NEC introduces "PC Parafield" hard disk-less notebook

NEC has announced what they claim is the world's first commercial hard drive-less laptop, the 12.1-inch (1024 x 768), 1.73 GHz "PC Parafield." Targeted almost exclusively at corporate customers, the Parafield aims to combine the security of network-dependant thin-client systems with the flexibility of  regular notebooks by including 3GB of flash ROM for Windows XP Pro and application storage along with 512MB of RAM. This 2.8-pound road warrior's delight can be had immediately (in Japan, that is) for $3742.

[Via MobileMag]

[researchgeek @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

at almost $4k, you have to concede that less is more, isn't it?

[torkhum @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

$3742 -say what? what you suppose to do with this harddriveless labtop? designed for corporate customers who do what with it? will it be able to save data or is it a proxy keyboard/access point to a system/database that only allows the customer to login and do business? I see a pointless machine and waste of engineering time in this?
Want a free gmail? go to my web site and click on contact me on left side... you will receive an invitation afterwards.

[armoursin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Wow, a whole "512kb" of RAM? They really spared no expense.

[d3 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

If the 3 gig's is ROM and the RAM is cleared on shutdown, then you can't save any files anywhere. And its $3742? That great. So what exactly are these corporate users supposed to do with it?

[n8 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

2.8 lbs doesn't sound like any significant weight savings either. What's the point of having no HD? Now if it came with an HD and STILL had 3GB ROM, that might be something worth looking into.

[Chu Chu @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

#3 do you understand the meaning of "flash rom"?


This machine must boot up ridiculously fast.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

#3 - The only true enterprise app: Solitaire

[rtheman @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Better question is, how would you access any data on the road? Wireless i assume? Or NEC assume that you must also carry external flash storage devices?

This would be a great "dumb" terminal as it would solve a lot of Security Tie-Down features so idiot users won't screw up the apps and/or system that ultimately ties back to the centralize server.

[Karl @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

no disk drive? so no live cd support.. that could have been pretty cool.

[xman @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I don't understand why can't they just use the flash drive in ipod nano, like 2 of 4 gb nano flash drives. Moreover Samsung should made the deal with apple ipod that they can sell their flash drive to other companies as long as others don't use their flash drives in Mp3 player products.

[willyjsimmons @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

#4 yep, intel just demoed a new tech (Robson) that loaded the OS and apps in 1/2 the time compared to 'normal' PCs.

#3 no HD also means longer battery life.

#5 if you're lucky, Pinball!!!!!!!

[Jacob Varghese @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

It's a total ripoff as I see it.
Small screen, very little ram, very little flash memory.
This computer should be selling for less than a $1000.

[hydrogen_wv @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Amazing... It'd be awesome for a person that is always on the move, such as a univeristy student. I'm sure most of the price is due to it being new technology and such.

I'd love to have this. At 2.8lbs, it's lighter than any of my textbooks, and it's so slimline I could store it anywhere. Not to mention fast startup and such would mean that it'd be there when you need it. Not to mention that if you take notes on your lappie at univeristy, and you have 6 hours of classa day, you won't have to worry about battery life (My current laptop has a whopping battery life of about 2 hours).

Oh, and about the iPod... I'm sure a 3gb flash memory unit is mad expensive. Do you want your iPod to cost you $500-600? And once again, a person that uses iPod and Mp3 player synonamously (Sp?).

#8 - 3GB of storage is plenty for corporate people. About 500MB for the OS, another 1gb of apps, and still 1.5gb of storage, that'd be a massive database, or heck... probably enough for some incredible 3D images or videos done in 3d studio max.

[Christian @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Hmm, let's see. Thin client hardware ($300) plus 3 GB flash ($200 max) plus a 12.1-inch screen ($200). So... either Engadget's yen-to-dollar conversion is screwy, or NEC is making about a 10,000% markup on that flash memory. Either way, at $3800, not many "thin client" companies will go for it.

[dalton @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

My Tandy laptop had no hard drive in 1990. It booted DOS off a floppy disk. Hah! First commercial hard drive-less laptop my hiney.

[Dave @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

hmmm.....my desktop support team would love this machine, the ticket queue would be like 0! Of course they would probably be bitter after lay off's.

I also seem to remember running similar machines back in 1994, they used floppy boot disks and only needed 16mb of RAM. They were speedy and easy to support....

[PeterDie @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

And what about the HP Omnibook 300 (1993), it came in two flavor: one with and one without a HD. It ran windows 3.1
Had a fabolous pop-out mouse

[The Spartan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

#14 300+200+200=$700, retail $3742 which is approximately 500% markup, not 10,000%. Add in labor, R&D costs, licenses, compare to other ultra portables, not that far off. Plus this is being marketed to corporations, which reguarly spend $3000+ on reliable notebooks.

Every large office I've worked at, all of the software has been over the net, none of the computer. Not only does it stop people from screwing with the application files, it also saves install time and is a good way to limit user accessibility. With wireless networks growing, you could bring this notebook from your desk, to the conference room, to home (connecting to your office over a VPN). Its an excellent idea.

Personally, I'd like to see this with a 14.1" screen and large hard drive. Flash ROM for system, hard drive for storage. This would also get consumers to actually buy software from the notebook manufactorer instead of installing it themselves if the software came preloaded on the ROM.

[Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Try a Maxbook. They've been around for a while now, handle 512 MB of RAM, have a 256 MB of flash memory and you can plug in a freaking hard drive if you need to. There's an unused IDE connector under the palmrest.
http://www.maxspeed.com.au/products/maxbook.htm

[peter @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

this price just doesn't add up, sure i bet this baby would boot xpp like.. 10 seconds, but thats all there is about it. a speedo, if it was made into ultra thin & light form, with amazingly-long battery life, this $3700 tag might worth it. but the way i see it, anyone could have took out hard drive in their laptop, pop in a knoppix disc and made it into a "hard drive-less laptop", whats the big deal about it? (plus you could get rid of microsoft's softwares, how good is that ?)

[Michele Johnson @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Why is this cool? There isn't enough memory and it's too "thin"!

mj
http://www.junglemungle.com

[ebp2k2 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

at best the notebook will be used for tasks that do not require hundreds of gigs... and it says it will not turn off unless the work is saved onto the server, or a USB key... great, but defeats the whole purpose IMO.. USB key is easier to lose than one whole notebook.

[yelohbird @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

On the plus side, systems software on ROM means no viruses or other malware =)

On the minus side, it also means that every single time windows update comes up with a new security fix (not to mention the company upgrading its software, etc.), some corporate sysadmin has to go through the trouble to flash the ROM ...

And all this trouble for twice the price of laptops with the same processor, huge hard drive, more RAM, and an optical drive...go figure

[cuby @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

they'll sell these fairly easily, and justify the price as a "security improvement". it doesn't matter that they have achieved this improvement largely by eliminating components; security is security, and that's of great value to many corporations.

[Carl Lumma @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Freakin' awesome. But I wonder if NEC remembers their original Versa had a silicon hard drive.

[Nobuyuki Idei @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Can't store too much pr0n on that thing. Corporate people like that.

[Paco @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Bad:
1. Flash memory has a limited number of read and writes.
2. Flash memory really is not all that fast in reading and writing. Check the numbers on the stuff it is pretty slow.
3. Way over priced. I paid $1100 for my Compaq with about the same guts but a 15.4" screen and a 100Gb hard drive. So that puts the 3GB drive at like $2700?

Good:
1. Pretty light weight, but i can't see a 12" lappy comming in at much more.
2. It should have a really nice battery life. I get about 6.5 hours so I could see this maybe hitting the 10-11 hour mark. Run all day long and charge it when you are sleeping.
3.

[iBill @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

make's for one mighty fine doorstop.

[Pal @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Very nice, it's about time one of these came out. Flash-based solutions for desktops have been available for a while now, but ah...this makes more sense.

For those wondering, the flash memory is protected by a battery backup (seperate from the battery that powers the laptop itself). Think of it as an SNES cart game with a save feature - it saves your games via the battery. The thing probably has a redundant battery, just in case that one dies, because if it does - poof - it's all gone.

Can't wait till those flash drives become a bit more affordable. Maybe the recent Samsung fiasco will change the tides in the coming months. It'd be nice to have a 100GB flash-based drive in a laptop that's lightning quick.

[Bobby @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

At least the hard drive won't crash now. Don't have to worry about shaking or dropping the thing while it is on. Vibration and heat, the two main causes of premature hard drive failure in laptops.

[Dan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Sorry Pal, but you're wrong!

RAM loses it's memory when it loses power, but flash memory does not. Flash mem is non-volatile!!!

[KRoot @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

At Pal:

Flash memory does not need a battery to keep its data. The memory that is in SNES carts snd the such is SRAM, which requires power to keep its data.

[The Spartan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

#24 Its Flash ROM so it won't be written to. Also, Compaq sucks. Throw away computer.

[Michael @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I see that many people are really hung up on the idea of have huge amounts of storage space on their laptops... Why?

Having a small amount of storage is not a bad idea.

Other than some of the benefits of the flash ROM that others have pointed out (lighter weight, faster boot-up, and longer battery life), I add the following:
Large corporations with data to protect DO NOT like the idea of employees traveling the world with large amounts of corporate information. Corporate travelers could lose their notebook and lose lots of data. If you do not back it up, you also risk losing information that will have to be reproduced. It is not wise to store large amounts of information on your laptop if it is really important information.

The solution is to use/work from a shared drive and carry only what you need. If you use shared drives in your work space, it is better to work off these while at work and sync them to your c-drive. Windows XP has made this quite simple. I personally, cannot recall when I needed more than 1 Gig of information at one time. If you mark a file (or folder) "make available offline," your lappie will see the drive even when you are not connected to your companies� network. You can work on the file as usual and it will sync when you are again connected.

I began doing this, 2 years ago, after hearing of several people�s experiences of hard drive crashes or lost/stolen laptops while they were traveling. So if you buy into my perspective, it�s not such a bad deal.

[hm @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

lol,

this is pathetic how many didn't read the article properly :P, and when they do, they don't know a thing about flashrom or anything.

it has 512 MB (not KB!) ram.... thats plenty.

you CAN write to flashrom, the name ("rom") is inaccurate. now the question is does NEC allow writing to it? technically you can...

anyway this laptop is too big for me.. if it were much smaller (like 5"-7" screen, oh and 600 g at most) i would be all over it.
it is promising though, maybe in the future..

[Dito @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

"Local storage resides in the computer's RAM, which is cleared when the machine is switched off, thus removing any potential security risk from data theft but also requiring a backup before the computer is switched off. This can be done with a central server or, should a network not be available, to a USB memory device, Onodera says."

so apparently, you cannot use the 3GB as storage for your files. it also says a bit below this that the 3GB is for the OS