"Sharp PC-Z1" Known as NetWalker - - Mobile Internet Device

We mentioned the Sharp PC-Z1 a few days ago and now we managed to spot it in the flesh at IFA. The Sharp PC-Z1, also known as the NetWalker is a mobile internet device that has a 5 inch WSVGA LCD screen, an impressive 10 hour battery life, instant ON and 1 14mm pitch full QWERTY keyboard.

The NetWalker runs the Ubuntu Linux operating system that runs fairly light on system resources. Technical spec wise it has 512Mb of RAM and runs an 800MHz Arm Cortex-A8 processor. The device measures 161 x 109 x 20-25mm in dimensions and weighs just 410g.

For storage the NetWalker relies on integrated flash memory that has a capacity of 4GB. The mini 5 inch LCD screen also has a decent resolution of 1024 x 600 which isn’t too bad for a small-ish screen. The screen is backlit by LED.

It’s ideal for those wanting internet and email access while on the go and it includes wireless LAN at b/g speeds as well as an SD card slot allowing memory to be bumped up a further 16GB.

Rather than using a touch-pad found on most netbooks and laptops the Sharp PC-Z1 instead uses an Optical Point that sits to the top right just above the keyboard. This is basically an optical track pad. The left and right buttons can be found to the left of the keyboard above the QWERTY side.
It will be launching soon and cost between $400 and $500.