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I bought a Fujitsu Lifebook P-2000 Series and I love it. I'm not the terminal, Anti-Windows guy, so I got it with XP. In the customization part of their website, you can get rid of Windows, but your savings will only be what they pay for a copy of Windows; not what you would pay. My Lifebook has 2 USBs, 1 Firewire, 1 RJ-45, 1 RJ-11, and built-in 802.11b (not PCMCIA). It uses a Transmeta Crusoe Processor, 256Mb, 40Gb HD, It weighs 3.4 pounds and the battery life is ~3 hours. Other battery options allow up to 14 hours (I'm told). This thing cost me $1299 and it's awesome (except for the Win XP :-) Also check out Laptops Inc. They have a good selection of used ones. Good Luck!

There are also a number of 2-4 pound laptops from Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.; that's what I have right now. They are considerably lighter than the iBooks, have comparable or better battery life, and are much, much faster. They often don't include the CD/DVD in the main laptop, but frankly, I prefer that choice; it's easy to plug a bus-powered CD/DVD into the USB2 or FW port.

You will effectively not find a notebook where you don't pay the Windows tax: the big manufacturers just bundle it that way, and if anything goes wrong with the machine, they will have you run stuff under Windows before even accepting it for warranty return (I have been there). Apple is no better: you can't get their HW without their OS, and they won't even support their laptops connecting to a non-Apple wireless access point.

i don't know about linux compatibility, but it sounds like in terms of HARDWARE you're looking for something like Fujitsu P-series or so. Fujitsu P-Series page. it doesn't have firewire, but it has everything else you want. here's a page talking about putting linux (debian) on it i think i've seen firewire pcmcia cards, so that might be the solution. I don't know about getting it without windows, but that's the breaks... Like another poster said, not *everything* has to be a political statement. You could just video tape yourself burning or shitting on your windows CD in front of a linux flag or something. ;)

These are great cursoe based laptops and becides the software based modem everything is linux compatible.

here is a Link to the fujitsu website for it.

i have an older version with a slower 800mhz processor and 4 megs of video ram. it struggles with the latest divx encodes unplugged, but plugged in they display fine. The best feature is its real life 8-10 hour battery life. i could never go back to a 2 hour laptop.

Pros:
Super-cool look and feel; perfect laptop for your favorite stuffed animal
Useable keyboard
Bright clear screen (amazing, actually)
Fits easily in shirt or jacket pocket

Cons:
Expensive ($700 from Dynamism for English version)
Limited software availability
Shortish battery life
No manual yet, PC setup a mystic adventure

If you want something today, get a mini laptop from Fujitsu, Sony, or Dynamism.

Although I haven't used it myself, from the specs, the Fujitsu Lifebook P1000 looks like a much better alternative, and at $1200 it isn't all that much more expensive. With an extended battery, it runs for 9 hours. Sony's Picturebook series is another ultra-portable choice.

My wife has a Crusoe-powered Fujitsu P-2000 which is infatuating because it's so small and light (3.4 pounds with internal CDRW/DVD), runs silently, runs cool, and is reasonably priced.

However, the Crusoe is just too slow for power users... people say it's equivalent to a P3 at roughly 1/2 the clock speed, but I've compared the P-2040 to a 4-year-old Inspiron 3500 (p2/300) and the Inspiron was noticebly faster at starting and switching between apps. At the leog forums, most topics involve improving performance. Windows XP and 2k run some apps OK if you don't multitask, but even then you need to tweak the OSs for speed. You can forget about XP's eye-candy. Hope you like browsing with Opera because you can forget Mozilla... even Phoenix is too sluggish on the Crusoe! (yet Phoenix runs fine on the above-mentioned P2/300!) Also, don't bother installing the newest versions of Mandrake or Redhat... either use an older release or stick with Desbian and Gentoo.

For anyone in the USA who needs speed in a small laptop, check out dynamism, which imports many cool Japanese laptops (at a premium, unfortunately).

There is also the Sony Vaio SRX99. Unfortunately, it's missing Fujitsu P-2000's slick hi-res 5:3 ratio widescreen, but it's the same size, is lighter (2.7 pounds vs 2.8 pounds for the Fujitsu-without-CDRW/DVD), has a faster CPU (P3/850), larger screen (area-wise), has a touchpad, and even gets better battery life. It does not have an internal CD bay, but Sony's external CDRW/DVD drive is small, light, and bus-powered.

So, I don't see TabletPC saving Crusoe. Any Tablets that weigh 3+ pounds can use Pentiums and there isn't enough of a market for slow 2 pound devices (tablets or notebooks) outside of Japan.

Obviously, you don't own a Fujisu P-2000. With 2 batteries attached, I get 14 hours of battery life with a notebook that weighs under 4 pounds. Granted, its no speed demon, but it certainly fits anyone's definition of a mobile pc.

I've always longed for those super-ultra-tiny notebooks like you find on Dynamism [dynamism.com], but the coolest ones don't have built-in CD or DVD drives.

You might want to look at the Fujitsu P-Series. The specs are pretty nice, it's quite small, it has a CD-RW/DVD drive built in (which can be swapped out for another battery), it's available in the States and it's much less expensive than a Dynamism import.

Fujitsu P-Series, smallest notebook with an optical drive (CD-RW/DVD). 10.6"x7"x1.59". Marvelous little machine.

20GB, XP Home

867MHz Crusoe(TM) TM5800 processor with LongRun(TM)
Power Management
10.6" wide-format SXGA TFT
256MB memory
20GB hard drive
DVD/CD-RW Combo drive
External USB 3.5" floppy drive
Built-in multinational 56K4 V.90 modem
Built-in 10/100 Ethernet
Quickpoint pointing device with scroll button
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
Model P2110, FPCM20091

$1,499

This review would have one assume this is the first device of this form factor. Fujitsu has been selling the very similar Lifebooks for a while now, but are better in many respects.
- ROM drive is internal
- Can accept high capacity batteries and the ROM drive can be replaced for up to (so they claim) 14 hours of life
- Built in Wireless networking
- Substantially cheaper than the Sony

Check it out here

• DVD/CDR Comno
• Built in wireless
• Ethernet
• USB
• Firewire
• VGA out
• Svideo The sony looked real promising, but to use ethernet you need to attach a separate connector. I had no interest in attaching a box every time I want to hook up to a network so I went with the p-2000. You can check out my little review here.

  I'm amazed the p-2000 doesn't get more press, it packs everything I need in to small package without using any external gadgets.

I far better option is to get a Fujitsu P Series The native LCD resolution is much better, it doesn't cost as much, and it has a built in DVD/CD writer. Plus it too runs Linux.

First of all there is no such thing as a "windows laptop", because X86 can run a variety of operating systems. My PC laptop is a Fujitsu P-2000 and I currently get 7 hours of battery life running Linux on the extended battery. If I take out my media drive and but in the secondary battery I can get 14 hours of battery life.

The brand new powerbook G4 I got from work is lucky if it sees 4 hours.

You're wrong there. A friend and I did a club-style radio show for 8 years, mixing with Denon CD Players and vinyl. We brought approximately 250 CDs every week, which at roughly 50MB/CD once converted, which comes out to 12.5GB. However, our complete collection of DJable music is much closer to 1500 CDs, which comes out to 75GB. I think it'll be a while yet before you can fit that in two off-the-shelf, unmodified ipods, much less one.

You'll also notice I've made no mention of the 18 crates of records we own which have not been ripped yet.

I'm currently experimenting with a mobile unit that includes a Fujitsu P-2110 Laptop, PCDJ, A 120GB firewire drive (for now), and a Creative Labs Extigy. Complete mobile DJ solution for under 10 pounds.

... one of these or even one of these. Little is where it's at, man!

This guy is NOT up with the news. Even old news. You can get a laptop like the libretto, but with a built-in dvd/cdrw, to boot. It's called the fujitsu P-2110, I'm typing on it now, and it only cost me $1,545US (plus tax, shipping, etc, etc.) Why buy the libretto when you can have something just as small (okay, a half-inch deeper, and a wopping ~3lbs) with a higher resolution screen and a removable optical drive? fujitsu 's p2110 site. There are multiple battery options, too, that allow it to run up to 15hrs (theoretically, 8-9hrs realistically) on battery. Suck on that, toshiba.

Stats: 867mhz crusoe, 256mb sdram (upgradable to 512) 10.5" 1280X768 LCD (widescreen, baby!,) 30gb hd, built-in wireless, ethernet, (win)modem, 16x dvd/cdrw, etc. etc. And to kick it all off, it runs debian quite nicely. :)

I run WinXP on my laptop. I also have an AirPort AP and an Orinoco wireless card. When I first booted the laptop I didn't really know what drivers to install for the orinoco card. While I did google searches for XP drivers my roommate was messing around and inserted the orinoco card while the laptop's screen lid was down.

A few frustrated minutes (couldn't find the xp drivers at the time) later I grabbed the laptop to see what pre-loaded software was already on there, only to notice the orinoco card flashing away happily and a 11mbps dialog in the lower right corner.

I'm not the biggest fan of XP, but the brief minute of "holy shit it just....works" made my day.

885 grams == 1.95 pounds

This article is a bit of a ridiculous pitch, here are Other machines come close:

The Dell X200 = 2.8 pounds (800 MHz processor, 12.1)

Fujitsu Laptops (Various w/Transmeta) - P1000 is 2.2 pounds, $1299 starting

The Toshiba Portege - 2.6 pounds PIII750, bit expensive, $2199

-Sean

...go for Fujitsu's P-2000 Laptop with a 7-hour high capacity battery, DVDROM, and a wireless LAN card.

IMO, pads do and shall always suck, primarily because of the inherent frailty of an exposed screen. Sure, the screens on notebooks fail all the time too, but at least when not used they're folded shut & semi-protected. In this specific comparison, I see no reason to use some frail theoretical webpad when I can rely on existent notebook technology to carry around a computer so fucking small (10.6"(w) x 7"(d) x 1.59"(h)), smaller than the form design for most webpads, that lets me do anything my desktop does.

And everyone seems to bitch about wanting a "more natural" interface. From an anthropological perspective, there is no "more natural", there's just what you're used to -- the human animal can express ideas in multitudes of ways, and when it come to writing what I'm used to is thinking as I type about 90wpm. Writing with a pen on a notepad anymore feels feels like I've got a 25mph governor on a Ferrari. It's infuriating, and it doesn't get any better when you're dealing with some shit handwriting software - I haven't seen a single handwriting recognition program that wasn't a bitch to use and didn't make constant mistakes. Blah blah Graffiti blah blah - Graffiti isn't handwriting recognition software in the true sense of the term. Too many hardware people are obsessed with producing something because they thought of it in a Star Trek wet dream. People LIKE the keyboard. Look at the Blackberry. Look at the new Handspring Treos. How many people still peck at the keyboard with the stylus on their Palm PDAs? We have PDA makers trying to fit keyboards into tiny-ass PDAs & phones, people like them so much. Except for a few niche areas webpads are still a product looking for a market. Except for being bigger and having less battery life, what is a webpad going to do that a good color PDA doesn't? I may be being contrary, but these are serious questions that manufacturers need to consider before going to market with another damned Audrey.

No electronic pad has ever been made so far that didn't suck. Who knows? Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I think the notebook is always going to be a league ahead of the notepad, and for the reasons above. Until I see a pad that alot of people prefer to notebooks, it's still vapor.

After much looking, I finally decided on getting a Fujitsu Lifebook P-2000 for my wife. She needed a laptop, but not a serious desktop replacement. This was more of a when we don't feel like sitting at the desk to work type of deal. The 800Mhz Transmetta Crusoe and 256mb of RAM seems to be only slighly slower than my main desktop system (800Mhz AMD with the same RAM). This laptop has the added advantage of having a built-in DVD-CDRW combo drive and a VERY small form factor. The lack of a docking station will pretty much limit the P-2000 to secondary machine staus, but it is a nice travel notebook. Starting at $1500 ($1800 for loaded with built-in wireless), they are pretty reasonably priced for what they can do. The only complaint I have with it is that the right shift key is small and a bit out of position (the other side of pg up), but I have just switched to using the left shift key whenever possible. I am actually considering moving towards one of Fujitsu's P-1000 sub-sub notebooks with a touch screen to serve as both my mobile notebook (I travel a lot in a local area) and my Jornada 720.
These are just two other Transmeta products that are widely available in the USA. The P-2000 is even sold by some of the major electronics and computer stores (like Best Buy). As I said, I have been very happy with our Transmeta based Fujitsu and I look forward to buying another!
Chris

After much looking, I finally decided on getting a Fujitsu Lifebook P-2000 for my wife. She needed a laptop, but not a serious desktop replacement. This was more of a when we don't feel like sitting at the desk to work type of deal. The 800Mhz Transmetta Crusoe and 256mb of RAM seems to be only slighly slower than my main desktop system (800Mhz AMD with the same RAM). This laptop has the added advantage of having a built-in DVD-CDRW combo drive and a VERY small form factor. The lack of a docking station will pretty much limit the P-2000 to secondary machine staus, but it is a nice travel notebook. Starting at $1500 ($1800 for loaded with built-in wireless), they are pretty reasonably priced for what they can do. The only complaint I have with it is that the right shift key is small and a bit out of position (the other side of pg up), but I have just switched to using the left shift key whenever possible. I am actually considering moving towards one of Fujitsu's P-1000 sub-sub notebooks with a touch screen to serve as both my mobile notebook (I travel a lot in a local area) and my Jornada 720.
These are just two other Transmeta products that are widely available in the USA. The P-2000 is even sold by some of the major electronics and computer stores (like Best Buy). As I said, I have been very happy with our Transmeta based Fujitsu and I look forward to buying another!
Chris

Personally, I want one of these (the top one =)): Fujitsu P-2000. The specs beat the Sony one hands down, it has a modular (!) cdrw/dvd bay that can be used for a second battery, built-in 100baseT/wavelan, faster Crusoe, all for an ultra-low $1800. The graphics adapter sucks, but I can live with that.

And it's 10.6"(w) x 7"(d) x 1.59"(h), which makes it only a tiny bit less portable than the Sony one. I admit the Sony can look more attractive, but you'll have to haul around an extra cd drive and pcmcia card for equivalent functionality.

Try this link. Doh!

Now, these machines look real nice!

Me,

What a Lunchbox Is Not
A lunchbox is NOT a cheap, off-the-shelf, shrink-wrapped computer system. In fact, one can generally purchase a fully operational notebook computer for less than the cost of the bare lunchbox chassis.

So, while you're bitching about a 700 dollar PCMCIA sound card.... you're looking at high-end rugged, special-use computers. Um.... call me a dumbass, but if you can't afford a sound card what makes you think you're going to buy a Lunchboxcomputer?

You should buy a small laptop computer, a decent sound card, and a really rugged case instead.

The Fujitsu P series looks like a nice piece of equiptment. With a high capacity battery, it can last up to 6 hours.

Here it is. I've been looking at this one since it's inexpensive and small (and has good battery life)

With notebooks like this, why would you buy a portable dvd player?

I've been waiting for a US-available Transmeta-powered laptop for quite a while. Dynamism was one source, but way to expensive. eBay has several Japanese-market laptops for sale all the time (Toshiba L1/L2/L3's) from a guy in Korea (very good reputation though!). I've even seen some of the other Japanese-only Transmeta-powered laptops on eBay from time to time (like the Fujitsu Bibio Loox-T).

The problem is, at 600MHz, the TM5600 just can't quite do full motion DVDs without problems, which is what they promised it could do. There just isn't quite enough horsepower in it. And, the battery life is Good, but not Great. So, all the manufacturers have been waiting for the TM5800 (800MHz) cpus to come out.

In general, the Japanese market is very aggressive with tiny electronic devices like the Sony Picturebooks. But in the US, it's more the bigger screens and CD-RW/DVD drives that sell more units. For this reason, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Sony have several Transmeta-based laptops for sale only in Japan, but not here in the US (yet).

I've been drooling over the Fujitsu P-Series laptop ever since it was put up on their website a few months ago. 3.5lbs, 3+ hours runtime (up to 15 with optional batteries) with an integrated DVD/CD-RW drive. All for $1500 up. The "available by" date has kept creeping later and later though. It originally said in October, then November, then before 2002, and now it says "Will ship in January."

Transmeta is having a few manufacturing problems at the fab, and it's pushing everything back. This also hurts the manufacturers in trusting the company any further.

Also, Transmeta has had a high CEO rollover rate the last few months, causing worry about the internal health/vision of the company.

The other problem is Intel got all worried about it and developed their Ultra Low Voltage chips which are also coming out in laptops over the next few months. Dell is rumored to have an ultra-cool 3lb unit with this chip in it. 700MHz, with the same power usage as Transmeta, same run time, but with the Intel brand name behind it. I bet this will sell very well, especially to the corporate/college student market.

Overall, Transmeta was a good idea, but poorly executed for the laptop market. Intel will squash them in the next 6 months. But, Transmeta, with their code-morphing technology, has a lot of other markets to work with (low-power/small size servers, etc) and their TM6000 chip is supposed to be an all-in-one web-pad solution type chip. Small-footprint laptops is just one possible market for their technology, with a big gorilla hanging around the banana tree.

So, instead of hoping for a Transmeta-based laptop for Christmas, wait a few months and get the best one you can find from the soon-to-be-released chips (with either Transmeta or Intel inside).

I'm going to purchase one of these! (does that count?)

Fujitsu P Series
RobC

I have pre-ordered one of Fujitsu's P-2040 models it is scheduled to ship on December 27th though I think if you order now it is moved back to the middle of January. Here is the link to the product page.

...But the web site seemed a bit slim on the details. How exactly does it work? Does it look at where your fingers are? I about 40 wpm with my two fingered approach, and I'd hate to have to learn to type for something like this. I have a Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 and this would be an attractive addition if it actually worked.

don't you sleep charge the battery then. don't be so lazy. im sure they have electricity in tokyo. bring an adapter if the port is different. sleep = charging of battery. im not sure if bsd is going to work with a transmeta crusoe but if you can live with linux then you might like a Fujitsu P series it has been getting great reviews, weighs 3.5 pounds or something like that, it is supposed to work well with linux, and you can get it with a battery that lasts 7 hours plus if you get the docking station it can last up to 14 so learn to charge you battery

I've never been to Tokyo but im sure they have electricity. You might need an adapter but you can afford that with the thousands you save buy buying something a little more common. As far as the week long battery goes don't you sleep. This is a great time to recharge the battery, really it is. If you want something small, getting great reviews, supposedly good with linux, and 7 hour battery life try the fujitsu p series

Which Transmeta laptop do you own? I just found a link to Fujitsu's P-Series but they don't ship until late November.

I think I'll be getting one.

Later,
Blake.

tThese seem like really sweet machines. 14.5 hours of total battery life...

Fujitsu is selling a Crusoe based notebook that they claim will last 14 hours on a charge.

Lifebook P

Transmeta's problem is not technology, it's public relations. As the article's author pointed out, after 5 years of secrecy they are not comfortable talking to the public. Add to that fact that Intel is telling anyone who'll listen that Crusoe is junk. Do you really think Intel doesn't have anything to do with the lack of notebooks in the US with Crusoe processors?
Linux zealots blame MS for not being able to buy Linux laptops, but turn a blind eye to the Intel monopoly? What gives?

This article is a good example of the kind of press Transmeta doesn't need or deserve. The authors claim Transmeta is down the tubes, but don't provide any evidence of that (bad debts, layoffs, etc.) In fact Transmeta has enough cash to go 3 more years at the current run rate before becoming profitable. They may indeed go tits up or be bought, but it is _far_ to early to start nailing up the coffin

Unfortuneately they forgot that nobody really cares about it. They then decided to try the low power market, but since Intel made a chip specific to lower power of course Intel will beat them out.

Silly me. I just pre-ordered a Fujitsu P Series specifically because it uses a Transmeta TM5800 and gets around 10hrs runtime with the second battery.

As a commuter and longtime laptop user I care a great deal more about power use than I do raw speed. I don't think you should be so quick to declare "Intel will beat them out". Speed Step is pretty much worthless and I wouldn't count on the Intel M series to really be that much better. Intel is much more concerned with their core desktop & server business, and keeping AMD at bay.

I'd rather take a minor speed hit with Transmeta and get 1.5-2x the battery life, than have a slightly faster laptop that gets 2.5-3 hours runtime and that can also double as a space heater.

I ran across the Fujitsu S-Series in Thailand. Don't seem to see it around here very much. Starting at $2100 it's not cheap but, no one else I know of has managed to get a cd-rom, let alone a CD-RW/DVD combo, crammed into 4.5 lbs.
Disclaimer: I don't own one yet.

The news of the Transmeta chips stirred up more speculation in the 'coming soon' market of pads (FIC Aqua). And it seems like there's always a new one shown at Comdex, but afterward they disappear faster than a virgin on prom night. The Norwegian company Screen Media touted a produkt called FreePad which sounded good to me, but I guess the name loses something in the translation. As for a cheap wireless pad... well we all saw how long 3com's ergoAudrey lasted.

Recently there was word of the Honeywell WebPad, but as for the inexpensive pad... I continue to hope, dream, and become more cynical by the day.

In the industry they're called pen computers . Most pen computers are Palm-like devices, although some are clipboard-sized (other names are "clipboard computer" or "pen tablet"). Telxon, Norand, Microslate, and Fujitsu make some. There also are notebook-like convertibles which hide or remove the keyboard, such as the Clio.

there isn't a partial of this story on the /. frontpage. but I think that the idea of the iPaq as a gaming console might be well and all but i think the Toshiba stylistic 3400 would be a much more viable mobile gaming platform.

What you're looking for is the Fujitsu Lifebook B-series. &nbsp My roommate has one, and it's a great little subnote; a 3-pound celeron with a nice magnesium case. &nbsp If you're looking for a touchscreen notebook, I highly recommend it.&nbsp (IMHO, fingerpainting-with-photoshop is the coolest non-quake-related computer activity yet devised.)