Tomorrow's notebooks today
That's nothing new. By now anyone with even a passing interest in high-tech has probably seen stories about Tokyo's renowned Akihabara district, the unofficial electronics capital of Japan, where you can find products that are more compact, more lightweight, and more advanced than any available in the United States.
There are all sorts of explanations for this phenomenon: Japanese consumers are less price-sensitive; they want the latest and greatest technology; they place a higher premium on quality. While we can't speak for the entire U.S. market, we're sure ready for these products. And we have a feeling a lot of our readers are, too.
That's why we were intrigued when we heard about a company called Dynamism.com. Though the name sounds a little like L. Ron Hubbard's belated attempt to cash in on the Internet craze, Dynamism actually specializes in selling notebooks only available in Japan to U.S. customers, albeit at a premium.
We haven't tried the service ourselves, but the concept seems to makes sense. Dynamism has an office in the Akihabara district where they purchase systems directly from local distributors, prep them and ship them directly to customers (usually within a couple of days). There's also a domestic office that handles sales and provides unlimited toll-free support (the company pays for any overnight shipping).
Most models Dynamism sells already have English QWERTY keyboards with Japanese "subtitles," according to CEO Douglas Krone. But for those models that have U.S. counterparts with compatible keyboards, such as the Sony PictureBook and the Toshiba Libretto lines, Dynamism says it will replace the keyboard if you choose for an extra fee. In addition, Dynamism installs English versions of any Microsoft Windows operating system (Linux is coming soon).
On its site, the company currently offers 14 different ultralights and subnotebooks from Casio, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba--all of them exotic models you won't find anywhere in the United States. Here are some of our favorites:
THE FUJITSU LX-T2 (part of the Loox line) is the most compelling notebook, hands-down. It's both a usable ultralight PC and a portable DVD player with a fantastic 10-inch screen (1,280 by 600) with active-matrix display, 633MHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 processor, 128MB RAM and a 15GB hard drive for $2,699. Our colleagues over at CNET recently named a version of this ultralight as Best of Show at PC Expo.
Another ultralight, the Sharp Mebius MT1, is an amazing 0.7 inches thick and weighs 2.9 pounds, yet it has a 12.1-inch XGA active-matrix display and integrated FireWire and CompactFlash slots, 500MHz Intel Pentium III, 128MB RAM and a 20GB hard drive for $2,999. Similarly, the Toshiba Libretto L1 is a subnotebook (2.4 pounds) with a keyboard you can actually use with its standard 18mm key pitch, plus a 633MHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 processor, 128MB RAM and a 10GB hard drive for $1,999. Finally, the Sony PCG-SR9G/K is virtually identical to the VAIO SR17K except it has integrated Bluetooth wireless on top of a 700MHz Intel Pentium III, 128MB RAM and a 20GB hard drive for $2,999.
If you can't get excited about systems like these, you're reading the wrong column. It's the computer geek's equivalent to getting a gray-market sports car from Germany. In the coming weeks, we hope to take some of these models (and Dynamism's service) out for a test drive. Stay tuned for the results.
What do you think of these Japan-only models? Would you be willing to purchase one of these bleeding-edge systems? If so, why? Tell us in Talkback.
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