61–70 of 167 posts
I think Japan is going to be one of the first markets to see laptop sales dry up almost completely. Most people are fine with their iPhones. Where I work, all developers use macbooks and everyone else uses a thinkpad. A lot of other laptop models, like a lot of tech in Japan, is targeted at the Japanese market only. Dynabooks are the budget windows machine of choice at the moment, it seems. Although most young people…
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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 o…
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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 used to maintain a webpage on their Japanese site that listed what worked and what didn't in Linux for all of their models. It also listed any custom drivers that it might need. It's the reason I switched to Toshiba originally. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be there any more (or I can't find it). Last time I looked at it, every single modern model had no problems. When I bought the K63, the trackpad didn't work properly (I bought it days after it was first released), but they said that a driver was being updated on that page. Sure enough, about 2 months later it was fine.
It's a moot point now I suppose since they are apparently leaving the business.
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.
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…
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.
One thing that I noticed when looking around was that screen resolution didn't seem to be a big focus. The Panasonic models still have optical media. I can't think of a single western laptop that has a Blu-Ray burner in it. There might be some gaming laptops with that, but they would probably be 17 inch monsters and not extremely lightweight laptops.
My current laptop is a toshiba, and I bought it in the US. I've had good luck with the brand over the years.
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…
One other highlight I remember about this machine: Despite not having any international warranty that I was aware of, when the machine developed a problem, I called Toshiba Europe and they picked it up and send it back repaired a week later for free.
I was in Japan this summer and also had a look at the notebooks on sale there but nothing really caught my attention. With the arrival of Netbooks and later the Macbook Air 11", small notebooks are no longer hard to get in Europe.
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…