Reports of the death of the clamshell premature?

[Jack B Nimble]

Several people here have been talking about the death of the Psion line, and the dearth of other products that could replace it. Someone brought up the Alphasmart Dana (a nice looking machine that I may yet buy for my niece).

For those of us spoiled by the Series 7 and netBook, and maybe looking for a color VGA screen, there is a product Sharp is looking to add to their Zaurus line.

http://www.brighthand.com/article/Sharp_Clamshell_Zaurus_Demoed

I don't know how large it is, or even if it will ever make it to store shelves outside Japan, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you.

[ktkawabe]

Hello Jack,
The following product supports your view of cramshell with reasonable keyboard not being dead (at the moment). Yes, they're selling another cramshell smartphone in Japan, FOMA SH2101V from NTT Docomo:
http://foma.nttdocomo.co.jp/catalog/term/sh2101v_01.html
More pics:
http://k-tai.ascii24.com/k-tai/review/2002/07/20/print/637371.html

This is actually made by Sharp and sold by ntt docomo bundled with a tariff for docomo's 3G network service called FOMA. The hardware has "traditional" Zaurus operating system (not Linux). Has a small cramshell formfactor with a small but functional qwerty keyboard with 13mm pitch (FYI Revo has a 12.5mm pitch).

It can be operated as a phone as well as pda. The unique feature is that it has a separate handset (very small stick-like controller) for dialing/talking which is connected to the main unit by bluetooth, so you don't have to make you look funny talking to that small silver box.

I've found it a bit surprising that this is completely unknown here in Germany (as well as probably anywhere outside Japan). I myself also didn't know much about it until I returned to Japan for a short while recently (and one of my friends showed me off this). I have to say that even if I lived in Japan I wouldn't be so much tempted for various reasons, but it's nice to know that there're still some people who believe in ACTUALLY PRODUCING a palmtop device with functional keyboard plus a landscape screen.

Unfortunately, probably due to its insane (IMO :D ) price of about 1000$, it's not selling well.

Regards,
Keita

[ktkawabe]

Oops!?!?

After the above posting, there was a tiny bit of strange feeling, but anyway I've posted. Then now I've read it again and found what it was. Please, please delete the above post from your memory area, or else replace all of the strings "cramshell" by "clamshell" using perl or OPL or whatever in your brain. :)

Regards,
keita

[Jack B Nimble]

I thought you just didn't care for the form factor! :D

[netBookBabe]

Well, we could edit the post, but I rather like it as it is!

:) :) :)

Julie

[ktkawabe]

Hi Jack,

> I thought you just didn't care for the form factor!

Wait, that's supposed to be confidential.;)

And Julie,

> Well, we could edit the post, but I rather like it as it is!

OK anyway that's in your brain as well as mine. That's life. :)