Transmeta (Semiconductor) (TMTA)

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Washington Post reviews Fujitsu LifeBook P-2046. Bottom line: real close to perfect mix of capabilities, but keyboard and disappointing battery life ruin end result. Thanks LeoG for the tip to this review.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27173-2002Mar2.html

An Annoying Couple of Steps Away From the Perfect Laptop
By Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 3, 2002; Page H07

If journalists designed laptops, things would be a little different. Portable computers would never be any wider or taller than an 8 1/2-by-11 sheet of paper, since we don't have that much extra room in our luggage.
They would always weigh under four pounds, and preferably under three. Their batteries would last at least four hours, since spare electrical outlets can be hard to find at a trade show, in the airport and on the plane or train.
A DVD-ROM drive would be standard -- not for the wealth of DVD-ROM software that has yet to materialize, but because we'd like to watch a movie back in Seat 28D.
Beyond a modem and an Ethernet port, "Wi-Fi" 802.11b wireless networking would come as standard equipment. Plucking a broadband Internet connection out of the air from the nearest base station -- in an airport, a press room, a computer store, a coffee shop -- beats foraging for a phone jack any day.
Finally, these laptops would have to cost under $2,000, since writing isn't always the world's most remunerative occupation.
Thing is, such a computer wouldn't appeal just to journalists, but to everybody who could use a second computer when they're away from their desk.
I used to think that such a machine would never materialize, but these days I'm more optimistic. Over the past year or so, a small group of manufacturers have shipped laptops that have come increasingly close to this description.
By its specifications, Fujitsu's LifeBook P-2046 doesn't just approach this target -- it nails it.
This $1,799 machine weighs a bit more than 3 1/4 pounds (just under four pounds with the AC adapter), light enough for me to forget I have it in my bag. And at about 10 1/2 inches wide by 7 inches deep by 1 3/4 inches thick, it's compact enough to hold one-handed if necessary.
The LifeBook ships with 256 megabytes of memory and an advertised hard-drive size of 20 gigabytes, plus something even better than a DVD-ROM drive: a combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. The 10.6-inch color screen is compact but sharp.
It runs on an 800-MHz Transmeta Crusoe 5800 processor, the latest in a line of power-efficient, Intel-compatible chips from a Silicon Valley start-up.
The LifeBook also includes an 802.11b wireless-networking receiver and antenna, in addition to a v.90 modem and 10/100-Mbps Ethernet. (Versions of the LifeBook without wireless access sell from $1,699 to $1,499.) I was astounded to see this machine immediately and effortlessly latch on to the signal of an Apple AirPort base station. (Things weren't so easy on the second try, after I'd put Fujitsu's Windows XP configuration on the machine.)
An IEEE-1394 (aka FireWire) port on one side allows you to connect data-intensive peripherals like external hard drives and digital camcorders. Next to it sits a PC Card slot; at the back, two USB ports handle other, slower devices, such as the external floppy drive Fujitsu bundles with the LifeBook.
All that gave me a lot to like. But the reality of using this machine chipped away at my affection a bit.
The keyboard was the first and biggest disappointment. The keys look and feel about right individually, but they are compromised by a right-hand shift key that has been shrunk to half the usual width, then shoved to the right of the up-arrow cursor key.
Because this keyboard layout positions the up-arrow key where your pinky normally would hit the shift key, I kept sending the cursor up a line instead of capitalizing a letter. Sometimes I'd also wipe out the last line of text in the process.
It's a small issue, but it's teeth-grindingly annoying in daily use. Fujitsu has been selling laptops in the United States since 1996 and has no excuse for letting this keyboard escape a factory.
Battery life was the next setback. With the screen set to seven-eighths of its maximum brightness, the preproduction laptop I tried shut down after two hours of playing back digital music files. Cranking the screen brightness down to a quarter of normal bought only about another half-hour of use.
Fujitsu does offer a higher-capacity battery for $99 extra, which the company says will double the battery life. This laptop's DVD/CD-RW drive can also be swapped out for an additional battery to the tune of $179. The company claims the combination of both replacement batteries can power this laptop for up to 14 1/2 hours; take that figure with as many grains of salt as you deem fit.
The LifeBook's storage capacity also wasn't quite what it seemed. The Crusoe processor consumes 16 megabytes of RAM for the internal "code morphing" code that imitates an Intel chip so seamlessly, and a system-restore partition on the hard drive leaves 17.1 gigabytes, not 20, for your own use.
The 1394/FireWire port on the side is a smart idea, but Fujitsu took the common shortcut of using a smaller, four-pin port, which means that many FireWire devices will need adapter cables to plug into this machine. It also means that the LifeBook can't provide electrical power to any peripherals, something that a full-size, six-pin FireWire connector does allow.
Finally, this laptop's speakers strained to approach the volume of a clock radio. Even on a pair of headphones, the volume sounded a little muted.
Toting this computer around town left me both impressed and frustrated. It is so close to the traveling-laptop nirvana I have imagined -- and yet it's not there. Fortunately, there's growing competition in this part of the market. Next week I'll look at an even lighter, thinner laptop, from a company that has run up a remarkable track record of its own in portable computing.