Sharp PC-Z1 NetWalker – a 5 inch smartbook. Sort of

Sharp announced their preparing the follower for their uber popular Zaurus PDA. It’s not going to to be a phone anymore, but a compact smartbook named PC-Z1 Netwalker. And yes , the device is pretty small and it only has a 5 inch touchscreen inside, as you can see from the picture below, and with just 409 it certainly is one of the lightest such gadgets on the market.

Sharp PC-Z1 Netwalker - a 5

Inside there will be a 800MHz Freescale i.MX515 CPU on an ARM platform, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of on-board flash storage (along with an up to 16 GB microSD card), 802.11b/g WiFi and 2 USB ports. A 68%-size QWERTY keyboard will allow us to input data. Also, in terms of connectivity, nothing about Bluetooth or 3G. Battery life should be around 10 hours.

This Sharp PC-Z1 NetWalker will hit Japan by the end of September for ¥44,800 (around 480 US dollars).

I for one consider that this gadget has a positioning problem. It’s not a smartphone but it’s not also a netbook. It reminds me of the clumsy Asus EEE PC 7G, with it’s tiny screen and keyboard. But in this case, these are even smaller. So, i don’t really get it what are the folks from Sharp trying to achieve with their Netwalker, nor who will willingly pay 500 bucks for a nearly useless device when there are so amny better alternatives out there. But perhaps that’s just me…

Source: Engadget

Popularity: 3% [?]

Tags: Sharp, touchscreen, ultra portable

Last updated: May 5, 2011 | Published: August 28th, 2009 | Add the first comment!