WILLCOM D4 (Sharp WS016SH) Tested by Akihabara News
Posted on 19 May 2008, at 2:47 am, by Judie Lipsett
GA of Akihabara News gets all the goodies! He was invited by Willcom (located in Tokyo) to test their hot new Willcom D4. Evidently their office is right next door to his, so it wasn’t much of a trek; lucky guy. 
For those who aren’t aware, the D4 is based on Sharp’s WS016SH. We have a 1.33GHz Centrino Atom Z520 CPU (one of the first UMPCs on the market carrying it!) Windows Vista, 40GB HDD, 1GB RAM, a 5″ 1024×600 TFT touchscreen all in a compact size of 84×188x25.9mm and weighing 470g… Nearly first generation PSP size!
Uh oh, another UMPC running Vista. How did it do? GA managed to catch it all on video. I’ll make you head over to his site to see the D4 in action, but in the meantime I’ll share a few more pictures and meaty tidbits…
As seen on the video, the D4 suffers a little with Vista… It’s clear that in order to use Vista, you better have a powerful system, and clearly inadequate when running on a mini-portable type UMPC. However, owning a Vista running Sony UX92 (DSS), I can tell you the D4 seems faster.
The screen looks great with a good resolution, even when viewed outdoors. The touchscreen responds very well with the stylus, and remains accurate when manipulated with your fingers (just don’t move them too fast… engineers are working on improving this point).
I remain skeptical about using of Vista with a UMPC and Atom, and I wonder if the lack of information released concerning Vista’s reliability on this platform is not simply due to Vista being too greedy with resources… In fact I was told that the Windows XP D4 was very fast… I believe it!
Overall the D4 is a beautiful machine, the latest generation to date with a flexible slide keyboard system. It’s fluid and robust, easy to handle with just one hand, with a very solid screen hinge system that when straightened resembles that of a classic portable and offers a multitude of configurations for various uses.
Did I whet your appetite? If so, then you had better head on over to Akihabara News to be sated. 
