And you thought Apple's button-less "
glass trackpad" was hot stuff.
Sharp has just let loose details on its thoroughly Japanese Mebius PC-NJ70A, which sadly packs an exceptionally boring list of internal components but manages to stay interesting with a decidedly unorthodox trackpad. As you can see in the image above, Sharp has actually tossed an 854 x 480 resolution LCD right onto the palm rest, which automatically adjusts brightness based on surrounding light and can likely act as a secondary display for things like adjusting an equalizer with your digits. Beyond that, the netbook is downright drab, sporting just a 10.1-inch display (1,024 x 600), 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, three USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a multicard reader. There's no set price as of yet, but word on the street puts it right around ¥80,000 ($817). Glamor shot after the break.
posted April 21st 2009 1:38AM
Downright drab? It looks nice, and it's specs are on par with all the other netbooks. Why downplay this so much?? This is the most interesting netbook design we've seen in a long time! I like it a lot, and hope the price is lower....
Well the most interesting part about this is obviously the track pad, but besides that, to make it nicer looking it could have a chicklet keyboard and a 1280x800 display. It IS a SHARP so the display quality will probably impress.
The keyboard is a different color that the palm rest area which makes it a little "off" in my opinion.
I would have liked to see much higher specs and a little thinner body.
If it had all of those things, this could be my laptop of choice.
True, that'd be a great ultra-light notebook, but this is a netbook. :P
Except I hate chicklet keyboards...
"but this is a netbook"
True enough
I like the chicklet keyboards because:
1: It looks cool and different (obviously)
2. To me, key's that can rock back and forth (and not to mention side to side) have a cheap feel to me, unless it's a higher-quality keyboard by Lenovo or IBM.
Funny how a MacBook Air, with no CD drive, one USB drive, CPU lockups, and no ethernet isn't a "downright drab."
A LCD trackpad sounds pretty awesome to me, and interesting that Sharp is the first to utilize it. Oh wait... this is Engadget.
@JMR
Apparently you didn't read the post fully.
"BEYOND THAT, the netbook is downright drab"
They weren't knocking the trackpad...
DRAB means dull, not lacking in hardware.
And they are right; beyond the beautiful and innovative trackpad, not much strays from the typical 'netbook'.' Regular keyboard, low-ish resolution for the main screen, and the most boring netbook specs one could take a gander at.
The Macbook Air is beautiful but lacking in hardware that is commonly used. The Macbook Air is far from "drab", just lacking in hardware.
drab, but it looks nice?
the Netbook DS!
Har har har...
Or going along with your name, Yarhar yarhar yar...
Congratulations on your new netbook purchase! Sharp hopes you enjoy your $400 trackpad and knows you will enjoy the enclosed brochure with other ways to send $400 to Sharp.
that's a tiny spacebar
because the world is over-crowded.
Funny how with Japanese laptops announced on Engadget, you'll always see one guy commenting on that.
Well, its because its a Japanese keyboard, they have extra buttons on the left and right of the spacebar we do not. Also notice the shape of the enter key vs American keyboards.
Dear Computer Manufacturers,
Contrary to whatever delusions you may entertain, the right control key belongs at the bottom right of the keyboard. The fn key may be placed between the windows key and the control key, or between the windows key and the alt key. It should by no means be at the bottom right, where the control key belongs.
Yours truly,
Someone with common sense.
@Mark
I totally agree. I swear, every time I try to Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V, I am wondering why it isnt working until i realize that i'm hitting the Function button. I had to train myself to use my thumb to hit Ctrl and not my pinky.
How is it drab, because it doesnt have an Apple logo on it?
At least they are trying to do something different than the other hundreds of netbooks with the same specs but different chassis.
Apple would never release this, think of the excitement they got when they removed the one button, the nerdgasms would have a world ending effect!
Aside from the visual trackpad, it's got the same specs as all the other netbooks. I diagree with the Engadget editors about this, though... I think this is actually a really clever design, predictable specifications aside.
A little trackpoint (the touch nipple things) would probably be a good idea here.. so you can still control the cursor while you're using the trackpad as a touch-able secondary display.. but still this is very interesting... would make a good IME based on handwriting..
Corner of Philip's and Mountain. Tell them Walter sent you.
The specs seem fine to me and so does the price considering you're buying a new technology.
Seems to me to be more a Proof Of Concept than much else. I imagine once they get the bugs worked out it'll be much bigger.
Gang,
I have owned a Sharp laptop and I have to say they pay attention to detail. This trackpad looks very interesting because it could support various multi-touch applications (think of iPhone type apps here).
Yes the price is a bit high but if it come to the US, it will have a correct keyboard layout and it packs a nice feature set for any netbook. What the writer did not mention was the battery life which is one area that Sharp does not skimp on.....I mean a netbook is a netbook but what causes the "cream to rise to the top" is the features (Bluetooth, touch pad, battery life, HD and Ram size) beyond that if you are totally price sensitive then get a Dell Mini 9 or a EEEPc.
I see no mention of multitouch...
Why, this is speculation!
GET HIM!
Sharp make laptops...
I had no idea either...
so this is pretty much a touchscreen for a trackpad? pretty neat.
it be nice to have customize buttons at the track pad. i.e. photoshop - having the (marque,crop,pen etc. tools on the trackpad so i can get to it faster. i always forget the shortcuts)
That's a pretty slick idea. Bet it would work pretty well with a specially designed Nintendo DS emulator.
While I will give the credit to AMiSH PiRATE for mentioning the DS first, you are completely right about that. I wonder if we will need a program that will point the trackpad "touches" to the emulator.
Good Lord...if Apple had put this out as the ITouch Netbook, people would be falling over themselves to talk about great this is.
great, people will be so eager to put $400+ extra for that tiny lcd
I'm surprised that Nintendo didn't patent the idea and create their own notebooks with this. It has alot of potential really...
It won't be long until the entire keyboard is one giant touchpad. The Optimus Maximus keyboard will be trash compared to the first pc company that makes a giant multitouch keyboard/touchpad.
So this could be used as a stylus; right? seems pretty awesome for the graphic artist on the go...
all because of the DS!