gemsta viva

You could make the case that the Sony Vaio P is really just a glorified and overpriced netbook. But it does have some premium features like a 1600 x 768 pixel display and pretty solid build quality. The Gemsta Viva doesn’t have either of those things, but it certainly looks a lot like a Vaio P thanks to its ridiculously small touchpad which makes the case barely larger than the keyboard.

This cheap Chinese knockoff will be available for the equivalent of about $293 and features an Intel Atom Zxx series processor, 1GB of RAM, a solid state disk between 16Gb and 64GB, and a rather standard 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display.  It also has 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 3G wireless module. There’s only room for 2 USB ports, but the Gemsta Viva does make room for an SD card slot, VGA and Ethernet ports, and a 4 hour battery.

via Engadget

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7 replies on “Gemsta Viva crams a typical notebook into a Sony Vaio P-style case”

  1. While I would prefer a trackpoint, a tiny touchpad would be functional enough for the few times I wouldn’t actually have an external mouse plugged in.

    What I’m really getting tired of is 600(…or less) vertical screens… 768 please!

  2. *Sigh* at least Sony had the good sense to not try to put a touchpad on their machine. It makes no sense to put one on a laptop smaller than about 13″. Why hasn’t anybody else put a pointing stick on a netbook yet?

    1. Same reason as they almost all have glossy screens and Windows XP. The marketeers reckon people want them.

      I know not all agree, but I too would like to see the suggested pointing stick, and at the top right of the keyboard (though I am biased, being right-handed) for best ergonomics. Thumb operated, with a second set of buttons underneath the unit where the index and second fingers would rest when comfortably hand-held. Apart from ambidextrous compatibility, the middle of unit (even towards the front) is about the worst place to have a trackpad or whatever. I don’t keep my mouse there on my desktop, so why on a laptop or netbook?!

      Otherwise, for all its ordinariness, this netbook actually ticks many of the right boxes that others ignore – SSD, small size, fair battery for its size, good connectivity (only 2 USBs doesn’t matter when it’s as well connected as it already is).

      1. To me and, I suspect, a lot of other touch-typists, the between-the index-fingers location of the pointing stick is perfect because you never have to take your fingers away from the home keys and fumble to get them back where they belong. That’s one of the reasons I like it so much than touchpads and mice. I use my index fingers to operate it, not my thumb.

        Every touchpad I’ve ever used has been flakey and erratic in some way or another, but I still use them with laptops (except my ThinkPad), because mice don’t work well on the side of my leg or, as you point out 🙂 in the middle of the keyboard.

        Hey, I just had a fueled-by-caffeine brainstorm: for mouse lovers, you could have a small screen-shaped mouse corral below the keyboard on the right hand side (the angle wouldn’t work as well in the middle, and I think most lefties, like me, mouse with their right hands)…Or maybe the angle would be OK in the middle.

        The mouse could be as big as an inch or so, with small buttons, or the buttons could be on the left side below the keyboard.

        Whether this is a regular wireless, optical mouse held on by magnets and with exaggerated screen pointer movement, or a removable mouse that snaps onto a floating tab, attached to some kind of linkage which translates mouse movement into screen-pointer movement, I’ll leave to the designers and engineers 😉

        1. Not quite the same as the “mouse corral” idea you’ve got, but the old HP Omnibook 300 had a pop-out mouse way back in 1993. It was a really nifty design, worked much, much better than trackballs which were the only other option for laptops back then.

          https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/3405/HP-OmniBook-300/
          This machine looks just like a netbook of today except for the pricetag. 9″ screen, 2.9 pounds, solid state memory pre-loaded with OS & productivity applications.

          1. This comes close to being the real grandaddy of the netbook. Too bad it was so far ahead of its time it wasn’t developed into sometning cheaper.

            According to this inflation calculator, https://www.westegg.com/inflation/ , $2000 in 1993 would have been just under $3000 in 2008. (2009 figures not available yet)

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