We know that mobile phones are becoming more like netbooks in their capabilities and netbooks are looking more like laptops but what we have here is something that’s a netbook but it actually looks more like a phone.
The Sharp NetWalker PC-Z1 which has just been released in Japan has a teensy weensy 5 inch touch sensitive display screen and only 512 MB of memory. What’s that all about?
We understand that Netbooks are primarily designed for quick access to the net and this contraption certainly offers that. It has Wireless LAN, runs on Ubuntu and you get Firefox browser, a Twitter app, email, access to open source word processing and spreadsheet documents and other stuff too.
Ok great the screen is admittedly larger than what you get on a bog standard mobile but it still isn’t as functional as the screen sizes on the smallest of netbooks and yet it carries a price tag that would suggest it was something bigger than what it is. Around $500 USD isn’t exactly cheap.
Other features include a 3 second boot up time, like it, and apparently 10 hours of battery life, like that even more.
We also get 4GB flash storage and 2 USB ports but a keyboard that is so small only the tiniest of fingers could use it. What you have to do is hold the device in both hands and type with your thumbs, much like you do with your phone.
Sharp Executive Vice President Masafumi Matsumoto recently told a news conference “You can take cellphones anywhere with you, and they are always on. But you have to live with a small display. Notebook PCs offer a large display and full keyboard, but their battery life is short and it takes time to start them up.
“We are introducing a mobile device that you can take with you wherever you go and comes with all major notebook PC functions.”
Apparently Sharp plan to sell around 100,000 of these things by March next year and depending on how successful they are in Japan they will roll them out to other countries too.
I really don’t know how well it will be received but then we thought that about netbooks when they first came out and look what happened there. Japan do love their gadgets and the NetWalker could go down a storm.
I’ve got to say, this one has got me completely perplexed.
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It is really very true that there are a lot of phones coming in the market that have all the amenities which a notebook has. So the use of notebook is becoming less day by day. It is good to know about a notebook which works as a phone too. I am sure that this would really be liked by many people.