Japanese market laptops

That Nec looks like it can definetely compete against the IBM X31. Both have the same size of screen, and both lack optical drives. However, this one has a 7500 and with double the ram of the x31. Very nice looking indeed.

Oh and Yago thanks for taking the time and starting this thread... it should be an interesting one.

It is interesting that they can fit such a TV tuner in a small laptop. I think this is some great inovation, as no ultra portable in the USA has been released with such an option. It would be great if this one could make it to the US.

Yeah I reposted that info here in the forums after Darrow (from leog, who is known as Bloke here on these forums) posted it at leog. Very good news if you ask me... I just hope its this specific Hitachi, or one very similar, with its real nice form factor as well as multi-bay. Their currect 300m is a big let down...not a good notebook at all.

@ LeoGers

I just wanted to add... that a guy over at www.bargainpda.com who is the Chief Editor, and his name is Brian, has been saying that through insider sources, he has learned that the current Fujitsu P5020 might be getting a new screen. This new screen that he speaks of is the Crystal View screen that Fujitsu currently offers in its larger notebooks. This is quite exciting, since one of the drawbacks of the current crop of P5000s is the screen, as some say it looks too cloudy. Now I can only hope that an upgrade option will be available.

Whoa, a round trackpad!

That round touchpad is not new to the R2, it has been in use in the W2, panasonic toughbook, since the beginning of the year I believe. It is actualy a pretty nifty idea, and rom the reviews I have read, it is pretty customizable. You move your finger clockwise around the edges, and you get scrolling motion on the screen, do it counter clockwise, and you go the other way. Nice no?

That would be nice. I think the Japanese Loox models have had these screens for a while. A good number of Japanese market machines from other manufacturers with similar screens have also been available for the past year or two (at least). I never understood why the US models were so slow to get this screen technology, since most other areas of notebook technology are current across both markets (cpu, graphics, wireless, etc). And actually, Japanese machines sometimes seem to lag behind in the GPU department.

www.dynamism.com imports these systems with english os and lifetime tech support. pretty sweet deal.

that panasonic w2 has the lid for the dvd drive under the trackpad. it pops up like a discman. coolest thing EVAR

A few other importers:

Kemplar
ICUBE
Kurns & Patrick
Mercantile Computer Shop

You mean they were being equiped with the same screen technology found in this one

http://www.laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/...ory_Code=FUJIN

?

Also, which Loox models do you speak of? The Japanese version of the P50xx series?

http://www.dynamism.com/index.shtml

Here's a place that specializes in bringing Japanese laptops ot the states.

That was posted already, in fact it was about 3 posts above yours.

Woops. Guess I should read the entire thread :P.

Dont worry, the same thing happened to me in this thread

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=21103

It happens.

Yes, specifically the T90D and T70E, if not others. There have been a few discussions of this on LeoG. Some people seem to think the US models have the same screen, but covered with a dull matte layer. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

They also had DVD-RW last year too. I happened to be visiting Tokyo last year when the first P5000/Loox series were released there. A number of other machines from other brands, even some with mobile Celerons (!) had similar screens. Some in-store displays had models with half-and-half split screens, one side with and the other without the special coating layer, so you could see the difference.

Come to think of it, I first started reading the LeoG forum last year when I was over there and was looking for more info on the Fujitsu models.

Kakaku.com is sort of like a Japanese version of Pricewatch. You can go there to find the lowest prices among many different stores in Japan to see what the real street prices over there are.

I have friends over there and visit once in a while, but so far I've held off on buying a Japanese market laptop because of the service/warranty issues (also the J-keyboards are annoying). In that respect, the price you pay to places like Dynamism might be worth it to avoid the future servicing hassles. A few brands do have international warranties, but offhand I'm not sure which ones.