Slashdot Mirror
Sharp Mebius Subnotebook Review
Tong writes "PDA Buyer's Guide has published a hands-on review of the Sharp Mebius CV50. "The smallest notebook we've seen in years. This Japanese Import is available translated into English from Dynamism, and is smaller than a hardback book. It weights just under two pounds, has a 1 GHz Efficeon processor, a wide screen 7.2" display and absolutely stunning looks and style." Read the full review."
Finally a laptop that isn't a brick! my back will be saved!
This Japanese Import is available translated into English from Dynamism
I never realised that "Dynamism" was a language...
Will it play Net Hack?
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Darn. If Sharp had only made a Mobius Subnotebook, it even taken up even less space since it would have had only one side.
I thought that the review of the Sharp Mobius was a little one-sided.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
So, they still ship the manual to you in Japanese? Domo ori gato
Come on, can't anyone make a $400-$500 sub-laptop with a 7" screen? Anybody?
If a computer is going to be this small, they should have made the effort to minimise the screen bezel to maximise screen size while maintaining the same dimensions of the unit. That's a poor design flaw, making the screen that small in relation to the unit. The unit is small enough that legibility or screen space would be difficult enough anyway, and this makes it even worse.
Great. A laptop that only a two-year-old can type on. Those of us with normal-sized hands can look forward to cramping, RSI, and other fun medical issues.
Why not do something semi-revolutionary and incorporate a keyboard like the FrodPad into it instead of trying to shoehorn an entire QWERTY layout in there?
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
...is because it will probably run linux with very few problems. The notebook itself is actually pretty ordinary compared to the ones offered by Sony. The only catches are the price and pretty poor linux compatibility. I used to have an "old" Sony U101 which was only 2.4lbs and had a waaay mor epowerful processor. It could also run for 13 hrs on a single battery. Oh yeah, getting linux to run on it was real pain in the ass, though!
Not the notebook, but running an add like this on Slashdot?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Con: You need good eyes for the small display and patience when typing on the miniaturized keyboard. I don't know about you, but I have these huge nubby fingers and typing on little keyboards in painful. Plus I have the patience of a four year old. The only thing worse is squinting to see a small lcd. However, the portability is what will sell this item, because those nice big powerful notebooks with the 15 inch display always seem to be a little bulky for the on-the-go person.
I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
7.2" for a display is just too small, IMHO most people want either a regular sized laptop or a palmtop, these variations inbetween are just too weird to be really useful as a replacement for either.
I have purchased several items from Dynamism. While I've been happy for the most part, I believe that this machine is overpriced in relation to what you get out of it. With a $1,900 USD tag, you might as well get a 12" PowerBook that will do a similar or better job, have a better screen, and include built-in wireless, Bluetooth, Ethernet, modem, etc. with about the same footprint. You'd get OS X. You can run Office:Mac if you must, at about the same price as MS-Office or cheaper. You'll have access to better quality software (i.e. OmniGraffle vs. Visio) if you must pay for it, or tons of OSS stuff that just compiles and runs, or installs with a button click.
Besides, chicks dig the PowerBooks. They look cool, not geeky.
Cheers,
E
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
I now have a vision of a one-sided PDA in the shape of a Moebius strip, with screens/buttons all over the one 'side'.
i am a karma whore...
for a minute there, i lost myself...
I think everyone's trying to find that sweet spot in portable devices, from PDA to SmartPhone, then Tablet, then HandTop, then Subnotebook etc.
Personally, I need a workable screen, maybe 10"-15", and I want it light, so it shouldn't have a keyboard, just like a Tablet (with touch screen), but I need a keyboard so that this device is workable, so we need a Virtual Keyboard.
Anyway, I think a lighter Tablet (screen section only) with a Virtual Keyboard will be light enough to carry around, and you can use your fingers and stylus in awkward situation, but when you have a desk, you can start up the VKeyboard for proper typing.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
I forgot: For $1,900 your PowerBook will also have around 768 MB RAM, maybe even 1 GB, vs. the 256 MB offered by the Moebius.
Cheers!
E
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Fewer display pixels, almost twice as expensive.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
... was renamd the " Sharp Actius RD3D " for the US market. The Mebius PC-RD3D was the first autostereo display notebook ever made, released around a month or two later, under a different name for the US market. Maybe if this new Mebius CV50 comes to the US, it will be renamed the Actius CV50 ?
What about the Toshiba Libretto. Ala 1996, same size as a VHS tape, Pentium 133 processor, about 2 lbs. I have the Libretto 100CT, and since it runs Win95 it can do almost everything a big system can do. A little slow, but I use it for class lectures with a wireless card, I can take notes notes and surf all class long. Only problem is that the keybord is really tiny and hard to type on. But a real attention getter.
RTFA: "Obviously, there's no way to cram an internal optical drive into the tiny Mebius..." A CD is 12 cm wide, and the Mebius is 15 cm wide. An optical drive would be nearly as large as the entire computer!
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
The Fujitsu P1000 is just as small, lighter and 500$ cheaper.
d se riesbean.do?series=P1
http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buil
Never heard of it.
John Kerry is a Joke!
It's a Transmeta processor...I think it was the last one Linus Torvalds worked on the x86 code morphing code for before moving on.
Does Linux work on it? I suspect so, in this case. It seemed like the Crusoe was very happy under Linux. I have friends who have had Crusoe-based laptops running under Linux.
The only thing that might cause trouble would be the wireless networking. And that has nothing to do with the CPU.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I think the problem with these smaller computers is that the designers think people want a keyboard that feels like a desktop computer but really, if the keyboard is smaller it's too easy to push the other keys. I had a HP 200lx for a while in the mid 90s. The thing was pocket size and had a great chiclet keyboard that is similar to the calculators. Because the keys were so hard to push down it was easy to type accurately on it even though my fingers were bunched together on it. I took notes at about 60WPM in college as the professor was speaking and got excellent notes that made studying easy. I can type normally at about 80wpm. I had to work at it to get to 60 wpm but with the 200lx keyboard you could do fast six finger typing by place your finger in between keys and and leaning your fingers to the right or left to push keys. If there were a mini laptop out there with a keyboard like this I would definitely by it.
I still have a small notebook like this made by Mitsubishi, pentium 166 with the max of 96 megs of ram. Runs Win95 like a champ and I can play tons of older games in it.
This is not a toy for everyone. The steep price will keep it in a mostly commerical market... salesmen, travelling scientists, comic book guy (maybe). As neat/compact as it is, for most people i think it would become a novelty after a while.
Although it weighs 0.1 pounds less and has a (slightly) faster processor, it also is 1 inch wider (though its screen - non-touch pad, BTW - is an inch narrower), it's battery life is shorter, and it doesn't have a built-in modem and cabled ethernet socket. All-in-all, I don't see a lot of difference and what is different seems to be worse. Oh yeah, the P-1000 is also less expensive at $1200 and doesn't need a third party to retrofit for English use.
So again, why is this news?
That is all.
I want something a little bit larger than the Zaurus clamshells, a little more capable, and has zero Microsoft infection involved. Sell this same palmtop at a reasonable price running Linux, and you'll get me to buy it.
[
Perhaps this is useful as a laptop for a casual user that uses it in a very limited way, or for someone with serious space constraints (e.g. someone touring on a motorcycle, or backpacking), but does anyone really expect laptops this small to actually become mainstream?
Then again, perhaps laptops like these are the Plymouth Prowlers of the laptop industry. A PR and marketing stunt for branding and to get people into shops, without an expectation that one would actually sell a lot of these, but they might help sway people into buying more conventional laptops of the same brand . . .
Considering that Dynamism puts that on themselves, if you asked nicely they might leave it bare for you.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You know this could almost be classed as useful if only you'd provided a damned link. Why do the interesting posts that really get you going never provide a link. And to make it worse, it'll still be modded up.
Perhaps they could have spent a little less time trying to make it look just like an iBook and a little more time making the notebook that much more useful.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Compare mm20 to a 12 inch powerbook
MM20 is only 1.99 pounds while a 12 inch powerbook weighs 4.6 pounds. Besides,12 inch powerbooks have a BIG defect: NO PC CARD SLOT (MM20 has a PC Card slot, 2 High Speed USB slots, audio and video out slots)
I like to read books while traveling; for this reason I need to be able to hold a laptop in a single hand for hours. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO THIS with a PowerBook; no problem with MM20
Another defect of the powerbooks: the trackpad drivers under linux are not good ; whathever driver I use, the mouse is very jumpy. In contrast mm20 runs without problems under linux, everything works perfectly, including the wireless card; no jumpy mouse under linux.
It looks just like a very small average laptop. Nothing stunning about it.
The more constrained budget might look here.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Didn't Japan's equivalent of the Federal Trade Commission put the beat down on Microsoft for demanding that all OEMs that use WinXP for any of their machines include it on all machines? I may be way the heck off, but it would make it easier for them to do what you're thinking about.
I'm not sure, I may have my news reports mixed up again.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
could you elaborate?
my curiousity will soon erupt into a murderous rage misdirected at felines...
for a minute there, i lost myself...
'Sony' was meant to be Sonny, as in Sonny Boy, a homey sort of name. The founder got the spelling wrong, though the name stuck. A fun site to check for stuff like this.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
absolutely stunning looks and style
Never seen PowerBook or iBook, have you?-)
. . . Ignore this guy and check out Fujitsu's Lifebook P Series.. Very small form factor, but included CD burner/DVD player. Also, I would bet its a lot zippier than this Sharp.
I first owned one of the P Series right after they came out and were equipped with transmetas. The performance was a shade up on terrible, and the battery life merely ok. Since then, they've shifted to Intel chips. My brother bought one recently, and the machine is easily capable of running multiple adobe applications, and he is able to get design work done anywhere with his pressure-sensitive drawing pad attached.
This new machine is smaller, yes, but are the sacrifices in functionality worth shedding the extra pound?
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
Well, here's how it works: Dynamism buys Japanese-market laptops, which have the Japanese version of Windows on them. They import them to the US, and replace the Japanese Windows with English Windows. I don't think you can just go using a different language version of Windows without changing the license, so it probably costs Dynamism money to do that. It would cost them less to just give it to you with Linux on it. Of course, the "Japanese FTC" issue you're talking about would be great for Dynamism, because all those Japanese copies of Windows are useless to them.
However, remember that I've never bought anything from them though, so I could be completely wrong.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I saved a ton of money and bought a M-M-M-Mebius off of Ebay!
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
I'm getting more and more disappointed that I bought 5500 instead of waiting a little and buying a C760... ;( (SL5600 and C700 looked suspicious at the time because of the buggy CPU)
Myself i can't understand this hunt for a "sub-notebook", either - a laptop like the one in the review, as nice as it is(even running Linux) can't really be put in a pocket and carried around, you'll still have to think of some sort of special bag just for it - so, are 200 or so additional grams going to pull of your arms, in exchange for a few hundred $? I don't think and extra half-centimetre will make a huge difference on your lap/desk, either. So really, why bother?
Am I missing some killer advantages a sub-notebook going to offer over a somewhat smaller than average laptop(or even a (very) good PDA, then - you aren't going to play many games on it, are you)?
None of the sub-notebooks introduced since Sony released the C1 series has given us a reason to upgrade. My C1XS (PII 400Mhz, 128Mb RAM, 30gig HD) is 5 years old and is still thinner and smaller (9.81"x5.99"x1.14", 2.21lb) than its later lookalikes.
Only one model is even up for consideration, in my mind (no, not even the Sony U50/70 - you -gotta- have a real keyboard attached). The Flybook is gonna have _everything_, including GPRS, and it's a tablet, too. Exactly what I've been waiting for. Would the rest of you Far East-whipped toy companies wake up and get us computers like these?
"Nobody will ever need more than 7.2 inches."
Sony VAIO VGN-S1VP It's got a 10.4 inch display, and only weighs 822 grams (or 1.8 pounds). It also looks a lot cooler, and has a keyboard that looks a lot more comfortable.
The keyboard is good, the wireless sensitivity is excellent, and I can run Openoffice, Mozilla 1.7 (web and email), ssh, and even Battlefield 1942 without problems.
Highly recommended. It's so portable, I use it instead of my desktop.
Fujitu's new model is the P7000. It is slightly more powerful than the P5000 series. Newegg and Laptopsinc carry these Fujitsu subnotebooks:
LeoG's Fujitsu notebook forum
LaptopsInc (a great Fujitsu dealer)
P7010 with 512M
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
P1000>
Because check Fujitsu's web site:/ buildse riesbean.do?series=P1
http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce
It only runs an 800MHz Crusoe, which is much, much slower than a 1GHz Efficeon.
(Much more so than the 200MHz speed difference in clocks).
I know because our company has a bunch of the P1000 type machines.
Why can't someone make a subnotebook (or any notebook for that matter) with a real keyboard? Take something like a Happy Hacking keyboard, which doesn't try to squeeze Insert, Home, PgUp, PgDn, etc. on the right hand side (i.e. it's no wider than shift key to shift key), and doesn't have an extra row of function keys. The Happy Hacking keyboard is the best keyboard I've ever used (I love the feel), and is only about 2 inches wider than the keyboard on a Fujitsu P series I have sitting next to me (which happens to put the up arrow key on the left half of the right shift key... how many times have I suddenly started editing my previous line in bash?).
Personally, I'd absolutely love a thick but otherwise small laptop that had a real keyboard. I suppose with a lot of work, one could custom build such a computer, but aren't even the VIA Mini-ITX motherboards quite a bit larger than laptop boards? Then there's power adapter problems, no PC cards, etc. Also, I wouldn't know where to look for a suitable LCD screen, but imagine one could be found?
*sigh* Once again I find myself in what appears to be a niche market.
It's slightly longer, but thinner (only 1.1cm in the thinnest end!) and it has an internal DVD-+RW burner (no integrated Wi-Fi, but a PCMCIA card is included). Certainly it's expensive, but IMHO very, very sexy. El Reg has a review here.
For the money, I think the Sharp Actius MM20 is a better machine. Same 1GHZ Efficeon processor, but 512mb of RAM, built in ethernet, wifi, pc card slot, and 2 usb ports, and the screen is 10.1" instead of the tiny 7". It still only weighs 2 lbs, and costs quite a bit less. By itself it's $1500; there's an optional external USB DVD/CDRW drive for $99, and for an addtional $200 you get a long run battery which gives up to 9 hours of runtime.
Best of all, everything works in Linux -- Emperor Linux sells this as the Meteor, although IMO they tack on too much of a premium. But you can find do it yourself Linux install instructions for several distros at Linux on Laptops.
in the pc world, we can actually *upgrade memory* you see. and we don't tend to base our purchasing on chicks digging it.
It is 'mebius', not 'mobius' in Japanese. You will recall that the original is Moebius, which is difficult to type, so people tend to pick either the o or the e.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I saw this when walking through tokyo the other day.
the screen *cannot* be any bigger because of the rounded shape of the top cover. the cover portion is not like a slate, but rather the edges start from a blade edge and only reaches full thickness about 2cm in, where the actual LCD is embedded. check out the side-view - that's why the screen is so "small".
Now, why whould they want to design their system wich such rounded edges, that's another mystery that you can only ask their design department.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
"absolutely stunning looks and style" and "Absolutely gorgeous" ?? jeez, some people are falling all over themselves. other than size, what makes this so "perty"? it looks rather plain and small to me. and expensive.
-end of post.
I bought a actius 1800 not sometime ago. I have no idea what kind of material the casing is.. but it seems like plastic.. thing is.. that its cracking up and I have to use super glue to keep the cracks from growing. I love it as a laptop, light & powerful.. just wish it was a bit more sturdy.
God is real unless declared as int