We are actually rather intrigued by the Kohijnsha dual screen DZ series netbook as a pro-focused mobile productivity device and hope to be bringing you some first hand coverage soon. For now you can take a look at some good videos from Wow-pow-blog which has a three part DZ series video review. We’ve got the first embedded below, and you can view the other two parts by jumping over to Wow-pow.
[NewGadgets.de] via [Liliputing]
As screen sizes and weights increase, the netbook products drift further and further away from the mobility sector. The number of sub-1KG devices has almost dried up. Despite that, the netbook sector remains an interesting one in terms of technology (screen, platform, connectivity, operating system) and business models so anyone interested in small, productive computers should be keeping an eye one what’s going on in the netbook world. Will ARM-based ‘smart’ netbooks and mini laptops move into the space? If so, will they remain productivity-focused or are we going to end up with a bunch of toys on the shelf that are no good to anyone that actually wants to get some work done? Will the Pine-Trail platform offer an option for ultra mobile PC manufacturers or does Menlow remain the only choice? Will OEMs continue to use the Menlow platform for extra efficiency? What OS do OEMs see as the ‘best fit’? How will low-cost multi-core ARM platforms impact the market. Will Android or ChromeOS become a productivity platform?
I should be at the Netbook World Summit in Paris today but I’m not so instead, I’m following our MeetMobility podcast partner @sascha_p who’s MC’ing the event. I’m also following the keyword ‘nws09′ on Twitter. There’s currently no live stream but the session are being recorded so we hope to have video to show later.
The live twitter stream is shown below. (Auto-updating)
Ben posted an excellent review of the Viliv S7 at Pocketables a few weeks ago and it follows my thoughts to the letter. The Viliv S7 has been working flawlessly here so rather than produce a copy of that review I’ve decided to take a different angle on the device and talk a bit more about the scenarios that best fit the S7 and the types of customers that might be interested in the device.
Firstly though, let me take you few of the key features in a short summary of the device. We have the S7 Premium here with 3G and SSD (non-rotating) storage.
Click through for full specifications and details on the Viliv S7
On the negative side, there are two major trade-offs. Screen size and keyboard. Both are very high quality items but the size of them means that they can’t be used for long-term stress-free input or application usage. The S7 is, in essence, a high quality, highly mobile short-term use PC.
You may have seen the Kohjinsha dual screen netbook concept floating around the web recently, but apparently they are actually going to be putting this thing on the market. The unit will go on sale as the Kohjinsha DZ, and at first I saw this unit as novel, but after seeing it function on video I realize that this could really be useful for some people out there.
Maybe I just missed it before, but this thing is also a convertible, and while it doesn’t have a touchscreen, the screen will still spin around like you’d expect. See toward the end of this promotional video from Kohjinsha’s site.
Looks like the DZ will be running Windows 7 Home Premium, an AMD Athlon Neo CPU, 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and have BT/WiFi.
If I was shopping for a new netbook for blogging, I’d seriously consider the Kohjinsha DZ. If you’ve ever had to write a paper while referencing other sources on a single screen, you know it can be a major pain to flip back and forth between the two. I’ve got a dual monitor setup at home, but if you need this same functionality on-the-go, the DZ can actually provide that in a netbook sized package. Have a look at the impressively designed DZ screen below. There are no goofy steps to go through, just slide and you are ready to work.
The only issue is that you are getting a unique feature, and you are going to have to pay for it. The Kohjinsha DZ will apparently be sold in Japan starting December 11th for ¥79,800 which is aprox. $925 or €617. Hopefully we’ll see some importers pick this one up to make it easy to purchase in the US and abroad.
via Liliputing and Netbooked
Information is coming through on Google’s Chromium OS from a number of sources. (See below.) I’ve been following the Techcrunch blog and as a mobile-focused end-user, I’m picking up a number of things that turn me off.
I advise you to check out the two links at the bottom of this article but here are a few pointers.
Clearly Chromium OS is for high-speed fixed (stationary) connections and not for mobile devices. Device support will be extremely limited so I wouldn’t expect this to work with 3G, touchscreens, multi-touch mousepads, fingerprint readers, external screens, local storage, extended buttons or other special features we see on UMPCs without it being re-built especially for each device.
Personally I’m having trouble working out what Google are doing here. Is it to promote HTML5 development? Am I failing to see the long-term play? Are we really going to be using operating systems on our desks that are dumber than the ones on our phones?
The advantages for netbooks users are limited. The license cost advantage will be just $15-$25, the device support will be poor and there will be a million and one re-distributions causing confusion and splintering for Linux.
High-speed javascript processing won’t be unique to Chrome. Fast boot won’t be unique to Chrome. HTML5 won’t be unique to Chrome. Web apps won’t be unique to Chrome. What’s going to get people to buy a Chromium OS computer? I doubt people will be queuing up for an OS that never needs upgrading.
Several days back we looked at the then just released Asus Eee T91MT which featured an resistive multitouch screen. We were also treated to a little T91MT promotional video showing off some of the things that you could do with the T91MT. One of those things appeared to be pressure sensitivity, but after some hands on time with the T91MT, kubel from myt91.info found it to lack pressure sensitivity of any sort which was somewhat of a disappointment.
Fast forward a bit and now kubel as found that the T91MT really does have pressure sensitivity with one caveat, it isn’t enabled by default. Not sure exactly how many levels of pressure the T91MT can detect, but it is nice to see this technology in a resistive touch screen.
He’s even got a video to prove it:
Qualcomm announced the ‘first’ smartbook [*1] yesterday. It’s due in 2010 and it’s going to be a very very tough challenge to make an impact of this wildly dynamic mobile device market we’re seeing right now. My opinion is that ‘smartbooks’ are not going to impress anyone in the first half of 2010 but as we near 2011, they have a chance to break through. Operating system and processing power are the key issues but in this report I talk through a number of the ingredients that go together to make the complete smartbook product.
Over the last 6 months or so, Viliv has created a near rebirth of the UMPC, stunning a good number of people with the highly regarded S5 and X70. Not to long after, they brought the Viliv S7, their first device with a keyboard. I wrote an article back in July titled: The Viliv S7’s biggest challenge: the keyboard. After having a chance to review the S7 for myself, I found the keyboard to be the most disappointing part of the S7. At the same time however the S7 made me very excited for Viliv’s upcoming 10″ version, the S10.
What we’ve see so far from the S10 has shown it to be a very attractive device. If the S10 has the footprint to offer a good typing experience, and still delivers the good points of the S7, I feel that the S10 could break through and become a serious netbook competitor which will put the name Viliv in front of a large new audience that they haven’t yet had access to.
The keyboard forecast on the S10 is looking really good so far. From early pictures that Chippy shot of the unit at IDF 09 I can see that the S10’s footprint gave Viliv enough room to fix every single issue that I noted in my S7 review. They fixed the tiny right shift key by dropping the arrow keys down and providing enough space for a full right shift key. They fixed the F11 and F12 keys being bound to F9 and F10 as the extra width provided room for these keys to be in their own dedicated space. They also put the tilde key back where it needs to go, which aligns the number row correctly, and fixed other things like odd punctuation placement and backward Fn/ctrl keys.
But netbooks as of late have offered rather good typing experiences, so presuming that the S10’s keyboard can match these, how does the S10 stand a chance of competing against already established brands? The answer to this lies in the S10’s battery life, convertibility, and high res screen.
The S7 had hugely impressive battery life, running for almost 6 hours at 100% CPU usage, 100% brightness, and WiFi+BT turned on. This means that the S7 should run for around 8 hours with regular usage. Incredibly fast standby times allow one to extend the battery life of the S7 to great lengths. If the S10 can offer the same speedy standby and huge battery life, it’ll beat out most existing netbooks and would be great for a thin, light weight, ‘all day’ computing experience. Viliv is currently quoting the S10 as having 10 hours of battery, and given Viliv’s previous battery life claims I would say this is fairly accurate, and within an hour of realistic usage.
The S10 isn’t 100% official yet, but the one that Chippy looked at in an IDF 09 video hands-on had a 1366×768 resolution screen, which again beats out most of the netbook contenders. Then there is the flexibility that the touchscreen and convertible aspect offer. The majority of netbooks out there today aren’t touchscreen equipped and definitely aren’t convertible. This fact alone puts the S10 in direct competition with devices like the Gigabyte TouchNote [Portal page] and Asus Eee T91 [Portal page].
If the S10 can be competitive in the netbook field and stand its ground against the existing convertible options, I think that it could have a big impact on Viliv as a company getting the company into the eyes of a much broader range than they’ve been used to because previously they’ve been dealing in a rather niche market, and for ultra mobile PC fans out there — some of that additional market may flow through Viliv to their other devices, and introduce new people to the world of UMPCs.
Of course it will all really depend on the price that Viliv picks for the S10. Hopefully it’ll hit low enough to compete with netbooks and will create choice and competition for consumers, while being an impressive debut product for Viliv’s foray into the netbook space. Most of the other players will have some serious catching up to do if the S10 jumps onto the scene with a reasonable price, 10 hour battery life, great keyboard, high-res screen and convertible form factor to boot!
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