Just Ordered the Kohjinsha SR8 w/ built in DVDRW!

just ordered the new kohjinsha SR8 from conics.net - 7inch led screen with built in DVDRW and 2gb ram! its on its way i cant wait! has anyone owned of the older models? apparently the SA series was too slow to even watch youtube videos with that old 500mhz amd processor! but this latest one has an intel A110 and the 2gb ram so it should be fine (i hope)

 

cool, have you gotten it yet? what do you think?

 

wow, that is one feature-packed umpc. wow, dvdrw huh? i would love to read a review of this laptop, just watched the youtube video @ conics.net and i only want more

 

Ive now got my kohjinsha! its really awesome and i now using it as my primary computer! the keyboard is obviously smaller than a normal one but i am typing at 80% the normal rate so its really usable! vista runs a bit slow and im now dual booting with xp tablet edition -xp is absolutely rapid and even allows me to play games like gta vice city or counter strike. the built in dvdrw is great and i love having the laptop as a portable dvd player and burner. it is so lightr and portable and is by FAR the best umpc ive ever used. however battery is not great - but i only bought the cheaper 3 cell battery - a 6 cell is available. also xp gives MUCH better battery life.

feel free to ask any questions about usage etc!

 

Mini Review – Kohjinsha SR8

So, after many years of waiting, I finally found what I though was the perfect UMPC. Whatever anyone else thinks, I HAVE to have a built in disc drive on a laptop, I am always watching dvds or burning them – its probably my primary use as a travel a lot. I couldn’t believe my luck when at last kohjinsha released a laptop form factor umpc with built in dvdrw drive!

I have never written a review before so please excuse its rubbishness or areas omitted. Ask any questions about the laptop and I will try to answer but I am certainly no computer genius!

Hardware

It has to be said it does look rather obscure – the battery sticking out the back is the main reason – but when opened I really like it – the screen bezel uses the same piano black as on the Vaio TZ keyboard area.

The ports and physical features are as follows:

• 2 x USB 2.0
• 7” LED rotatable passive touch screen
• VGA port
• Ethernet port
• Sd/memory stick reader
• Compact flash slot
• Wireless switch – for wifi and bluetooth
• Mic/headphone jacks
• Volume rocker switch – you push it in to mute and move left or right to adjust volume
• DVDRW drive – internal!
• Built in 1.3mpx webcam above screen
• Speakers below
• 2gb ram – standard is 1gb but I got it upgraded
• 60gb hdd
• 800mhz A110 intel processor

There are buttons around the screen bezel for mouse left and right, scroll, rotate screen, enter, directional keys, brightness and mouse pointer. A stylus is also stored on the top right hand side. There is also a built in 1seg tv tuner but its useless unless you live in Japan. The usual laptop track pad and buttons are below the keyboard – they are pretty tiny but still usable.

The keyboard is small but very easy to use in my opinion once you get used to it. I can type very happily on it even though I have quite big hands – but I am sure some people would have difficulty with it. There are Fn keys to turn off/on wifi, Bluetooth, sleep or change screen resolution. I think it looks a bit odd generally, it looks old and dated in comparison to the rest of the laptop but maybe it is just me. Also note that the keyboard is Japanese layout only at the moment.

Generally build quality is solid but feels a bit tacky as everything is plastic but it is not a big problem for me.

The screen is fantastic – really bright and vibrant and colours look great. It is a joy to watch films or browse pictures and I am so glad that kohjinsha chose LED over LCD.

Software

It comes bundled with origami experience windows software, tablet software and webcam studio – very little software included above the standard vista apps which I like as it does not affect performance too badly.

Running Vista Home Premium it is not that fast – but certainly not unusable. Apps take time to load but usually run fine when started. Programs like Media Centre are a little slow to respond and itunes is the slowest app I have found to load and use.

I installed XP Media Centre and I am now dual booting both operating systems – this easy as the hard drive is already partitioned into C: and D: drives. With XP it is really fast – the difference between it and vista is staggering and I certainly recommend you to get it with XP if you get it from Conics.net. I love using it on XP and it is now my favourite computer!

Wireless performance is great – both in range and speed and it never hangs or loses signal. Bluetooth works perfectly.

DVD playback is perfect on both Vista and XP using the included WinDVD software or
VLC media player.

The webcam is great quality – especially the video – and works faultlessly on skype or msn messenger etc.

I have had some problems with the touch screen – even after calibrating it does not respond exactly where I tap but it is almost perfect. The bundled software is great for browsing media and handwriting recognition is very good. I never really use it with the screen folded down with the stylus but I am sure some people like this – it looks very similar to the Samsung OQO in this form factor.

Overall it is a really great umpc and I LOVE it, the price is high but I definitely think it is worth it. Again, I apologise for the review – I have never tried one before.

 

Let me be amongst the first to say that this is a GREAT mini-review. I wish I had one! It has everything I would ever want in a UMPC. The keyboard on the notebook though does seem to be little small, but I could quite easily see myself getting used to it, like you did. DVDRW is AWESOME and the extras (bluetooth, webcam, mem. card reader) make it even better. I'm a little disappointed in the touch screen though, but I guess that none exists that's 100% perfect. Also, I have to raise an eyebrow at the 800mhz processor; is it good enough to run modern-day apps? Still, no matter how I look at it, I could definitely see this notebook being my first UMPC sometime in the future.

One question though: will the thing fit in your pocket?

 

To answer your questions, the processor seems to handle apps fine - things like adobe photoshop work perfectly. i would say that xp and 2gb ram are the two things you need to ensure great performance - which is what i have. sadly it is definitely too big to fit in a pocket - although the screen is the same size as say the toshiba libretto u100 there is extra length either side on the bezeland at the back where the battery is.

one other thing i forgot to mention is that there is no firewire port - i know it is unlikely that anyone would use it on such a small machine but i would have liked it for some basic video transfer from a dv camcorder via windows movie maker or a similar app.

 

Ah, firewire doesn't matter, though I'm surprised you can actually use photoshop on that machine! Very neat! Just out of total curiousity, have you ever tried running any of the older 3D benchmarking apps (like 3DMark01 or '03) on it? Would be nice to see the results, and you did say it could run counter strike, so...

 

Special note, on the Japanese keyboard the @ symbol is next to the P key, this will apply even if you hook up a US keyboard. I spent 10 min trying to figure out how to type in my email address with my Logitech keyboard.

If you own a Samsung Q1, this will be smaller and thinner to tote around than the Q1 with the organizer + keyboard, plus you get a DVDRW.

The display panel flips back and downward, this is good if you have it connected to an external vga monitor and your not using an extended / clone desktop.

 

Yea sure, I be happy to run a 3dbenchmark app, how do I do it?? Yes it does play counter strike but ONLY on xp - on vista it is far too jerky and slow

 

It's pretty easy! Seeing as how 3DMark05 or 3DMark06 would probably have a hard time running on your machine, I suggest that you go with 3DMark03 ( click here to download it). You install it pretty much like any other program, and then when that's finished, just click the "Start" (or something along those lines) button to begin the benchmark. It will run the program at stock settings and then give you your 3DMark03 score at the end. Although 3DMark03 is a bit outdated, it still provides a pretty good assessment of how good your notebook's 3D performance is. And then you can always get rid of it when you're done!

If, for some reason 3DMark03 can't run on your system (or fails to install or something) another good benchmarking app is Aquamark, which you can find here.
It's a smaller install too, so if you're running low on disk space, you might just want to opt for that Aquamark instead.

 

how well does it do HD? My Eee can't play hd at all, and I'm curious =)

 

do you mean hd dvd or video file? (sorry im not that technical) if its a video file could you send me a link to a sample one or something?

 

I have to say that is a really neat little machine you have there. I think I would love this thing. =)

 

I am surprised they managed to cram a DVD drive in there.

But the thing I noticed is that this model only has a 60gb HDD option vs up to 120gb in the previous models? I think the previous models used a 2.5" HDD and this had to use a 1.8" HDD?

 

yep you are right, although the cheapest option did have a 1.8" hdd.

 

Yeah, looks like they did have to downgrade to a 1.8" HDD from 2.5" HDD in the previous models to fit the DVD drive in there, not sure if its worth it.

A DVD drive can be useful, but so can a 2.5" HDD with much larger capacity and faster speed.

 

yea I agree but my computing needs are fairly minimal and a 60gb at 4200rpm still does me fine

 

hi i am from greece and i am ready to pay for:
one [1] Zero-Shock case for Panasonic, Kohjinsha and other PCs
> - Colour Mat Black
> - Version for all Kohjinsha
> 13.86EUR

> two [2] Kohjinsha Stylus Pen
> - Colour Black
> 16.13EUR
>
> one [1] Kohjinsha AC Adapter for all SA1, SA5, SH6, SH8, SR8
> - Plug shape Adapter Type C (Germany, Europe etc)
> 48.51EUR
>
> one [1] MonoMobile Screen protector for Kohjinsha SA1 / SH6 / SH8 / SR8
> 13.86EUR
>
> and
> Kohjinsha SR8WPO6A, SR8KPO6A Touchscreen, DVD-RW!
> - Colour Black
> - English OS YES, required
> -one Extra Battery Large LBATZZ02 [5200mAH]
> - Keyboard JP International (NO other otion)
> - Memory to 2GB
> - one Plug shape Adapter Type C (Germany, Europe etc)
> - one Screen protector MonoMobile Screen Protector
> - Windows Version Vista Home Premium
> 1.076,83 euro
>
> total
> all of them are about 1170 euro

i have some questions if you know :
1 wand to buy it from conics net , can you tell me if there are something better of conicsnet and do you know if somebody has problem with conicsnet ;i know and http://www.kabatek.com/
1. if i will have problem to use it to my country about tv and AC Adaptor [we use 220 volt]
2. if i can upgrade os myself to ultimate vista Greek language or to win xp greek
3. where i will find drivers for vista and xp
4.how many hours i can use it wit small batary and large battery
5. do you know about temperature with foul use
6. if i have problem with hardware where i can repair it.
7.if there are some special web sites about it
8.if you know how i can conect Compact Flash HSDPA Card [is a connect card that let you connect to HSDPA network, up to a maximum of 3.6Mbps] like
The [ http://www.slashphone.com/69/5459.html] SoftBank C01SI Compact Flash HSDPA Card
or VC701SI vodafone
http://images.google.com/imgres?img...01SI&hl=el&rls=GGIH,GGIH:2006-51,GGIH:en&sa=N
or if you can tell me something else about Compact Flash HSDPA Card but no
usb [i have almost one.
9. if i can use Spectec SDG-810 SDIO receiver GPS + card microSD 512MB with chipset SiRF Star III
SDG-810

Special Features:

SiRF Star III with low signal levels and high sensitivity acquisition
Built-in GPS omni directional Antenna
Supports 20-Channel GPS all-in-view tracking accuracy
Real time navigation for location based services
Colored LED shows GPS signal fixed or searching
http://www.spectec.com.tw/sdg810.htm
.
10. do you know something more about tv on it
11.can you tell me more about sr8
i am sorry about all of these questions .if somebody knows something about some of my question pls lets answer to my .
sorry for my English

 

fmc159, did you ge teh 3dmark 3 running? what scores did you get?
fromthe edge of the screen how far does the bezel take before it hits the LCD?

this is looking like the perfect UMPC for me. and the price is not too bad!
was consideringthe fujistu u1010 (u810) but this withthe dvd rw build in is great!

 

hi .pls do you know if i have problem with hardware where i can repair it.i live greece.

 

spyrospas, as far as i'm aware there are no Kohjinsha specific repair centers out side japan (if there are any there) you will have to go to normal PC repair stores or send the laptop back to who ever you bought it from for them to claim warranty.

 

hi, sorry for the late reply spyrospas

1. i had no problems with conics at all and so would recommend them and ac adaptor will work perfectly
2. yes you can upgrade to vista by yourself
3. The drivers and all installers come copied to the c: drive in c:/kjs folder!
4. small battery about 2-3 hours, large battery about double
5. sorry i dont know
6. nowhere that i know to get it prepared
7. www.kohjinsha.com.sg/
8. sorry i do not know
9. do not know
10. the 1seg tv tuner has been known to work in some european countries but the driver DOES NOT COME with the computer

thebranded

will get round to runining 3dmark at some point!

 

How does it play HD?

 

How long did it take for you to receive the computer? Do you live in USA? If so, what region? I am asking because I ordered the Kohjinsha SR8 from teh same website you did and I want to know approximately how long it takes for it to arrive here.
Thanks