Kohjinsha SA1F00B Mini Review
There are few things less useful than gadget reviews where the reviewers simply show a few photos and rehash the published specs. All too often that's because the reviewers haven't had more than a few hours to work with the subject machine. I've now had a few days of hands-on time (including one business trip) with my Kohjinsha SA1F00B, so hopefully I can offer something a little more insightful.
What's in a Name?
The SA1F (in both SA1F00A and SA1F00B forms) is a hard machine to categorize. It's clearly too big and expensive to be considered a PDA, and the fact that it runs a full PC operating system further removes it from that category. At first one might be tempted to put it in the sub-UMPC category. Microsoft's minimum UMPC specs are pretty hefty (some would say overkill) and several machines have surfaced to fill the UMPC role but with sub-UMPC specs. This new Kohjinsha shares its processor and screen resolution with machines in the sub-UMPC category like the PepperPad 3 and the Raon Digital Vega, but its laptop-like clamshell form factor and full (almost) keyboard deviate pretty significantly from other machines in that class. Its form factor is more akin to the sub-notebook class of machines like the Toshiba Libretto U100, but it falls well short of that class in terms of both specs and price. So, for lack of an existing classifier, I'm going to call the SA1F a "sub-notebook-lite" (or SNL).
Thinkpad T30 vs. Kohjinsha SA1F
Kohjinsha SA1F vs. Zaurus SL-C760
The Specs
On the surface, the basic specs for the Kohjinsha SAF1 are not really all that impressive. A 500 MHz AMD Geode CPU, 800x480 non-touchscreen LCD, 512 MB of RAM, and a 40 or 80 GB hard disk. Things look a little better when you consider that WiFi (802.11g) and Bluetooth (2.0 + EDR) are included, as are a 10/100 wired Ethernet port and a pair of USB 2.0 ports. But we're not done yet ... there is also a Type I CF slot and a combo SD/!MemoryCard slot.
Now consider that Kohjinsha managed to package all that into an under 1 kg clamshell with a keyboard, convertible (tablet-PC style) screen arrangement, and battery that will get you nearly five hours of runtime and you can't help but raise an eyebrow. Factor in that you can get all that for under $1000 (well under if you opt for the 40 GB model), and one can't help but wonder if it is all to good to be true. I'm here to tell you that it is true, and that the machine so far has done an admirable job of living up to my expectations.
Initial Setup
My SA1F came from Conics.net with the English version of Windows XP Home and all the necessary drivers pre-installed. Getting started was a simple as hitting the power switch. Booting to the XP Home login screen was quicker than I expected -- about 25 seconds. Another 15 seconds from login and the desktop is up. I've since added some apps that run at start-up stretching my login time to around 25 seconds, but I can still go from power off to a working desktop in under a minute, and that's pretty good in my book.
The 80 GB hard drive came with two roughly 40 GB NTFS partitions as seems to be common practice for Windows installs. I prefer to have everything on a single partition, but I've left it alone for now. My initial thought was that I may end up installing Linux into the space occupied by the second partition (though I'm now having some doubts about whether I really want to do that).So for now I'm installing all my apps to the C: drive and keeping my data (mostly MP3s and video files) on the D: drive.
Firefox 2.0, Thunderbird, and Skype were already pre-installed on the system. To that I added MS Office 2003, Google Talk, UltraVNC, and iTunes. I also installed Cygwin to get a more Linux-like environment and a variety of other utilities that I'll discuss in future blog posts.
All of the software installed easily. I was worried that the lack of Direct3D support in integrated video controller in the Geode's support chip might cause problems with some more recent applications, but no problems so far.
For benchmarking purposes I've also installed OpenOffice 2.0, but other than timing startup, I haven't spent any time using it. I have a tendancy to write everything in Vim. The only reason I bother to install MS Office is because the rest of the world doesn't understand the dangers of WYSIWYG.
Internet
One of my main uses for the SA1F is internet access. Both on the road and around the house I want to have convenient web, email, and remote access (VNC and SSH). Both WiFi and Bluetooth dial-up through my Cingular 2125 were trivial to set up and work flawlessly. It's worth noting that both radios can be turned on and off via function keys on the keyboard. As delivered, my SA1F defaulted to booting with both powered off so I was a little puzzled when I couldn't get connected to my AP at first. Once I realized the problem, a quick Fn+F4 to power on the WiFi got me connected right up.
I also discovered that when suspending and resuming the machine, the WiFi and Bluetooth go back to their default boot up states ("off" unless you've changed it). I use the WiFi frequently and found this behavior a bit annoying so I've since changed my BIOS settings to default to WiFi on and then I manually power it off when I don't need it.
With WiFi alive and well, Firefox and Thunderbird work very well on this machine. I was initially worried that the relatively low screen resolution (800x480) might be a problem for modern applications, but these two seem to handle it well. A few of the settings dialogs don't fit, but an ALT-SPACE gets you to the move menu where you can use the keyboard to reposition them even with the title bar off the top of the screen. I do heartily recommend that you take the time to learn the Windows shell's keyboard shortcuts, as they come in handy in situations like this.
Firefox launches and gets me to the "Firefox Start" page in exactly 8 seconds. Thunderbird starts up in about 5.5 seconds. These times are with no other major apps running. If you're worried about the Geode LX800 being slow to start apps, don't be. No, it's not instantaneous like it would be on a high end desktop, but it's plenty fast enough to not become a major annoyance. And when I compare this to the time required to get Firefox going on my Zaurus C760 under either pdaXrom or OpenZaurus, the SA1F seems lightning fast.
For web surfing, the convertible display (it rotates 180 degrees and then folds down over the keyboard) is convenient as it gives you a more web-pad like form factor. The lack of a touch screen in this mode is a bit of a hindrance, but the trackpoint cursor control on the left teamed with mouse buttons and scroll buttons on the right works reasonably well. XP does include an on-screen keyboard that you can use in this mode for very limited text entry (the occasional username and password) so you don't have to periodically flip back around to keyboard mode.
Office Applications
MS Word 2003 launches to a blank document in about 2.5 seconds. Excel is faster yet, coming up in about a second. This is with a standard Office install including the fast-launch utility. With its own quick-start utility running, OpenOffice.org Writer launches in about 6 seconds. OpenOffice.org Calc came up in about 3 seconds.
I didn't notice any problems running any of the office apps, but then I didn't try any particularly taxing documents. For PowerPoint warriors, the built in VGA port is a particularly welcome feature.
Video
Of course we all know that the real reason folks take laptops on business trips is so they can watch movies on the plane 
The SA1F doesn't have an integral optical drive, so watching your favorite DVDs isn't quite as easy as one might wish. You're presented with two choices: watch ripped DVDs from the hard disk, or connect an external optical drive.
Early reviews and Kohjinsha's own spec sheet indicate that watching DVDs from an external optical drive can lead to poor playback with stuttering and dropped frames. Besides that, having to carry around an external optical drive (even one of the slimline models) seems to defeat the purpose. If you want to carry around that much, get a slightly bigger notebook PC with a built in optical drive.
Watching ripped DVDs from the SA1F's hard disk makes a lot more sense. With the 80 GB disk, you easily have room for a half dozen DVDs in raw MPEG2 format. And if you compress them to MPEG4 (DIVX, XVID) or WMV then you have room for quite a respectable video library. Note that when I speak of ripping DVDs, I'm referring exclusively to DVDs that you legally own.
I haven't had time to do a lot of testing with video, but I did try a couple of XVID compressed movies. The movies were ripped and transcoded at native DVD (720x480) resolution, 25 fps, at about 1500 kbps with full 6-channel AC3 sound. Windows Media Player 9 choked on the audio format and refused to give me sound, however the Windows version of MPlayer played the files back perfectly. Sound (via the headphones) was good and the video was smooth with no apparent dropped frames.
Video on the Kohjinsha SA1F
The SA1F's 7" widescreen LCD is an excellent size for watching video "on the go". The picture is sharp and bright with good color saturation. The LED backlighting appears very even across the display with no bright or dim areas. LCD response time is a little slow which can muddy up scenes with a lot of fast motion, but I tend to be not very sensitive to such things. It is worth mentioning that the LCD seems to support only 16-bit color. The display driver supports 24-bit color, but 24-bit color gradients on the LCD show the same color banding in both 16-bit and 24-bit mode.
Audio
When I'm in the office, I've become quite fond of using the SA1F as a (really big) MP3 player. It runs iTunes nicely and with an 80 GB hard disk, I have plenty of room for my complete music collection. An additional plus is that it can run the Last.fm "scrobbling" software so Last.fm can track all my listening and not just when I'm playing music on my home PC.
Audio quality on the microscopic built-in speakers leaves a lot to be desired, but sound with headphones is excellent. The volume range is good (it can go quite loud) but the hardware volume control adjusts volume in relatively large discrete steps. This is particularly noticeable at low volume levels. Fortunately, this seems to just be a limitation of the volume control, as adjusting the volume in Windows Media Player or iTunes gives allows much finer adjustments.
Battery Life
In my first draft of this review I almost forgot to mention battery life. Not because it's only average and not worth mentioning, but because it's so good that I don't have to worry about it. Kohjinsha specs it at 5 hours. And though I'll admit that's a bit optimistic, reality isn't to far from it.
My experience has been that if you can keep from hammering the CPU, you can achieve a solid 4+ hours of run time -- even with WiFi running a good portion of that time. With WiFi and Bluetooth off, the backlight turned down, and no CPU intensive apps running, it is possible to get pretty close to that 5 hour mark. Stock up a few ebooks or a big batch of RSS feeds and you'll have enough juice to get though any flight in the lower 48 states
The really good news is that even when being a lot less conservative, battery life is still better than many notebooks. My experience playing back MPEG4 video is that you should still be able to hit nearly three hours. I'll be picking up a second battery as soon as they become available. With a second charged pack in tow, I should be able to make it through a normal day without ever stopping by an electrical outlet to top off the tank.
Keyboard
I've saved both the best and worst for last. The SA1F's keyboard is both its best and its worst feature. It's the best feature simply because it exists. For me, having a machine this small that I can still touch type on is incredibly valuable. I spend a great deal of time working with text, be it source code, documents, email, or blog content. For me, any computing device bigger than a phone better have a QWERTY keyboard of some type. And if it's a real keyboard I can actually type on (as opposed to thumb typing), even better.
The SA1F has an almost normal QWERTY keyboard, but that almost part can be a real challenge. For starters, it's a Japanese keyboard layout and not US. In all fairness, that's not Kohjinsha's fault -- it's a Japanese machine But if you're reading this, chances are you are used to the US keyboard layout. What's the difference? Mainly punctuation characters. For example, going through the shifted number keys on a US keyboard in order gives you !@#$%^&*(. However, on the SA1F, you get !"#$%&'(). Not a huge difference, but if you're a touch typist, training your fingers to go back and forth between US keyboards and the SA1F keyboard may be challenging.
Kohjinsha SA1F Keyboard
The second keyboard problem is that in order to get the size down and still maintain a 16.8 mm key pitch (which is smaller than normal for but still comfortable) Kohjinsha had to get creative with the layout of the "auxilliary" keys. We're not talking about radical changes here. The number and letter keys are where you expect. The left half of the function key row has normal function keys. The arrow keys are in the normal inverted T pattern in the lower right corner making them easy to use as well. The far left side has the typical Esc, Tab, Caps Lock, Shift, Ctrl layout though the keys are much narrower than most keyboards (tab is a particularly small target). So far so good.
But on the right side of the keyboard, all bets are off. Enter and Backspace are where you expect, but there is no right shift key at all! In addition, many of the other keys normally found between the rightmost letter key and the right edge have been scattered into the right side of the function key row and a few other odd locations. Combined with the already challenging Japanese layout, my fingers found themselves quite confused. A particularly problematic example for me was the ':' character. The Japanese layout moved it from its normal home as Shift-; to an unshifted position on the Quote key. Then Kohjinsha moved the Quote key from its spot between ';' and Enter, to a location below the Enter key and to the right of the UP arrow key.
Fortunately I've learned to use a pair of Windows tools to change key layouts to something my fingers have a better chance of figuring out. I'll write up details in a future article. The down side is that key labels no longer reflect reality. If I happen to drop into "hunt and peck" typing mode, I have to consciously remember what I've remapped things to.
The last keyboard problem for me is "feel". The SA1F's keyboard is very firm. It takes a good solid strike for a keystroke to register. And with the smaller than standard key pitch, it's easy to hit keys off-center making it that much more difficult to get a solid stroke. If you like a soft keyboard, you will be frustrated by the SA1F. To make matters worse, keys can "break" (travel past the point where you feel them click) without actually registering. That makes it very difficult to tell by feel if the keystroke registered. Again, this is something you can adjust to, but it's not particularly easy. I find I have to watch my document like a hawk to make sure I don't miss type anything.
In terms of quantitative measurements, "speed coefficient" seems to be a pretty good way to objectively measure keyboards. If you multiply your typing speed on a standard keyboard by the speed coefficient, you'll get an idea of how fast you can type on the new keyboard. On the SA1F, I measured the keyboard's speed coefficient at 0.65 (60 WPM / 39 WPM). Obviously this isn't a perfect measurement. Really fast typists (100+ WPM) will probably see an even bigger loss of efficiency, and I may be able to raise my efficiency through continued practice. But I think that a 35% - 40% loss of efficiency when typing on the SA1F is a pretty good estimate for the average user.
Conclusion
Aside from the keyboard, I absolutely love the SA1F. The machine strikes a great balance between power and practicality. It is completely capable of doing all the tasks I hoped it would. At this price point, nothing else even comes close. The keyboard is my only gripe, but it's a fairly significant complaint. I'm hopeful that the keyboard will "break in" a bit, but even if it doesn't I find that between re-mapping the keyboard and re-training myself, I've been able to adjust to the point where it's usable as is.
When my SA1F arrived I figured I would give it a week or so probationary period. If it didn't work out in that time, I figured I could easily turn it around on Ebay and get my investment back. As a result, I left all the factor decals and finish protectors in place. I'm now happy to report that Friday the decals came off so the SA1F is here to stay for a while
However, I should offer one final word of caution for those considering an SA1F: your productivity will go down a bit due to all the time spent showing it off and explaining it to curious onlookers! A machine like this is quite a surprise to the average computer user and when used in a public setting it can be quite a conversation piece
