Review: Book Digital Co. SmartBook G138 (Flashback)

Dont suppose you'd be willing to try it?

As I said, I get unreliable results in TCPMP without GAPI, and given the performance boost you achieve, why would you want to run it without GAPI.

It is all about available memory cmonex, while you may not want to watch a file with a native resolution of 320x240, if you only have the CF space for it, there's little point in ripping at VGA.

OK, mine's here. First impressions are positive with a few caveats. More later .

On the USB front, it's not a dual purpose host/client port on it so I think we're out of luck there. The Ratoc USB host cf card would probably work...

Again, big thanks to Chris for sourcing these: two colleagues are already wondering if something like the smartbook might be the saviour of their backs as it would do everything necessary for their on-site visits

Edited by chiark 2006-08-23 5:48 AM

I owned a G138 for three months. in short, it is very powerful in terms of web browsing. quite fast. almost on par with some PII old desktop.

G138 uses MediaQ220 (or 200?) as the video chip, not Hitachi chip. it is the same as Viewsonic AirPanel 100 and some other oEM models. of coz viewsonic OEMed this from Taiwan.

but forget about TCPMP optimi.. No hope for TCPMP OPTIMIAZATION at all for G138. about 18 months ago when Picard (the earlier major programmer for Betaplayer) had already indicated that he could not make optimizations for MQ220, simply coz it is an outdated video chip and little info available. U can probably locate the relevant post on Corecodec's forums.

Then, Picard was very VERY active on the forum. He checked the forums and answered a few optimization requests almost everyday. But NOT NOW..he rarely appears on forum, not to mention answering ur feature request post. His work pattern has changed A LOT.

U know, Nvidia boughout out MediaQ a few years ago and now there is limited info about mediaq's own products on Nvidia.

BTW, G138 only supports USB sync. NO USB HOST. u dont have to dream anymore. Not a single manufacture will remain silent about any exciting feature ike usb host, if their product does support it.

i am familiar with Samsung NExio. but i would like 2 ask: which model support usb host through in 2in1 converter cable? XP30? XP30 is extremly hard 2 find. i dont think it is popular amongh hpc pals.

in fact, nexio s155 has native usb host port, no need for clumsy cable. but it lacks any storage slot.

S160 does not support usb host. no such 2 in 1 coverter cable either. it has cf slot.

other models beyond s160 is also limited and has little influence in markets other than Korean one.



Edited by iamjoe 2006-08-23 2:17 PM

i can't try, no adapter, unless the port is identical to the sig3 usb host port. i'll check that sometime. also, all i can test with is a usb card reader and camera and the latter will not work... maybe i can borrow the pendrive from my father but generally i'm not one of those people who have everything usb.

iamjoe, yup, i was surprised why everyone said hitachi it's a mediaq.
and i don't get it why picard won't support it. maybe i'll try to meet him and convince him in person that would be better than the internet!

chiark, what caveats?


and one more thing..

review says: "What has intrigued me since I started getting to know the SmartBook, has been the level of interest that it has generated from friends, colleagues and passers-by alike. More surprisingly, interest has been higher than that which I, as an enlightened H/PC user, usually receive from carrying a Jornada.
There is something about the SmartBook, something which appeals on the broadest scale to an eclectic range of people."

yeah... i was showing it off to a friend , at a public place, and someone who was a complete stranger instantly hurried over to us & asked how much this thing cost... looked so excited lol. never got this reaction before and trust me i've done this many times before (i mean, showing a hpc to someone.. yes trying to seduce them from the ppc to the hpc)

iamjoe,

Good to hear from a previous G138 user.
Hitachi brought the rights to the MQ chipsets, so I'm not inaccurate in my statement

cmonex,

High praise, they do seem to generate an above normal level of interest. I bet you have shown thousands of people the H/PC, you are likely one of our biggest ambassadors

where would one go about purchasing this (i already checked ebay. turned up nothing)
Link

Uh, here?

http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=5601&pos...

"sideways" smiley...
what methods of convincing are you talking about...



. . .
just kidding! (hope I didn't offend anyone...)

Takwi: Can you give an up-to-date real world figure of how long the battery lasts in the G138 (with GPRS off)?

chazco, looks like it is 3 hours with gprs or wlan, i guess 4-5 without it, but i won't be able to test for you, i cannot avoid using some internet stuff sometimes

OK, caveats are:
- build quality is less than ideal. As Chris says in his review, the case ain't all that, sturdiness-wise
- the keyboard feel sucks, and its action is somewhat questionable at times - It is possible to press keys and not have them register. This is an inexcusable bit of hardware design on a device like this.
- whilst talking about the keyboard, someone should be shown a standard keyboard layout: the windows key is between the ctrl and alt key! The amount of times I've hit the wrong key is already too many.
- The MQ200 supports two displays, potentially at different resolutions and potentially showing different graphics. The driver doesn't seem to allow this - the resolution is fixed, and if using a larger external display one has to scroll around the internal display. The mechanism for setting this isn't friendly either, but a very quick hack in EVC would produce something usable... Hmm
- I'd expected something like the nexio's control panel to be available to control the external display, but it isn't. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way of enabling the "presentation" tab that the nexio has using a registry hack
- Battery is fixed in place, with no chance of replacing it on the fly when you need more juice. Although saying that, battery life appears better than I'd been led to believe and the charger is small.
- LED status lights are not visible with the case closed. Daft bit of design.
- Processor speed is low for intensive tasks, such as running emulators. In 2004, 200MHz was not an acceptable design choice - however, overclocking is possible...
- No built in POOM applications at all. The POOM databases are there and can be synced, but applications such as CE Agenda need to be used to access them. I still don't know of a decent "contacts" replacement.
- Silly config thing: no regional settings other than English(United States).
- The size is bigger than a Toshiba Libretto 100ct (!)
- Screen's colour temperature is "not very nice" - can't say if it's too cool or warm, but it isn't right, and it isn't very bright either compared to the sig3 or libretto.


Highlights:
- CE .net 4.2 (English) is superb, and in my opinion a significant step over 4.1 (hacked English)
- 128MB of memory is great.
- TextMaker running on this machine is wonderful
- Screen is the right size for 800x480. IMHO, the sigmarion is too small in comparison.
- Touchscreen is well implemented, mouse is a nice thing too.
- No messing with translation: it's in english
- System responsiveness is excellent
- Built in LAN port is a real boon, GPRS could be exceptionally useful - I've yet to play with this, but as I've got a SIM with a GPRS subscription I will be doing so

I'm really in two minds about this device. Part of me thinks it's great, but part of me thinks that it could have and should have been so much more. A bit of finesse on the design, both functionally and aesthetically, would have paid dividends. Driver software should be better for the MQ200, and I can't find documentation for the driver telling me what MIU2, 3 and 5 do, or what the FLAG parameters might be - who knows, there may be a way to tell it to allow dual displays with independent outputs!

Am I keeping this device, given that I have a 728, Sig3 and Toshiba Libretto 100CT? I honestly don't know... The screen draws me back, but then the keyboard puts me off, but then a native English CE.net 4.2 coupled with good communication options makes me go "wow", and then some other niggling problem makes me pull my hair out.

The point is it's a flawed gem, but it may be the best we've got.

superb, i almost finished my long detailed post when i somehow pressed something on the keyboard and away it goes. and the clipboard had only the last three lines that i just wanted to move somewhere else. nevermind.

i mostly agree on the build quality and keyboard, though i don't care about the former except when i try to move the screen on one of them backwards as far as possible, it doesn't really tend to allow me to do so. and it doesn't feel very solid at that. oh and you can get used to the keyboard... no problem with layout for me & its looks is cool IMO.
led, not true, you can see the charge led at least when case is closed sufficient for me.

not sure about screen colours, IMO the sig3 isn't any better except that sig3 is not grainy in the least. the screen protector on my smartbook seems to help a lot about that though (graininess)... i like the protector, gives a coool shiny look to the screen or is it just my unit? i have the chance to compare it to other smartbooks and it is different even when turned off... anyway try experimenting with contrast and brightness settings.
i don't like the touch screen's accuracy, have seen better ones (and worse ones too). sensitivity is quite excellent.

absolutely in disagreement about the CPU, it feels very fast to me, the jornada is put to shame with the same cpu... IE6 is loading pages quite fast compared to other ce.net devices. wow i don't have a chance any more to directly compare it with the netbook pro but it feels justa little faster than the netbook pro. i will do a benchmark between smartbook and 900c. and textmaker, it starts up almost insanely fast hehehe. amazing.

(poom, don't worry, other devices lack it completely altogether. reg settings can be hacked.)

one bad thing you've not noticed as you didn't try gprs yet, when the brightness and contrast is at their lowest (that's how i'm using this thing usually), and a gprs connection is established *and* data is being actively transferred, it will have a strange effect on the screen especially if it is a white background such as staring at IE6 waiting for the page to load it is something like moving "lines" across the screen, but not real lines... weell, hard to explain...
anyway! adjusting the settings helps, this effect almost completely disappears but it isn't as easy on the battery i guess.

my conclusion... the drawbacks for me are the only one slot & internal battery & not greatest battery life. i'm spoiled by the J728's battery life, yup. smartbook batt life is still better when doing wlan than sig3's but i have 3-4 spare batts for sig3... so...
and the only one slot, well as it has GPRS i don't need bluetooth and i use wifi more rarely than bluetooth. still that would've been a real showstopper for me (along with the size hehe) if i didn't have any other device
about the size, it is smaller than i expected... but not a jornada size, definitely. advantage and disadvantage, for me more of the latter but it will be a great alternative to my 900c as a home device & for travels when i'm away for days
and it has yet to drive me crazy (except when it hard reset twice due to my wifi card being not fully compatible with the built in driver. the normal intersil driver works fine though).

This is realyl intersting, becuase I'm stuck somewhere the middle of both of your views.

Keyboard: As I said in the review, it does take some time to get used to it, however my error rate has dropped now that my mind has got used to the quirks. The Ctrl position and the lack of the right hand shift are the biggest quirks, but that could be fixed using a remapper.

Good point on the screen motion cmonex, they don't go all the way back, the range of motion on the 720 is around 160/165 degrees, this is probably closer to 120/130 ? (not got one in front of me)

I think that the screen colour tempterature is acceptable, its certainly a huge step up from anything hp offered up, and with the screen films that I sent out with most of them it gives a level of reflectiveness similar reminiscent of x-black's sheen (but not )

cmonex's screen / grps issue isn't one that I have experienced with my gprs testing, I will try and replicate your discription and see what happens. One odd things that I have observed is that when you are funbling to connect up a USB lead, that can sometimes make the screen blink. I haven't observed any adverse effects from it though.

It says it on here (under point 4), even if its from a different distributer and in Finish (?):
http://www.coxion.fi/tuotetuki/kayttoonotto.html