp Mobilon a decade ago, and to be honest, I am still looking for the clamshell to replace it. The sharp CL-1 (IIRC) came pretty close. These Nokia tablets were the closest I've found, and hence here I am. But I won't ignore anything that Sharp puts out to meet this market. I just hope they re-embrace linux.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

Rip out the harddrive, add two SD slots and maybe we're talking (and I'm assuming it's easy to rip out Vista and install something good instead). Movable parts like disk drives is a showstopper in devices like this. I skipped the Palm Lifedrive back then because of its harddrive, and time has proved my decision correct.

Re: A Sharp new weblet
 

The Willcom D4 looks like a great little UMPC. What represents the biggest news in the D4 is that it is a UMPC, not a MID (like the Nokia tablets). Any new MID is going to be a little behind the Nokia tablets because of the time they (and we) have put into the Maemo platform since the 770.

The biggest liability of the D4 is definitely the OS, although I've read there is an XP option in Japan, which would presumably be a big improvement, in that XP has a ton of available software, including downloadable software. The second biggest is the hard drive speed, IMO. The battery life is reported to be 3.5 to 4 hours, which is not bad for the size of the device. I'm no fan of Windows on a tiny screen, but the trade-off in OSs is that every smart phone benefits from/needs a computer to sync with. Combined w/ an iPhone or Windows XP smartphone, this is the smallest complete package for travelling. Even if you carry around a Nokia tablet and a smartphone, somewhere back there there's a computer.

I'm interested to see more Atom (or Isaiah) UMPCs. After seeing the 770 abandoned, I'm not eager to get into another MID for now.