http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/04/21/sharp_m…

Mini secondary touch-screen track-pad.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/04/21/sharp_m…

Mini secondary touch-screen track-pad.

It's a pity as it makes so much *sense*.

Compact flash cards have been used for some time as a “poor mans” SSD in many systems. Some of the mini-itx form factor motherboards have a compact flash socket that can be used as the main drive. It just looks and acts like a standard IDE drive. You can even get an adapter to change out the drive in an ipod to a compact flash. All drives wear out eventually. I know, I've swapped out the hard drive in my main home desktop PC at least 3 times in the past 8 years.

Needs to have:
* a resolution bigger than 1024×600!!! (for crying out loud)
* 5-6hrs. of actual battery life
* a weight less than 3.5lbs.
* (LED) display between 10″ and 13″
* a dedicated card that consumes the least power possible (doesn't have to be crazy powerful) or a dedicated video card capable of switching to an onboard card (like the ASUS N10).
* 1080p capable
* at least 80+GB hard drive
* 802.11 b/g/n
* 1.66-2GHz range (hopefully they'll be the first to put a 2GHz atom?)
* no more than $700
* 2 USB ports
* be able to max out to at least 2GB of RAM.

Would be nice if it had any of the following:
** HDMI port (really would like to have this, if it had a dedicated card, it would most likely have this)
* multi-touch
* express Slot
* eSATa/USB
* touch-screen
* Chic-let keys
* Card Reader

I am a first time notebook buyer. I don't need a ridiculous amount of power, and I don't want to be gimped. I am one of the few, it seems, who wants the “mean between” so to speak.

Many come close: HP dv2, ASUS N10, SONY Z… but every one seems to be missing one of my needs. Only the dv2 comes the closest… the battery life just won't cut it though and I have had so many friends/relatives with bad experiances with HP products, including me. The N10's resolution is too small and it was trouble rendering 1080p (supposedly). The Z is way to expensive, period.

Who cares about the OS? That can be changed anytime. (I like linux, so whatever I get will have linux anyway). Would be nice if SHARP made their own Linux OS though.

Hopefully if SHARP doesn't pull through for me… someone will this summer?

I think whatever they do make will still be good, they tend to make great products from my experiance.

Go back to the archives and find a Sharp MM20. Pull out the transmeta crusoe, and replace it with an atom.

If Sharp released the MM20 today as a netbook, it would be thinner and lighter than nearly every other netbook. Which says a lot for a machine released 5 years ago.

THIS. For the love of all that might even be considered holy, IMPLEMENT THIS. Why oh why haven't we seen anyone do that with one of these devices? Is it just patent issues? I wouldn't be surprised…

Still, first company that comes out with it get a few extra consideration points.

That said I still think the card thing's a good idea. Kind of what the Gdium does, but with commodity hardware and more user choice? My only question would relate to the reliability of flash cards…

Good second idea as well. I bet that'd fit well with those pixelQI screens people say are coming…

Also..Mebius…sadly…only makes me think of a recent Japanese “Ultraman” series on TV…Now I can just see someone using their netbook to call up a 50 foot tall spandex wearing superhero to fight some rubber monsters called up by larger notebooks or something…or not.

1) Keep it Linux
2) Butterfly keyboard that folds out when cover is opened
3) 8.9″ touch screen that can be twisted for a tablet config
4) Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
5) Instant on PDA-like environment or 25-30 second full Linux OS

Please Sharp, bring something new and different to the table.

Instead of HD/SSD, how about a compact flash socket that acts like the main drive and would allow a user to swap out 16/32 GB cards with different OS'es loaded? Not actually hot-swappable, but easy to get to and change for user customization. Maybe I would like a card with a linux variant for out-in-the-open wireless travel, and a card with my copy of XP on it for work related usage, and a card with FreeDOS loaded for some old-school gaming.

Instead of a touch-screen that rotates to make the netbook into a tablet, how about a regular screen that rotates and we have a small set of programmable keys along the edge that we can hot-key whatever we want on them. Make the unit a little more e-book friendly by also having the graphics driver able rotate the screen from landscape to portrait.

8.9″ screen (1024 x 600+)
Smaller than the original Acer Aspire One, but bigger than original Eee
8 to 16GB SSD, plus SD storage expansion
802.11g/n, Bluetooth and easy-add internal 3G
Low-power CPU/chipset for decent battery life (ARM fine)
Linux as standard or option (including 3G support)

Will have to carry on looking forward, I suspect…