Whatever happened to Japanese laptops? • Hacker News Board

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#31

Post by vacri » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:16 AM UTC

zumu wrote: post #10

My current laptop is a toshiba, and I bought it in the US. I've had good luck with the brand over the years.

This may be a regional issue, but where I worked about a decade ago resold toshiba laptops as part of an equipment package (medical imaging). I'd ring up support to ask where I could find some documentation (I worked in support) and they'd refuse to talk to me without paying $55 first. Not even calling for troubleshooting help. '$55' or 'sod off' (paraphrased) were the options.

They were very nicely spec'd machines, but I'd never recommend a Toshiba based on the support experience. Hopefully they improved over the years.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#32

Post by Johnny555 » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:24 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #16

The japanese companies were pretty amazing in the commercial space. My employer had a few Fujitsu ultra portables in the circa 2007 timeframe. One of our internal customers mentioned to a salesguy that they needed a particular port in a particular location on the laptop, not expecting anything. Two weeks later, they Fedexed a loaner/prototype with the port. Really an amazing experience. We were buying 5-6 figure quan…

You were buying 10,000 - 100,000 laptops, or $10,000 - $100,000 worth of laptops (around 5 - 50 at $2000 each)?

If it's the former, I'm surprised they didn't package them anyway you want. If the latter, I'm not surprised they wouldn't make any changes.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#33

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:38 AM UTC

> I have a strange attachment to Panasonic

I have a lifetime prohibition on any Panasonic products after experiencing the most craptastic DVD recorder ever to grace this Earth. It crashes at random, takes forever to boot, won't boot reliably with a disc in the drive, can't play Audio CDs without locking up, responds to remote button presses with multi-second lag, and gets the tuner channels out of sync with the OSD. Basically a complete fuckup. Their "fix" in the successor model was to add a reset button. Never again Panasonic.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#34

Post by chemmail » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:42 AM UTC

Japan is really behind in PC/Laptop. I was just there last week and the big PC and electronic stores only stock up to Geforce. Asus also has a big presence there now, but the prices are a lot more than US pricing for the same stuff. Not much innovation in the computer space. Home eletronics and appliances are amazing though. Their high end electrolux style vacuum stick cleaners easily clear $800 USD and are really awesome. The rice cookers can hit $600-$800 and can make the perfect rice you normally only get in Japan. The mcirowaves have built in toast oven in one unit, and it works amazingly well. Coming home, its kinda sad some of the convinces we dont have like the toilets, bathroom, kitchen, and even video doorbells (out current "smart" stuff are still rubbish).

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#35

Post by Oletros » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:45 AM UTC

diziet wrote: post #30

mattnumbe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3rd party citation after searching "dominant OS Japan" in google https://www.statista.com/statistics/260415/market-share-held... Android 64.6%

This data looks bad and not in line with other reports: https://deviceatlas.com/blog/android-vs-ios-market-share-201... http://techjapan.tumblr.com/post/42142826707/why-iphone-mark... According to our internal data which tallies tens of millions of app store installs on Android vs iOS, iOS both gets more downloads & revenue than Android in Japan.

You have posted a link about web browsing and another from 2012.

Do you gave a reliable report about marketshare because all reports tells that iOS have way less market share than Android in Japan

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#36

Post by raihansaputra » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:50 AM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #9

santaclaus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with a few developers from Japan - MacBook Pros running Windows, across the board.

Why do they run Windows on an expensive MacBook Pro, e.g. how is power management, HiDPI, driver support, etc? Is this mostly Windows 7 or 10? Why not macOS + Windows in a VM?

I don't know about running Windows in a VM, but drivers are very good and battery life (even on Windows) is probably better than most Windows laptop. Not to mention you could get a fully-loaded MacBook Pro almost anywhere on the planet if something happens.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#37

Post by mikekchar » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:54 AM UTC

zumu wrote: post #10

My current laptop is a toshiba, and I bought it in the US. I've had good luck with the brand over the years.

I have a Japanese Toshiba KIRA V63 (only sold in Japan, for some stupid reason). It's a great machine and quite cheap for it's specs. I bought it for battery life (I can do a whole day of programming on a single charge in Linux), but it has good performance as well. I've been very pleasantly surprised at how well the Intel 5200U has performed. Also at only 1.2 kg, I can easily stick it in my bag and carry it with me anywhere I go.

I've seen on the news that Toshiba plans to shut down its laptop division in the near future. Some people have told me that it isn't 100% for sure, so I'm hanging on to some hope. I've been looking at offerings of other Japanese makers (I live in Japan) and there is nothing else comparable. I'm not sure what I'll do when I need to replace this one. Toshiba has been my go to maker for the last 10 years or so because virtually everything they make "just works" on Linux.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#38

Post by philtar » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:56 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #32

Spooky23 wrote: post #16

The japanese companies were pretty amazing in the commercial space. My employer had a few Fujitsu ultra portables in the circa 2007 timeframe. One of our internal customers mentioned to a salesguy that they needed a particular port in a particular location on the laptop, not expecting anything. Two weeks later, they Fedexed a loaner/prototype with the port. Really an amazing experience. We were buying 5-6 figure quan…

You were buying 10,000 - 100,000 laptops, or $10,000 - $100,000 worth of laptops (around 5 - 50 at $2000 each)? If it's the former, I'm surprised they didn't package them anyway you want. If the latter, I'm not surprised they wouldn't make any changes.

It's probably the latter. You can be not surprised, that's fine. You probably seem hard to impress as you just glossed over the fact that fujitsu did that for them.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#39

Post by phs318u » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:59 AM UTC

cstejerean wrote: post #27

coldtea wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that and Apple and others catching up in terms of "sleekness" and aesthetics. Wasn't Apple always ahead of the Japanese laptops in terms of sleekness and aesthetics?

No, not always. The Sony Vaio was attractive enough back in its day that Steve Jobs offered Sony to run Mac OS on them (which they declined).

Wow. Was not aware of that. Thanks.

For those who couldn't be bothered googling... http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-apple-os-...

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#40

Post by CountSessine » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 6:00 AM UTC

dismantlethesun wrote: post #26

ralfd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the pattern: if the statistic would end in autumn instead of summer, then iOS could also have come up on top.

How can market share dramatically swing between 30% and 60% like it's doing in this chart? Is this bad data? Is the market expanding & contracting so greatly that existing users are a minority of future marketshare?

Most android phone owners don't use it as a smartphone - it's a cheap feature phone they buy at the phone store and they just use it to make calls on. The number of true 'smartphone users' in the android world who are using them to browse the web and download apps is comparable to or less than the number of iOS device owners.