This must be the fourth time we’ve heard that XP will be coming to the Menlow platform in the past few months. First there was the Wibrain i1 (sadly, delayed until 2009, we hear) then there was the Dell Mini 12 (again, where is it?) then there were rumblings about Aigo getting XP drivers out for the Aigo MID and now its Kohjinsha’s turn. According to Akihabara News, they’ve announced that the SC3 and SX3 will be available with XP in December.
We’ve got an SC3 gathering dust here in the office. While the form factor is good, the construction is nice, the H.264 performance is awesome and the screen is fantastic, the battery life, ahem, sucks, and the Vista build is just way too unpredictable to be used for anything approaching mobile productivity. (Trust me on this. I’ve tried many times!) Tests with Windows 7 proved that battery life could be improved (my test results in this thread) but it doesn’t really provide an increase in confidence when you work with a pre-beta OS.
Fingers crossed then that Intel and Kohjinsha’s part suppliers have come up with the goods that might transform the SC3 like it did the Q! Ultra:
Immediately, even after just the first few seconds of use, it was clear that the device was a lot faster and a lot more fluid than with Vista. I guess I shouldn’t have been suprised! Boot time was quick. The disk light wasn’t flashing like a Vegas slot machine. [source]
Keep an eye on the Japanese Driver page and if you spot those XP drivers, let me know!
Via Akihabara News.
November 28th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Why did they released this devices with vista in the first place is something i don’t understand? Was just a drivers question? What were they trying to prove? It was more than obvious that vista at this point would never be practical on a netbook. Even mid end laptops and desktops are still struggling to have a decent vista performance what did the think the could achieve on a netbook?
All the best,
Joao
November 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
They have released xp driver and I have posted the link in the forum.