Hitachi's Flora plants Crusoe chip
Hitachi Ltd. planted a little Flora Wednesday, becoming the third PC maker to officially announce a Transmeta-based notebook in Japan. Hitachi's new Flora 220TX will be available in two basic configurations.
The first will pair Transmeta Corp.'s Crusoe TM5400 chip, running at 533MHz, with a 10.4-inch screen. It will also include 64MB of RAM and a 10GB hard drive and weigh in at about 3.1 pounds.
The second configuration will match a Transmeta TM 5600 chip, running at 600MHz, with a 12.1-inch screen. It will also be fitted with 128MB of RAM, a 10GB hard drive, and either a CD or DVD drive. It will weigh about 4.3 pounds.
Notebooks with the 10.4-inch screen will get about 4.7 hours of battery life, while the 12.1-inch models will last about 4.3 hours, according to a Hitachi statement. It will also feature a large-capacity battery, which will extend battery life to up to eight hours.
Hitachi said the Flora notebooks will ship by Oct. 31. Pricing will range from about $1,500 (158,000 yen) to about $2,200 (233,000 yen).
Company officials said they were still evaluating bringing the notebook to North America. However, Transmeta CEO David Ditzel has indicated that he expects the company to do so shortly.
Sony Corp. (sne) and NEC Corp. (nipny) have also recently announced Transmeta-based notebooks in Japan.