That Nokia managed to put out a useful, affordable web tablet two years before anybody else.

Affordable, I agree on...

Yep, agreed, stylus is a big win.

Some of us could really use that kind of space, honestly.

I hope so too.


As far the Sharp product is concerned its two deal-breakers are price, and size. Once inch wide means it's gotta be pretty awkward to hold and use. My fingers start to ache after using my N810 for a while, I can't imagine how uncomfortable this must be.

When work pays for it, the price is off the table (in many ways). Seems like many people have work related uses. But those same people seem to play in a unix environment (or *nix), so that might be a problem, but it seems like you could load another package on here, so you could get your *nix on there too.

It does seem drool-worthy. Lot's of stuff in a nice tidy package. Personally, the NXXX series are much more pocket-worthy, and I'm not looking to replace my desktop (or laptop for some), I just want something that fits in my pocket to bridge the gap between my work desktop and my home desktop. Admittedly, Nokia hasn't made that yet, but with the open software environment that they have made, other folks are rapidly creating the software to bridge that gap for me, so I haven't given up.

With that said, this seems like something close to the holy grail for some. I won't knock it. I loved my Sharp Mobilon a decade ago, and to be honest, I am still looking for the clamshell to replace it. The sharp CL-1 (IIRC) came pretty close. These Nokia tablets were the closest I've found, and hence here I am. But I won't ignore anything that Sharp puts out to meet this market. I just hope they re-embrace linux.

Rip out the harddrive, add two SD slots and maybe we're talking (and I'm assuming it's easy to rip out Vista and install something good instead). Movable parts like disk drives is a showstopper in devices like this. I skipped the Palm Lifedrive back then because of its harddrive, and time has proved my decision correct.

The Willcom D4 looks like a great little UMPC. What represents the biggest news in the D4 is that it is a UMPC, not a MID (like the Nokia tablets). Any new MID is going to be a little behind the Nokia tablets because of the time they (and we) have put into the Maemo platform since the 770.

The biggest liability of the D4 is definitely the OS, although I've read there is an XP option in Japan, which would presumably be a big improvement, in that XP has a ton of available software, including downloadable software. The second biggest is the hard drive speed, IMO. The battery life is reported to be 3.5 to 4 hours, which is not bad for the size of the device. I'm no fan of Windows on a tiny screen, but the trade-off in OSs is that every smart phone benefits from/needs a computer to sync with. Combined w/ an iPhone or Windows XP smartphone, this is the smallest complete package for travelling. Even if you carry around a Nokia tablet and a smartphone, somewhere back there there's a computer.

I'm interested to see more Atom (or Isaiah) UMPCs. After seeing the 770 abandoned, I'm not eager to get into another MID for now.