Flybook: A sub-notebook or a smartphone?

Flybook: A sub-notebook or a smartphone?

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, zatni@cbn.net.id

Up to a couple of weeks ago we were still talking about how notebook shipments were driving worldwide PC sales.

In fact, Virginia-based market analyst NPD Techworld, as reported in the June-July edition of ComputerWorld, was predicting that this month notebook sales would exceed desktop PCs for the first time in the U.S.

Earlier in February, IDC reported that notebook sales grew by 34.4 percent year-on-year in Q4 of last year while desktop sales rose by only 9.1 percent.

Worldwide, however, it is forecast that notebooks will account for 30 percent of total PC shipments this year.

It is easy to see why most of us were enthusiastic about notebook sales. Corporations have been providing their employees with notebooks instead of desktop PCs.

While the cost of providing notebooks is still substantially higher than providing desktops, the cost difference can be offset by flexibility in terms of productivity. If your company gives you a notebook, you are expected to work at home and during weekends, right?

However, very recently a report in CNet News.com also showed that some big corporations were taking another path after looking more closely at how the notebooks were being used by their employees. One of their findings was that some of them were mainly using their notebooks to access e-mail, browse the Internet and chat on Instant Messenger.

For these tasks, obviously there is an alternative. Just give PDAs or smartphones to the employees. With Blackberry-based services, accessing e-mail from anywhere and on any device will no longer be a problem.

Of course, there will always be people like you and me who do not feel at ease traveling without our notebooks. Whether we will use them or not doesn't matter. What matters is that our notebooks are within our reach 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, for others, including those who have to make decisions fast, a PDA or smartphone will be adequate.

Tiny Notebooks

And, at the same time, there is a new crop of very lightweight sub-notebooks. We took a look at some of these recently, including Acer's very stylish TravelMate 3000. We marveled at the host of features that the designers had been able to pack into such a small device as this one. We certainly have to compromise on the screen real estate and keyboard comfort, but most of us have become accustomed to the tinier screens and keypads of our smartphones, anyway.

Last week, courtesy of Datascrip, I had the chance to play around with another amazing sub-notebook made by an unknown Taiwanese company called Dialogue (at least I do not think I've ever read about this company before). Dialogue is an Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) company.

If you read BusinessWeek's stories on the outsourcing of innovation back in March this year, you will be familiar with what the ODM companies do. They design and manufacture electronic gadgets for brand owners, who will then make some customizations, stick their own labels on them and sell them to customers

The 1.2 kilogram FlyBook is certainly a great example of what the ODM companies can do. It is a sub-notebook, a Tablet PC and a GSM cellphone in one. I admit that the first time I took it out of its box I did not think it would be a smash hit. However the more I learned about what it could do, the more appreciative I became. Until, of course, I found out that it is priced at around US$2,500!

But, first, let us take a look at the features. Who knows, they might actually justify the price.

Features galore

Powered by a 1.0 GHz Transmeta Crusoe TM 5800 processor, my metallic blue demo unit came with 512 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard disk, two USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire ports, a modem, a fast Ethernet port, one PC Card Type II slot, a VGA-Out port, a Video- Out port and a stylus.

A Stylus? Yes, because it is also a Tablet PC. Surprisingly, though, the pre-installed operating system on this unit was Windows XP Home Edition, not the Windows Tablet PC Edition. Although it uses a Crusoe processor, this computer is quite responsive.

The 8.9-inch widescreen, which displays sharp lines and characters as well as brilliant colors, can be rotated and folded flat on top of the keyboard. It is a touchscreen, actually, so it is not exactly the same as the screen on a typical Tablet PC. We can move the cursor and emulate double-clicking with our finger.

The touchscreen's quality is on a par with most other notebook display screens, and you will not notice the touch sensor layer. The standard screen resolution is 1024 by 600.

In the area of connectivity, FlyBook shines. It has both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. To activate or deactivate them, all we have to do is press Fn-F8 or Fn-F9. I like the hardware switch for these connections. There is no infra-red, though.

And there is also a slot on the left-hand side where you can plug in your GSM SIM card. If you had set up your GPRS connection properly, this tiny notebook will enable you to access the Internet using GPRS. I did not get the chance to test this out, unfortunately. Frankly, this was the first time I had come across a computer with a GSM SIM card support.

I did try making phone calls using the already installed mobile Phone Tools application. The voice quality is a bit below that of a good cellphone, even when I was using the headset that we usually use for voice recognition applications. The application itself is still a bit quirky, especially if you happen to press the NumLock on the keyboard, but I am sure the company will fix it. And, of course, we can send and receive SMS messages as well.

The narrow keyboard is, of course, not really comfortable for extended periods of typing, but it is usable. The pointing device, which is a TrackPoint, is very interesting, though. The TrackPoint is located on the upper right hand corner of the base.

On its left there is a pair of mouse buttons. So, if you use it as a notebook on your lap or food tray on the airplane, you can use your right hand to move the cursor. There is even a scroll button on the right of the pointing device for scrolling.

However, the designer must have thought of the possibility that Flybook would be used as a handheld device (some people call it "handtop"). They have added another pair of mouse buttons on the upper left corner of the base. So, while our right thumb navigates the cursor, our left thumb can do the clicking. A safety strap can be attached to the notebook to ensure that this expensive ultraportable notebook will not slip from our hands when we are holding it this way.

The casing itself does not have any plastic parts, so a drop will cause a nastier impact on the internal components, such as the hard disk. Every corner is hardened and you can immediately feel its sturdiness. Therefore, the strap is really a clever idea. The metallic paint gets smudged easily, as is always the case with painted casings.

The FlyBook is not cheap, but its features may place it on par with other high-end notebooks. Its convertibility into a Tablet PC makes it unique. My daughter, who likes to draw pictures, really had a good time with this device.

I believe the FlyBook has a lot of potential, and I look forward to the next generation with 802.11n, WiMAX or even HSDPA support already built in. A card reader and biometrics security system should be included, too.

If you're looking for a very powerful and stylish ultraportable that will allow you to do a lot of things while traveling -- including accessing the Internet without the help of a mobile phone, take a look at this head-turning FlyBook. They may one day replace the company fleet of notebooks.