Check it out, 'cause you're looking at what must be the world's smallest QWERTY device capable of running Windows Vista Home Premium SP1. At least it will be when it makes its debut in Japan come June. Measuring just 188 x 84 x 25.9mm and 470grams, all that power / battery conservation / smallness of the Willcom D4 (aka, Sharp-built WS016SH) comes courtesy of a 1.3-GHz Atom processor pumping away beneath that sliding / tilting 5-inch, 262k color, LED-backlit 1,024 x 600 touchscreen hiding a 64-key QWERTY keyboard. Inside you'll find 1GB of memory, a 1.8-inch 40GB disk, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, microSD slot, HD audio codec with mono-speaker, and Opera browser riding atop Japanese PHS (
W-SIM) or 802.11b/g WiFi. Hitting Japan for ¥128,600 (about $1,254) -- a lot less with 2 year contract. And with Willcom
experimenting with Android, don't be surprised to find this released in an alternate form later in the year or early '09.
Engadget Japanese is at the launch event with plenty of hands-on images in the gallery below.
Update: Whoa, weird. Our Japanese colleagues are telling us that there's an optional Bluetooth, companion handset for making calls over W-SIM. Gallery updated with new pics.
[Via
Engadget Japanese]
posted Apr 14th 2008 3:46AM
Any details on when / if this device is Eddie Murphying? (read: Coming to America)
I see what you did there!
This device looks sweet. Any news on battery life, because if it sucks, it kind of nullifies the sweetness of this device.
Kind of like eating chocolate then drinking coffee.
Why do I always want things I can never afford?
Oh wait:
the $£$£ of products I want > my income
That's why.
UP AND ATOM!
Holy mother of vista-runnishness, what a device!
I'm looking for the smallest Qwerty device that can play CRYSIS.
The fugly keyboard aside, thats a pretty feature packed device. The price is also packed...
This actual device is highly unlikely to ever make it to the US due to the w-sim card used which is a Japan only thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W-SIM
The w-zero3's never came, I doubt these will.
http://www.engadget.com/tag/W-ZERO3/
For those of you thinking "Skype"... Willcom has several data networks to choose from, a few of which offer unlimited data but none are fast/stable enough for quality Skype calls at the time of this writing.
yeah, that's right.
W-SIM is Japan-Original SIM style, so other countries' user never use this machine in network.
Actually, W-SIM is bigger than any popular SIM-cards.
*fap* *fap* *fap*
0_o
You could at least have the courtesy to do that a little quieter.
I mean, REALLY.
Can someone please explain what is there to do with such a machine? I mean, screen size is on the verge of non usable (for vista), forget excel/word, ergonomics are horrible (for a cell phone), this simply takes the worst of all worlds, combined.
At the rate these devices are going, I can look forward to getting bifocals within a couple of years. And I'm not even old.
Wtf-SIM ??
All handheld devices that cost over $150 should have GSM and GPS built in.
How does vista run on little machines like this anyway?
Miniaturization. Vista (Windows) can run on anything that supports it. They use x86 processors and the rest is easy.
nah what i meant was like performance wise, is it good?, slow?, or what but thanks for the info anyway
Vista has an optional "effects" (I guess is the best word) setting which you can disable Aero on. Which includes 3D Flip, transparent windows, and other special graphical features. I would imagine that none of these devices could handle it.
And if it can handle it, it will only be with so many applications open, as soon as you open too many with the addition of Aero I would imagine things might come to a crawl.
Wow, this is a great device! If I import one from Japan, I can set it up with XP, this would be great!
But with a 1,3Ghz CPU and 470grams... not very high hopes about battery life... :(
No idea why you'd want to run Windows XP on this thing, there's a good reason why it's already got Vista on it. Apart from the fact XP is hard to get from MS (ASUS still managed to do it), Vista has a lot more support for tablet PCs such as this. You'd really be shooting yourself in the foot if you were to run XP on this.
Vista SP1 is now far more mature and stable than ever before, and devices like this which are purpose built for Vista will run it flawlessly. Honestly, what advantage would you have with XP on this?
I haven`t really tried SP1, but as far as my Vista and XP experience goes, a 1Ghz CPU and 1Gig RAM is even near enough for Vista..
I hope you`re right, cause I like the device!
Pretty nice, i wonder what the cost will be with a 2 year contract. The Zero-3's were about ¥40,000 if I recall correctly.
I also wonder if when the iphone ever comes here, will I actually want it when I can something like this, that I can run any windows software on and not have to Hack in order to load my documents easily onto it.
OK it's very impressive technically, but I really don't want to mess with the Vista user interface while I'm on the road. Apple and Nokia have much more convenient interfaces.
it can't be running Vista so faster according to it's hardware..
and,the battery will be a problem too...
so, is this umpc or a phone???
phone sites list it as a umpc and most tech sites list it as a phone.
i say umpc
Funny how a couple of years back when UMPC's were being floated as a concept, everyone was snickering and bashing the idea. Now here they are again and suddenly they are "the cool".
I guess timing is everything. Is it too late for Palm to revive the Folio?
But will it run Reason?
Yes
A 1.3ghz Atom will certainly run vista fine and dandy (I have a 1.2ghz C2D ULV, and I crank it down to 25% max CPU and it still runs fine) and with the power of the Atom it should get some incredible battery life. I want!
Alternatively, I hope the OQO model 3 gets the Atom and thins it down a bit.
It is good to see a CPU giant making such efforts to seriously improve power per watt processing. Props to Intel on this one.
But I must prop VIA the most in this category from a longer term historical viewpoint. They have been focusing on extremely small and efficient x86 processing while the other players seemed mostly fixated with how many more rockets they could strap onto their designs.
Let's get the HD audio pumping from that mono-speaker!
I want Japanese colleagues...
GeekStuff4U already have it in pre-order for $1,566.00
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?currency=USD&manufacturers_id=&products_id=742
Great device. Now all they need to do is upgrade the WiFi to b/g/n, add in SiRFstar Prima GPS, make sure the keyboard is backlit (otherwise, definitely no sale), and integrate Quad GSM/3.5G. Then bring it to the States.
If they made those changes and added those features, they'd sell these things like hotcakes.
God that’s ugly, kinda reminds me of the Nokia E90 all be it far more powerful. Trouble is though like the E90 it'll probably be a jack of all trades, master of none. devices like these look cool to geeks but never to the main stream, still im sure the japs will love it and that’s why it'll stay there. For me though i'd much rather have a decent midsize lappy that i can work sensibly at and phone that doesn’t make me look like a plonker when i answer it!