Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 20:12:56 -0700
From: "Brett [ Conics ]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] Sony U-series development team interview, exploded pictures
Hi David and readers,
I'm reading this on a Sony U50 now :)
the size of the LCD is bigger than my SL-C860, so I'm actually finding
it ok for reading text at 800x600
I agree about the stylus, first thing I did was buy a pen style one :) LOL
PCMCIA days are numbered I believe...
most wireless internet devices have a CF adapter now, can't remeber the
last time I put a PC card in a laptop...
and USB 2.0 devices are everywhere now.
RE back lighting
seems fine to me, and much brighter than my other laptops (panasonic,
sharp and sony).
RE touch scrren
the sony software is good for Japanese input, but for $19.95 writePen is
excellent at writing recognition.
after about a week I got used to writing on the screen.
RE small motherboard
yes, a lot of the U internal space is for cooling I expect.
RE attached to keyboard
not bad, that would be interesting :)
Personally at home I use an external USB keyboard, but on the run pen
input is ok.
An optical drive would reduce the battery time too much I expect, and
other than install OS and software, the number of times I've used my
iLink DVD/CD-RW is low.
I'm still wondering when / if Toshiba is going to introduce another
Libretto
Sharp and Sony certainly haven't given up on the mini-computers
regards,
-Brett
p.s. I'm sure you've all seen the new Sharp mini notebook, here are some
photos
http://conics.net/shop/frames/notebooks/sharp-pc-v50f/middle-sharp-pc-v50f-pics.htm
more photos we took last week:
http://downloads.conics.net/sharp-pc-cv50/
David Chien wrote:
>Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 14:48:34 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David Chien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Sony U-series development team interview, exploded pictures
>
>http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0625/ubiq70.htm
>
>Use babelfish.altavista.com to translate.
>
>---
>
>In summary, this is what happens when the design team focuses on trying new
>ideas without really testing the concepts in the marketplace -- an interesting
>product, limited market.
>
>Oh, let's get rid of the keyboard since it seems most people have a hard time
>using a laptop keyboard in the trains, a lot of people use cell phones to surf
>the web anyways, and why not?
>
>Bad idea -- you can't get input in fast with a touch-screen, and a small laptop
>PC doesn't have the connectivity of a cell phone for web browsing by default.
>(and certainly, nobody has wifi in a train, yet)
>
>Touch-screen?!? On such a high-res panel?!? Might as well forget the high-res
>part since you'll never really keep it that small (unless you really want to
>look at text that is displayed normally on a 15" LCD panel many times smaller
>on the U's 5" panel. In other words, imagine the text of this message appearing
>3x smaller on the U-screen, and try to read that all day long!). And everyone
>hates to clean dirty LCD screens.
>
>Let's have an external, wierd looking stylus because we can't seem to find a
>good stylus slot location, so why not make it look stylish and have it
>external? Fastest way to lose the stylus and wind up poking at the screen with
>your fingertips because you've left it back on the desk.
>
>Let's throw out the PCMCIA card slot since we've got 'enough' things built-in.
>The moment any laptop design tries that, sales collapse. It's the only way to
>get hooked up to all of the latest wireless options not built-in, cell phone
>wireless connectivity, memory adapters, etc. It's literally and still a
>must-have in this age and era, and not having one in a laptop is just crazy
>(esp. on a $2000 mininote book).
>
>Let's backlight it with white LEDs instead of a fluorescent bulb. Okay, not
>too bad since Palm PDAs all have white LED backlighting, and 5" screens aren't
>hard to light properly with white LEDs. But oh, god! Just toss color accuracy
>and rendition straight out the door! White LEDs are far worse than fluorescent
>bulbs in rendering colors accurately on LCD screens, so forget about using this
>U-series notebook for color accurate video editing, photo editing, or simply
>viewing of such media. Here, think fancy PDA and you'll be okay, but
>definitely nowhere near the quality of the regular laptop LCD panels.
>
>However, if you look at the pictures of the motherboard size (in comparision to
>the 1.8" hard drive), you can see what is possible in today's designs, and
>hopefully, some company will release a 'sensible' Libretto-like design with
>built-in CD/DVD burner in a 2lbs, Libretto 110-like size and f
