Willcom D4 adds L version: Lower price, Less Office, Longer runtime
If Vista in your pocket makes you happy, you’ve no doubt seen the Sharp Willcom D4 handheld computer. When the device hit the streets in Asia earlier this year, you couldn’t touch it through an importer for less than $1,500 or so and some folks were understandably disappointed in the short runtime. Willcom aided early adopters by including a free extended battery with some purchases and has now integrated that 2880 mAh power pack into a new version of the device, called the Willcom D4 Ver. L. I probably would have opted for "Willcom D4L", but I’m no marketing guy and I have insomnia on a Saturday morning, so what do I know?
There’s no major changes to the device itself, but Microsoft Office is no longer included with the unit. That might be helping to offset the cost a bit because the new package can be had for 97,700 Japanese Yen. Some quick conversion shows that to be around $907 US, which is a vast difference from early pricing. You’ll still need to import it outside of the native selling area, but with a longer battery life and a lower price, this might be more appealing than it was a few months ago to some.
(via Pocketables)
This is the best UMPC I’ve found and with this new lower price, and increased battery included, I am sure Sharp will have a lot of people interested in buying one.
this is certainly much improved at $900 & a bigger battery. glad they took out MS Office, it should have never been there to begin with.
what kind of battery life does the the big battery get?
The improved battery gets 3 hours of battery life which is still enough to make it work for me. Check out pocketables.net as they have some great reviews on the D4 with a lot of detail and pictures. So far this is the only jacket pocket UMPC that has Vista with no problems, is a slider and clamshell, wifi, and a more normal keyboard.
Where or when can u buy it?