Geekonomics

A closer look at the Kohjinsha SX 8.9-inch

Oct 24, 2008 14:56

I've not really tried the predecessors of this sleek little thing before but was told it's really popular. Given the design and features of the Kohjinsha SX3KP06MS, I'm hardly suprised.

I'm in Dubai now but managed to run this machine to the ground recently at the Moscow airport and on the flight to Dubai. About close to 3 hours of maximum performance with everything on--Wi-Fi, DVD, etc., on the standard battery. I think you can get 4+ hours on power-saver mode. And then close to another 7 hours on balanced mode on the extended battery. For this I managed to switch off the DVD player, yes, there's a cool little switch for that, and the Wi-Fi for half the way on the plane. Call me a happy camper.

Some things I really liked about this machine:

Performance
Running the Intel Atom processor Z520 (1.33GHz) with 1GB RAM, this machine performed pretty well for me, although I did not really use any big intense applications except for emails, surfing, photo processing and some office apps. Take a look at the ERPH rating further down this review for a better indication of my personal take on its performance. 

Keyboard
Although one cannot expect too much from a UMPC keyboard in terms of size and touch, I was pretty happy to clock close to my usual 100wpm, with the occasional errors when I'm using the special keys like the Alts and the tabs.

Screen
This machine boasts one of the brightest displays in the market with a swivel 8.9-inch liquid crystal display. Did I mention that it's a multitouch tablet, too?

(Bright LCD screen with swivel)

Power saving
I must say this is the first computer I've used that allows me not only to turn off the Wi-Fi with a switch, but also another special switch to turn off the DVD player. Anyway, I did not really time this closely. But if I did turn off everything and just worked on power-saver mode, I think I'd have been able to get 4.2 hours of battery life with a standard battery and 8.2 hours battery life with the extended battery.

Dual camera
Although most laptop computers come with a built-in Webcam facing you these days, Kohjinsha found that many of its users would like to have cameras facing the other side, too. So it came up with a dual camera design, with 0.35-megapixel (front) and 2-megapixel (rear) cameras. This REALLY reminds me of our mobile phones and pushes the limits of this UMPC as a mobile device.


(2-megapixel camera behind the UMPC screen).

Slim and lightweight
The SX3KP06MS is in only a B5 size, including built-in DVD drive. It's really light at around 1.25kg with standard battery and only approx. 22mm thick. It comes with a really cool carrying case which has a strap that doubles as a Kensington lock, too. Talk about neat design!

Built-in DVD writer
Now how many UMPCs of this size do you see come with a built-in Super Multi DVD Drive? None, if you take a quick survey around the market. Not even many of the Netbooks, and definitely none of the Eee PCs.


(Built-in Super Multi DVD Drive)

Connectivity
Although I didn't manage to try the Bluetooth Ver 2.0+EDR, the WLAN: 802.11b/g/n worked really well for me at the airport in terms of range and stability.

Card slots
Besides the standard ExpressCard/34 slot, Memory Stick Duo, SD, MMC, this baby comes with a microSD slot, too!


(SD and microSD slots)

ERPH: Email responses per hour
Of course, what is a Geekonomics gadget review without a personal indication on the ERPH rating, right? First of all, let's look at my personal benchmarks of 20er/h on my desktop which is blazing-fast and 15er/h on my laptop. ERPH is my personal benchmark on the productivity the machine gives and it is also based on the machine's performance because I normally have around 100 open windows at once and a slow machine just won't be able to keep up with me. At the Moscow airport, I managed to do around 12-13er/h on this baby. Not bad for my personal standard, I'd say, not bad at all!

Full technical specs found here.

This Kohjinsha is retailing at S$1,499 and is distributed by iKnow Pte Ltd which is also the distributor of Besta, Toshiba, Fujitsu. So you don't have to worry about service and support. iKnow is the parent company of PA Mart which you can easily find at Funan and Sim Lim Square. Available in Singapore now.

(Signing off from Dubai)

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