Libretto 5 or Sony PCG-U3?

[p0ntif]

Okay so i've narrowed it down to these two laptops: The Sony PCG-U3 and the Toshiba Libretto L5 I am going to use this as a personal carry laptop and I need at least 512MB ram, and VGA ports for presentations as well as the ability to hook up firewire drives, or in its place, USB drives (hard drives, CDRW, DVD, etc). I will also need a n rj45 jack for internet, wireless is also good. this will be hooked up to an LCD screen when at home, so external color and external monitor port is important! Sound capabilities are also nice.

What do you guys think?

 

[prosaic]

A couple of observations --

You said that you want firewire / usb / wireless / external VGA. The Sony has built-in firewire (4 wire variety), an the Toshiba has built-in mini-PCI card wireless (I think you have to use a PC Card to get wireless with the Sony). They both have two USB ports, but the spec is 1.1, not 2. This is fast enough to burn a CD in a little less than 20 minutes, but the performance won't blow you away if you attach a hard drive this way.

So, to get the connections you want you have to buy a PC Card wireless client for the Sony, or you have to buy a firewire PC Card for the Toshiba. Both of them require the use of adapters (or "dongles") for connection to external monitors.

Both systems use Crusoe processors. These will not blow you away, speed-wise. Their performance is, well, relaxed. The slower performance (a little slower than the 500 MHz PIII Mobility in my Inspiron, for instance) of the processor coupled with the typical slowness of a notebook hard drive means that you will need to be fairly patient.

I can't say anything about the quality of the Sony. I haven't seen one. My experience with Sony equipment has been pretty good, however.

I happen to own one of the Libretto L5s, and I absolutely adore it. It is put together like a little Swiss watch, and it has a wonderful feel to the keyboard even though it is pretty darned small for my big hands. I can type very, very rapidly and accurately using this keyboard. The unit's case is magnesium alloy, and it has a much more solid feel to it than the other tiny notebooks I've had a chance to handle. The aspect ratio of the screen (1280x600) is a bit odd, and it has taken some time to get used to it. It wouldn't be my first choice for graphics editing because of the size and shape of it, but it is absolutely the finest quality LCD I have ever seen, and the ATI graphics subsystem has performed flawlessly. I can read tiny text on it for many hours without suffering any eye strain whatsoever. The unit is also extremely quiet, making it an excellent choice and good companion no matter where you take it. It doesn't whine and whir like my huge Dell Inspiron 7500 does. And it hardly gets warm to the touch. I got mine with the external bootable CD-ROM drive and 512 MB RAM. The bootable external CD drive does NOT boot a Windows XP setup CD. It's limited, apparently, to DOS. That means that you have to do some jumping through hoops in order to install anything other than the restore CD version of the OS. I'm working with Dynamism.com's tech support people on this matter right now.

I have always carried great whacking big notebooks / laptops / portables and have always chided other people who whined about weight and size. The fact is, though, that it's nice to carry something this tiny around. It is a little slow, but I find the trade-off of speed in exchange for the unobtrusiveness to be worthwhile. In other words, I didn't need a little notebook because I have no problem carrying 50 pounds of computer gear around with me all day. I've done it for decades, and it just seems okay to me. But I didn't realize how nice it might be to have a notebook that doesn't take up so much space between myself and other people in conference rooms and on airplanes and trains and in the park. This thing is truly cool.

Your links point to Dynamism.com, and I think you're definitely on the right track there. The tech support staff has been superb so far. If the cost isn't too much of an object ask them about an extended warranty. To get one of these puppies repaired you will have to send it to them, and they will have to send it to Japan, and so on! It appears that they can manage a pretty quick turn-around on this, but you don't want to be stuck with a computer that the parent company doesn't officially support on this continent. And, while you're at it, get it insured for theft and damage. Insurance is cheap. These things are LITTLE. My Libretto would fit easily into many purses or overcoat pockets.

Do remember that sub-notebooks like these require you to carry about a lot of external gadgetry if you want to be able to back up your data on the road or install software or whatever. I probably don't actually save a lot of weight overall by having this tiny thing. But it is very comfortable to use in crowded places and in places where it would now seem really rude to open a notebook with a 15" or larger screen, thus partitioning myself off from the rest of the world.

Good luck!

- prosaic

 

[p0ntif]

Thank you so much for the little writeup! it was very informative!
yeah Firewire is a definite must for the laptop as firewire drives are seeing more and more use.
I wonder if they will release a new model of these sub notebooks in the next six months, as 6 months from now is when i will purchase one of these little guys.
thanks for the info!

 

[prosaic]

The Japanese domestic market for these little gadgets is really hot and always in flux. I have no idea about the release timetable, though. Actually, I think both of these models are very new.

You might consider the Toshiba Portege line. There was a new one due out in February that had, if I recall correctly, USB 2.0 ports / wireless / Ethernet / modem (but I'm not sure about firewire). I'm sure you can find it if you go to the Toshiba site. The site is kind of attrocious, but that model would be worth looking at. It's a bit bigger than the Libretto. I started to order it, but I had to get a computer right away (in January) so couldn't wait for the particular Portege model I wanted.

On the other hand the Libretto is really terrific. I'm just as happy that I wound up with it. And it has been wonderful dealing with Dynamism.com. Good people.

I wish you good luck. There are a lot of very nice subnotebook designs out there, and I have found the quality of industrial design in this segment of the market to be markedly better than almost all of the rest of the portable computing market. The designs tend to cater to people with very particular tastes. It's just wonderful to have a computer that doesn't creak and groan, a computer that doesn't feel like it's going to disintegrate on me. I have a Dell Inspiron which cost me almost $5,000 three years ago. It has had 10 serious repairs, the least serious of which required over a week to get fixed -- despite my so-called next-business-day service contract. The case on the thing is absolutely shot.

I've used a lot of different notebooks and have found the business level IBMs and Toshibas to be the best designed and most carefully made out of those that I have used. (I have also seem some impressive HPs, again amongst their business models, not the consumer grade stuff.) From now on I'm staying well away from the consumer grade notebooks. So-so quality control is just too annoying to deal with when you need to depend upon a device of this type.

- prosaic

 

[gaidin123]

I see that that site was what you were looking for.

I would push for the Libretto too as it's screen is 10" 1280x600 vs the Sony's 6.4" 1024x768. However you may note that the Sony is an 933Mhz Crusoe while the Libretto L5 is 800Mhz...Also the Libretto has integrated wireless whereas the Sony does not as far as I could tell.

Gaidin

 

[dannybek]

You might want to check out the Sony with the Celeron 600A processor.

 

[p0ntif]

That's actually what I am checking into. And i do believe that the Sony U101 is what i am going to go for

 

[jschuk]

I like the Libretto's as well, but I haven't had any experience with any models since the L3. The two Sony picture books that I have handled (a PII300 and a Crusoe 500Mhz?) seemed to be well built as well. As far as warranty issues go, the Sony might be a little better to deal with though I haven't heard many great things about Sony's service. I don't think you would go wrong with either decision.

--Prosaic--
Are you using a PCMCIA CD-Rom that is recommended by Toshiba? If so, make sure you have it is slot 0, and if that is the case, then you may want to try a couple different BIOS settings (auto selected, cardbus/16bit, PCIC compatible). Of course this is assuming the drive is a PCMCIA device. I don't have any suggestions if it is a USB drive.

 

[prosaic]

Originally posted by: jschuk

--Prosaic--
Are you using a PCMCIA CD-Rom that is recommended by Toshiba? If so, make sure you have it is slot 0, and if that is the case, then you may want to try a couple different BIOS settings (auto selected, cardbus/16bit, PCIC compatible). Of course this is assuming the drive is a PCMCIA device. I don't have any suggestions if it is a USB drive.

Thank you for the suggestions.

The PC-Card CD-ROM drive (Panasonic KXL-830AN) is recommended by Toshiba and by Dynamism.com for use with the L5. It doesn't work with standard Windows installation CDs for the people at Dynamism.com, either. It boots up okay, but you get a blue screen at the point where the setup screen announces that Windows is being started. Neither I nor the people at Dynamism.com can find a way to get into a BIOS setup program. It is their (Dynamism.com tech support) understanding that this isn't available. Instead the user is provided with a hardware setup program that works from within Windows. It allows elementary level control of boot device order and some other basic hardware control functions, but that's about it. No combination of settings serves to allow Windows to start from the CD-ROM.

The boot order can also be changed on-the-fly at reboot time by using the left and right arrow keys to select the appropriate item from a group of icons that appears at the bottom of the screen right after the POST. None of those choices does the trick, either.

The CD-ROM drive does have a set of four DIP switches on the bottom. Unfortunately, I have no clue as to their function. Labels are all in Japanese, as are all manuals for the drive and the computer. I haven't got around to playing with variations in the DIP switch settings because this isn't a serious issue for me, since Dynamism.com keeps its customers up-to-date with new self-installing Ghost images including new service packs that do boot and run their setup properly using the drive. Looks like there's no appropriate driver for the device in the WinXP database. And you can't connect both the CD-ROM drive and the external FDD (PC Card also) at the same time. BTW, there's only one PC Card slot, so slot 0 it is.

Other than this minor annoyance the system has been perfect so far. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who needs a Windows 2000 or Windows XP subnotebook. As I recall it Dynamism.com will supply either OS for the system.

Anyone considering purchasing a subnotebook in their stable should talk with the folks at Dynamism.com. I have found their sales and tech support people to be knowledgeable and frank about the features, both pro and con, of the equipment they sell. I purchased the Libretto over others partially because the people at Dynamism.com mentioned it as feeling somewhat more robust than the other subnotebooks, and I have had enough of working with flimsy portable systems. (I actually considered buying one of those hardened rubber-coated metal jobs. )

- prosaic