Casio's Lin-Win Hybrid Laptop To Ship Tomorrow

Xuff writes: "As reported by News.com, Casio is going to begin shipping a laptop with both Windows ME and a stripped down version of Linux. The 2.1 pound laptop has a 600mhz Crusoe and 20 gigs under the hood, along with an 8.4 inch screen. It will retail for $1,999." It's a nice to see the tiny laptops mentioned last year actually emerging.

Comments

I just have to point out...

[Phroggy]

...that for $1299 you can get a pretty decent laptop that also runs several versions of Linux as well as BSD...

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bah!

[hawk]

> There gets to be a point where laptops become too small to be usable.

they're too *big* today. My first laptop had a 40x8 display (but you could use a shift key to see another 8 lines) and *no* popup lid; the display was above the keyboard. With slight reconfiguration, you could have fit a 512x392 display instead.

some days, I even filled the 24k memory . . .

hawk

Win-Win

[Barbarian]

Why don't they put Win ME and XP on the same laptop too? Then it'd be win-win for everyone.

Re:Loads more of small, cheap

[BJH]

I've seen the Fujitsu models (called LooX here in Japan), but the keyboard feels *really* cheap on both of them. In the end, I went with a Thinkpad (with a great keyboard).

Hahaha

[BJH]

From the Casio page:

"SOFTWARE SWITCH
A; Windows Millennium, B; Tool"

...which would seem to indicate that Linux is called "Tool" now.

Pity they don't actually acknowledge the people who developed it... and do they provide source code, I wonder?

Re:Hahaha

[Tachys]

That should be GNU/Tool

Re:IEEE1394 Serial port???

[JabberWokky]

FireWire is simply Apple's trademark for the standard which is IEEE1394.

Recently, at a late night conversation at Dennys, I explained the difference between the various "DV" connectors (basically, they are all the exact same, just under different trademarks).

It wasn't until someone pointed it out that I realized how odd it is... Apple has a poetic word like "Firewire" that you might expect from a company like Sony (with its Playstation, Walkman, etc.), while Sony has "iLink" despite Apple's fascination with the i- prefix (iMac, iBook, etc).

I've noticed that most new IEEE 1394 ports are labeled "DV" or simply "Video" on the outside of the case. Sorta like the PC I saw in a hole-in-the-wall PC repair place... the USB ports were labeled "Mouse" and "Keyboard".

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Evan

Loads more of small, cheap

[trenton]

As usual, the US lags behind Japan in CE availability. Dynamism.com is a pretty good company specializing in importing Japanese models and providing support to US consumers. Check out some of their offerings:

• Toshiba Libretto L1/060TNMM, 600 MHz Crusoe, 2.4 lbs
• Fujitsu LX-S, 533 MHz Crusoe, 2.2 lbs
• Fujitsu LX-X, 533 MHz Crusoe, 3.3 lbs, DVD reader

Impressive stuff, and all models have been released for at least 4 months. Now, where can I trade some karma for a 50" plasma display?

Re:Loads more of small, cheap

[Pogue Mahone]

> LooX

Just what we need for surfin' in the john.

Power management?

[Bilestoad]

I've always heard from people running Linux on notebooks that power management isn't there, with the result that Windows 2000 gives you much better battery life. Is Crusoe tuned for Linux? Does Linux now have Power Management features? How can they claim increased battery life when switching to Linux?

Re:Power management?

[jpatokal]

I've always heard from people running Linux on notebooks that power management isn't there, with the result that Windows 2000 gives you much better battery life. Is Crusoe tuned for Linux? Does Linux now have Power Management features? How can they claim increased battery life when switching to Linux?

Linux has had APM for a long time, so the "big" power saving options (standby mode, battery monitor etc) are available and functional. However, on eg. my Vaio C1, stuff like screen brightness can only be controlled by software, using custom Sony libraries that are available only for Windows. This kills battery time: 2+ hours in Windows with power saving on vs. barely an hour under Red Hat running Gnome.

But remember, the above applies only when the manufacturer uses custom Windows-only hooks. The Vaio's BIOS controls work just fine under both Windows and Linux, and I presume Casio has been intelligent enough to ensure that all power saving -related hardware is fully accessible under Linux as well.

Cheers,
-j.

How Small is Too Small?

[hillct]

There gets to be a point where laptops become too small to be usable. In the early days on laptops, when this issue came up because regardless of the physical dimentions of the laptop, the keyboards were shrinking, and the displays were routinely only 60% of the size of the laptop lid. At this point there was a lot of overhead for various system componants which have now been shrunk down to miniscule sizes.

Now, instead of getting small keyboards because of the mechanicas of keyboards, or small displays becauce of the technology of displays, the only barier is the overall physical dimensions of the devices. We're getting smaller and smaller user interface componants merely because of the overall physical dimentions of the box (I realize someone pointed out thet they could have gone with a 10" screen where they went with 8" here, but as a general rule, this is valid I think).

So, I ask, 'How Small is Too Small?"

There comes a point where the shrinking size of these devices will make them unusable. Alternative user interface technologies like Retinal Scanning Displays and Optical Response Pointing Devices will come of age not because the technology has matured, but because we simply can't efficiently use treditional laptops that are any smaller then they actually are.

--CTH

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