Sharp Unveils Linux-based Ultra-compact Notebook PC (2)

Aug 31, 2009 11:07 Tomohisa Takei, Nikkei Electronics

Continued from Sharp Unveils Linux-based Ultra-compact Notebook PC (1)

Sharp adopted Ubuntu 9.04, one of the Linux distributions, to meet user demands for quick boot-up time, long battery life and so forth because its data volume is small and there are many applications software compatible with it. The PC-Z1 will be pre-installed with the Firefox Web browser and the OpenOffice.org document editor.

As its microprocessor, the notebook PC is mounted with Freescale Semiconductor Inc's "i.MX515," a processor equipped with ARM Ltd's "Cortex-A8" CPU core, and various multimedia processing capabilities. The operating frequency of the CPU core is 800MHz. The memory device is 4-Gbyte flash memory with 2 Gbytes of free space.

As for external interfaces, the PC-Z1 comes with a USB2.0 port and a microSDHC memory card slot. It has wireless LAN (IEEE802.11b/g) capability but is not equipped with a mobile communication module.

"We wanted to let users select telecommunications carriers," Sharp said.

The company assumes that the notebook PC will be used with a mobile communication module that is connected via a USB interface. And it intends to test the compatibility of mobile communication modules with Linux in collaboration with telecommunications carriers.

Also, Sharp announced that it will release electronic dictionaries and books usable with the NetWalker series, though it has not decided the file format or sales method for them yet.

The PC-Z1 will be available in three colors: white, black and red. The white and black models will be released Sept 25, 2009, while the red model will hit the market in late October. The sales target is 100,000 units by the end of March 2010. Sharp plans to launch the notebook PC outside Japan, too.

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