Epson Announces the Perfect Business Notebook, but Good Luck Trying to Buy One in USA:
The notebook PC market is a complex one—practically every manufacturer is trying to follow Apple into the thin and light market, even as Apple quietly admitted defeat this week, discontinuing the 12" MacBook with a lone USB port and 3.5mm jack after four years. This race to make thinner laptops has impacted even Lenovo's business-focused ThinkPad line, with the 13.3" ThinkPad X390 limited to one M.2 SSD, soldered down RAM, and a battery that can only be replaced if you unscrew the case.
Naturally, this direction has upset many in the ThinkPad enthusiast community, as the brand has strayed from the user-serviceability that made it the go-to option when the brand was under IBM's stewardship. In an interview with TechRepublic, Lenovo's vice president of global commercial portfolio and product management Jerry Paradise noted that "Our job is made up of a series of trade-offs, it's never one perfect answer," noting that professionals who often travel in airports "are a big segment of our customers... they want less weight, and they want something that slides down their bag and doesn't take a lot of space."
Epson's just-announced Endeavor NA520E delivers all of the features of classic ThinkPad systems, at a lower weight than the ThinkPad X390, and with competitive specs—adding just 2.1 mm of thickness allows for two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, two M.2 2280 SSD slots, a 1080p display with narrow bezels, up to an Intel Core i7-8565U CPU, a wealth of ports, and durability without being a tank. But you'll have to buy it in Japan.
[...] Epson's PC business is a Japan-only, built-to-order operation, making the prospect of purchasing one a complex task. Likewise, it is only available with a Japanese keyboard—which is perfectly usable in English, though with a smaller space bar.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:55PM (3 children)
Sigh. I remember when the first VAIOs came out in Japan. Half the weight of NA laptops at the time, blazingly fast for the time - faster than my work desktop which was only about a year old. Then 3ish years later NA got them with the same component specs but a thicker heavier case. :/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:12AM (2 children)
Well, yeah, that's the American version. Look at cars on the road in Japan vs. cars on the road in the US.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by goodie on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:58AM (1 child)
was about to say this... In Europe, stop/start has been a standard feature for at least 10 years. In NA, it's reserved for luxury brands. like seriously, we are screwed...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:14PM
in America, start stop is not a luxury feature anymore.
hi Honda pilot has it and it is a piece of shit.
The amount of gas this could potentially save is basically nothing, and in return, you get much greater wear on the battery and your starter. They have to be oversized to take the increased wear and tear of always starting and stopping car and it makes for an unpleasant driving experience.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:55AM (1 child)
Your letter E only has 5% life remaining, please order an E refill soon to prevent disablement of your CPU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:47PM
10 minutes later... Your lttr E only has 5% lif rmaining, plas ordr an E rfill soon to prvnt disablmnt of your CPU.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:20AM (1 child)
I can't read any of the text except the english fragments but judging by the pictures and measurements Japanese customers demand a much greater level of detail and information than us poor buggers get when we go online shopping.
Link from TFS https://shop.epson.jp/pc/note/na520e/ [epson.jp]
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:53AM
At least they're polite about it.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:48AM (2 children)
A VGA port, in 2019? It could be forgiven if there was a Displayport, but I only see HDMI. Sigh.
One of the few upsides of the stupidly thin laptop trend is that the VGA port is now too thick, which has finally started to kill it off. Which should have happened more than a decade ago, but whatever.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:36AM
Many businesses and organizations have projector installations that are years old, and most older projectors only accept VGA and maybe S-Video. It is always funny to see the blank or confused expressions of people with their "thin and lite" laptops trying to present and unable to connect.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday July 11 2019, @10:56AM
Yes, great that they are killing off VGA and replacing it with HDMI. Err, I mean DVI. No, actually I mean DVI-AB. Oh sorry, DisplayPort. SCART anyone? F*ck it I will just get my dongle.
Great that there was a standard. The whole video-port is now a complete disaster area.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:34PM (1 child)
I'm okay with needing a screwdriver to replace the battery on most modern laptops that generally have a battery life of around 8 hours for typical business work. I'm also okay with the single M.2 slot so long as I don't need to sacrifice WiFi to use it for the SSD. I'm not okay with soldered down RAM. I made that stupid mistake a few years back. It cut the usable lifetime of the laptop in half.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:34PM
Also, one of the great features of real Thinkpads was the ability to replace the keyboard - switch German to UK, to USA and back to French again.
Your family may only be US English (or Japanese) speakers. My family is not. If I need to support a French speaking family member, then I want
to put a UK keyboard in while I reinstall Linux and all the apps they want. Yes, we have a Yoruba keyboard as well (but not for Thinkpads).
No, no ransom-ware here, thanks, Mr Gates. Its all yours.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:32PM
Except the TrackPoint.