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Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

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Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#51

Post by themodelplumber »

chemmail wrote: post #34

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 aw…

> The mcirowaves have built in toast oven in one unit, and it works amazingly well

I had one in my apartment outside Nagoya in 1996. Still can't believe I have never seen one in the states. I wonder if they just can't justify the potential marketing friction.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#52

Post by lvs »

mc32 wrote: post #8

One thing likely contributed to their downfall was US manufactures moved operations overseas and many Japanese manufacturers kept production in Japan making them expensive to the Us market --that and Apple and others catching up in terms of "sleekness" and aesthetics. People would buy Vaios despite poor hardware because they were thin and looked cool.

For the new post-Sony US-market Vaio laptops, they're apparently "inspected" in Japan, but the manufacturing is now finally taking place in China -- like pretty much everyone else.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#53

Post by notoothpaste »

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…

I wonder what their manufacturing processes are like, such that they could accommodate this kind of flexibility.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#54

Post by benzesandbetter »

In the early 2000's Japan was way ahead in the Sub-notebook market. As subnotebooks and tablets have come into popularity and wide availability worldwide, this arbitrage opportunity has narrowed significantly.

In 2007, I picked up a Panasonic R6 (10" LetsNote/toughbook). It was a great little machine, and I ran both Windows and Debian on it. The keyboard was a bit cramped, and the circular trackpad was pretty lame, but overall I loved the machine. Everywhere I went people would notice it and ask about it. After about 14 months, the logic board failed, and I discovered that as grey-market import, there was no warranty. This was a hard lesson, as I had paid almost $2k USD for the machine. Fortunately, I was back in the states when it happened, so I wasn't stranded abroad without a working laptop.

Earlier this year, I was in Japan and picked up a Japanese chromebook 10" for under $200. The keyboard is both english and Japanese which makes it a bit of a conversation starter. I installed Debian on it via Crouton (alongside ChromeOS). When I travel, I usually bring both my MacBook Air, and the Chromebook, and particularly in the developing world, I leave my MBA back in my hotel or apartment and bring my Chromebook with me when I'm out and about in the city.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#55

Post by minikomi »

benzesandbetter wrote: post #54

In the early 2000's Japan was way ahead in the Sub-notebook market. As subnotebooks and tablets have come into popularity and wide availability worldwide, this arbitrage opportunity has narrowed significantly. In 2007, I picked up a Panasonic R6 (10" LetsNote/toughbook). It was a great little machine, and I ran both Windows and Debian on it. The keyboard was a bit cramped, and the circular trackpad was pretty lame, b…

Can you share which Chromebook you got? I'm living in Japan and am interested.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#56

Post by jcrawfordor »

themodelplumber wrote: post #51
chemmail wrote: post #34

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 aw…

> The mcirowaves have built in toast oven in one unit, and it works amazingly well I had one in my apartment outside Nagoya in 1996. Still can't believe I have never seen one in the states. I wonder if they just can't justify the potential marketing friction.

These are on sale at WalMart in the US. Indo think they're rather new there though.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#57

Post by Theodores »

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.

From the start Toshiba have had a vision that laptops will replace desktops. They were also first to market.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-07/business/fi-1099_1_co...

I have fond memories of the Toshiba Satellite Pro models that had the battery charger built into the laptop. The power cord was the same figure eight lead that you could find powering radios and other home electricals. If you worked in server rooms, meeting rooms, your own desk, at home or in the field, the lack of power brick was a huge bonus.

The desktop models 'failed' but look how advanced some of them were:

https://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/1996_09/pr1101.htm

Here you get a remote control and a home media centre that I wouldn't mind having today!!! It is like a desktop version of what a mobile phone offers, functionality wise.

Another Toshiba special were the Portege tablets that they brought out before iOS/Android tablets redefined what a tablet computer was. One had to pretend that the pen input was viable, pen to text was theoretically possible but not what you would use. Superb engineering including a 12" 1400x1050 screen and their own HDD.

Another retro Japan favourite is the Canon BN22. This was a laptop with a printer built in. There were models of laptop + printer than what made it to the UK market, the first one failed to find a niche in the UK and there were none coming to the UK after that, in Japan the concept was updated with the times into the Windows 95 era. I can remember seeing a Canon BN22 and being genuinely awed. It had the same form factor of laptops of the era, i.e. ungainly with the keyboard at the front. The space at the back had a printer sneaked in and the paper path went from the front to the back of the machine. Looking back the dimensions of this machine were a bit nearer what you would expect for a printer rather than a laptop.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#58

Post by pjmlp »

quanticle wrote: post #49
mikekchar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Toshiba was my first laptop back in 1999.

One of the reasons I went with them was that besides being famous for making good laptops, was that they had a dedicated Linux web site and forum for supporting Linux on their laptops.

While most other OEMs couldn't care less.

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#59

Post by [deleted] »

chemmail wrote: post #34

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 aw…

[deleted]

Re: Whatever happened to Japanese laptops?

#60

Post by tomcam »

carsongross wrote: post #18

I spent a lot of time on http://www.dynamism.com/ looking at the ultralight computers they had in Japan. Almost pulled the trigger a few times, they had awesome stuff. The OQO was from that era too. Good times.

I spent thousands with them on teeny teeny computers, including the OQO. Worth it!
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