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Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

jamielittle.org

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Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#41
post #30

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.

I dont know why the data looks that wonky, but the graph that business insider uses (taken from Kantar) shows a similar pattern. http://www.businessinsider.my/apple-v-android-market-share-b...

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#42
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).

Had to look this up because I had no clue.

> Most of Sony's executives spends their winter vacation in Hawaii and play golf after celebrating new year. In one of those new year golf competitions back in 2001, " Steve Jobs and another Apple executive were waiting for us at the end of golf course holding VAIO running Mac OS" recalls Ando.[President of Sony at the time]

> Ando liked Apple. He always felt Mac and VAIO were so close in philosophy. He especially admired the original iMac introduced in 1998. But the timing was bad for Sony, it is just about the time, Sony's VAIO gained popularity and it is just about the time that VAIO team had finished optimizing both VAIO's hardware and software specifically for Windows platform. Because of this, most of the VAIO team opposed asking 'if it is worth it.' And that was the end of story for this Mac-compatible VAIO.

http://nobi.com/en/Steve%20Jobs%20and%20Japan/entry-1212.htm...

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#43
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably USA centric company that forces macbooks on all employees for IT policies. But then the devs need to work on compilers/debuggers for hardware that only runs on windows.

How do IT departments manage policy for a lot of Macs? MacOS server MDM is for small biz. Are there good OSS tools? I've seen a paper on cfengine, https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/lisa10/tech/full_papers/...

I'm amazed that works, but don't do what they did. Use configuration profiles where possible.

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/featuredarticles...

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#44
post #21
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really not trying to start an OS war but for the sake of accuracy Android is the dominant mobile OS in Japan, not iPhone.

This is from last year, so could have changed, but Q4 2015 web traffic was 66% iOS vs 34% Android in Japan: https://deviceatlas.com/blog/android-vs-ios-market-share-201...

If you are selling phones, Traffic /= market share. There is good reason to believe that iPhone users use more traffic. They are the premium phone and their users spend more. Similarly, app installs are also not market share for the same reason.

There is even an argument that handset sales isn't market share, that the only real measure is to survey some people to see exactly what phones they own and use. That's the only way to include old phones that aren't used for much other than making calls.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#45

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 live in Japan and laptops here are real expensive. Macbooks are not much more than similar-spec'd windows laptops (well until the newest generation came out). I wanted a decent windows machine with a dedicated video card and was looking at $1700 (for something I could get on sale in the US for $1200 from Dell).

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#46
post #2

What's the laptop market like in Japan anyway? I don't really know a lot about it, but it's always interesting to see these random Panasonic or Fujitsu laptops not sold here, or those rare Japan-exclusive experimental ThinkPads.

As others have said, Apple has a very strong presence in Japan. If I go to an electronics store, usually half the models on display are Apple. Panasonic and Fujitsu pretty much rule the desktop with bizarre television/computer fusions. Imagine a TV about the thickness of one of the old plasma TVs. It usually has a stand, but I think you can also wall mount it. You can watch and record TV on them, so they are basically consumer devices.

For laptops, the biggest brand (other than apple) is probably Asus (based on retail floor space ;-) ). Sony, Panasonic, Fujitsu and Toshiba pretty much share the rest. Toshiba is apparently exiting the market soon, though. From my perspective, it seems that the market is split between very high end, large format, desktop-replacement machines and tiny machines. There is not very much in the middle. I live in the countryside, though. It is very possible I don't see the interesting models where I live.

When I worked at a high school, all of the machines were actually Dell. It surprised me greatly.

One thing that most people don't realise is that Japanese electronics are expensive compared to the rest of the world. If you have high end purchases (like a computer), you can fly to Korea and the money you save will pay for the flight, easily. Especially with the insanely high yen, American machines are also a pretty good deal.

I like to support the local economy, but when Toshiba exits, I might be stuck finding the kind of machine I like to use.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#48
post #2

What's the laptop market like in Japan anyway? I don't really know a lot about it, but it's always interesting to see these random Panasonic or Fujitsu laptops not sold here, or those rare Japan-exclusive experimental ThinkPads.

I work for a startup with roughly half of its employees working from Japan. All developers use Apple laptops. I can't remember off the top of my head if non-developers used other brands.

Can confirm: developers here that work with foreign companies are almost all on Macs.

Windows still reigns absolutely supreme in native companies, though.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#49
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…

>Toshiba has been my go to maker for the last 10 years or so because virtually everything they make "just works" on Linux.

This is honestly a pretty shocking statement for me, because Toshiba has long been my go-to example for the worst-case scenario of installing Linux on laptops. I have never once had a Toshiba laptop that "just worked" out of the box with Linux. Whether it was power management, display drivers, or wifi, there was always something that was broken out of the box and needed to be fixed. Heck, I have a Toshiba A305 for which Linux still doesn't have proper power management drivers, even though the laptop is about a decade old.

When people ask me about Linux on laptops, I say that they should go with either Lenovos or (more lately) the new Dell XPS models. Never Sony, never Toshiba. I've never heard of anyone having a good experience installing Linux on laptops made by those two manufacturers.

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