Sharp Actius MM10

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Fast
Look & Feel	Excellent
Comfort & Portability	Excellent
Robustness & Durability	Excellent
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Small and light
Disadvantages:	Battery life could be longer

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I am sitting here in the library typing out a review on one of my latest acquisitions, namely a notebook. Not just any notebook, but the Sharp's Actius MM10 or in the UK, it might be the MM100.

I bought this little baby while in the US about a year ago and it has accompanied me since then on all the trips I've taken. It is safe to say that so far, this machine has managed to accomplished all that I needed it to do, well almost all but a little bit of that later.

Configuration of Notebook by virtue of importance IMHO
======================================================
1. Weight
This little thing is less than 1 kilogram or 2.1 pounds according to the little sticker on my notebook. I have weighed this on a scale at the airport, to the amusement of the crew at the check-in counter. I do not see the point of lugging a computer the weight of an Encyclopedia. And this suits my needs very well. Something small, light and fits in my handbag!

2. Size
Did I mention the size? It is less then A4 in both length and width and in thickness, it is at most 2 cm thick. Fantastic, isn't it?

3. Battery Life
Ah, how long it last. Running on battery, this notebook will last me approximately 2 hours under intense surfing and emailing. It is supposed to last 2.9 hours but that only happens if I have one text based editor with nothing going on in the background. I usually have the internet radio on while I surf the net or when I'm writing, so battery consumption is high when I am using this.

Sharp sells an extended battery pack for 200 dollars in the US. This is supposed to run for 9 hours but it is slight bulkier. I might have to consider buying that eventually.

4. Disk space
I have a large 15 Gb (Gigabytes) of disk space on board my little computer. This has been pre-split (thanks to Sharp) into 2 virtual drives; C with 10 GB and D with 5 GB. At this moment, I have used 7 GB on my C drive and nothing on the D drive. I wish I have more but I guess that might be difficult to put into this little thing. Software takes up a good 5 GB and the rest are really just my photos which I should really backup on a CD. I use my notebook for writing and transferring photos so 15 GB is not a major issue, at this moment.

5. Display
The size of the LCD screen is around 10 inches. According to them (Sharp), its 10.4 inches, I really can't imagine what or where the 0.4 comes from or goes to. The difference is only 1 cm, so my question is why couldn't they have made a screen that is either 10 or 11 instead of 10.4 inches?!?

6. Memory
Important for loading large files. This computer is loaded with 256 MB of RAM. Its okay as long as I do not want to look at all my photos at the same time. This is especially critical when I want to perform a slide show on my photo collection. The computer becomes very slow when the number of photos increases as the software attempts to load thumbnails into memory. Could do with a lot more memory.

7. Processor
Its brain! It has a Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 1 GHz Processor. Not top of the range which is now around 4 GHz or so for notebooks. This is sitting at the bottom of the brain speed range but I am happy with it. Not as if I plan to compute the fluid dynamics of the aerofoil of a plane with this ...

8. Input/Output Ports
It has 2 USB ports, 1 audio output port, 1 VGA converter cable (which I have never used) and a connection cradle which allows me to communicate with a PC. More of this later.

9. Wireless Connection
I can't live without this now! This allows me to connect to the internet without cables following wherever I go. This notebook is equipped with standard IEEE 802.11b wireless capability, thus allowing me to download from the internet at a top speed of 11.0 Mbps (Mega baups per second). The newest wireless notebooks have the 802.11g standard which has a higher bandwidth, allowing you to download more quicker, at 54 Mbps.

10. Modem
If required, the notebook comes equipped with a PC card, allowing me to dial up. I had to resort to this to connect to the internet while in Australia, so I know it works.

11. Ethernet LAN (Local Area Network).
If you are in a place with internet but no wireless, the notebook provides ethernet connection although I have to buy the cable for this. It has a 100/10 Ethernet LAN, whatever that means. Could it mean that it allows to download or upload between 100 Mbps with a minimum of 10 Mbps? I've no idea.

12. PCMCIA type 2
I have this towards the front of the keyboard, a slot for me to put in my compact flash card. Very useful to transfer small files from my notebook to PC.

13. Connection Cradle
I believe this it the unique feature of a notebook from Sharp, but I might be wrong. The notebook comes with a connection cradle that allows it to become an external disk space to an attached personal computer. With the cradle connected to a PC, and the notebook in the cradle, I could access all the data in the hard drive of the notebook from the PC. Cool huh? This makes it so much easier to transfer all the photos from my travels to the main computer to backup and if necessary, to create a CD. The cradle comes bundled with the software that enables its behaviour. It was very easy to install on my PC. I did not have to do anything on my notebook.

14. Keyboard
Can't have a notebook without this, since I type faster than I speak. The buttons of the keyboard I believe is 90% the size of those found on a standard keyboard. So, people with large fingers, watch out, you might have the tendency to hit two keys instead of one. Luckily for me, this petitesquirt has petite fingers too!

15. Last of all, the Operating System.
Not that important but the notebook came with Windows XP loaded. Given a choice I would have liked Sharp to preload this with both linux and windows, linux for my writing and surfing the net while windows for games and photos.

16. Misc
I don't know if this was part of the deal I got, but it came with an antivirus, 2000 minutes of free wireless service with Tmobile and 200 minutes of free internet with AOL. Not that I've used any of these but I have so far subscribed to a full year of virus detection service with Norton Antivirus.

Pros
====
I love my nifty little notebook. It so light that sometimes I think that I have missplaced because I do not feel its weight in my bag. For its purpose of writing and surfing the internet whereever I go, this is a fantastic little one. I have also used it to store all my photographs taken on trips before returning home.

Cons
====
There must be some bad points with each product, as there isn't such a thing as a perfect notebook, is there?

Well, first the keys, as mentioned before, might be a bit too small for all users. They are also rather loud for typing, it is not possible to touch type in bed with this, which to me, defeats the purpose of a notebook.

It is also missing a light indicator for the Caps Lock key. There is no indicator of the Caps Lock key. So, there is no way to know if I had hit the Caps lock key accidentally, unless I type something.

There is an audio output port for earphones but no audio input for microphone. Why? I mean, its not difficult to add another port, the sound card supports audio input explicitly anyway and there is space! Instead, I have to buy a USB microphone which is more expensive than a normal one.

The battery life could be better. 2 hours or so is not much for writing by the beach. I have been know to sit somewhere for 6 hours and write non stop!

Its difficult to type in the dark. If it could have had a tiny little light, similar to that of the IBM thinpad ...

The speaker is on the underside of the notebook so any sound you hear out of the speaker is muted. Surely they could have had the speaker on the topside?

Heat dissipation is not brilliant but okay. It gets really hot on the underside of the notebook and at times, I have to stand the notebook on its side to help heatflow away from the notebook. A cold can of coke against its ventilation on the underside helps too!:)

Customer Support and Instruction Manual
=================================
The instruction manual was very easy to read and follow. Although Sharp is a Japanese company, this particular product is targeted for the US market, hence the manual did not seem to go through a translation phrase.

The customer support for Sharp USA were also fantastic. We had problem trying to boot the notebook off the DVD drive and they were very helpful to try to get everything sorted out. It seemed that the DVD drive they tested on where different to the ones shipped out.

Conclusion
==========
I love my little notebook. It travels with me now. Sharp has just came up with the latest Actius MM-20 which has a higher configuration, if you are interested. For the moment, this will have to do for me.

When I bought this, it came with a free external rewriteable DVD drive. I found that very useful for saving any critical files I have since it will write to CDs as well.

I have not had any serious crashes as yet. If it does have a major crash, I intend to install linux on it.

For its purpose, this notebook is great. Unless you plan to do a lot of computation, programming etc, you might want a notebook with greater processing power. Its very small, extremely portable and serves its purpose still.

Further Information
===================
www.sharpsystems.com
Model : Actius MM10 or MM100
Price : US$1499.00, including an external Lite-on DVD drive

I saw the equivalent MM100 at Dixons in Heathrow Terminal 1 after passport control for 1000 pounds.

Check out the Actius MM20.