Stylish Portability – Sharp M4000 WideNote

It’s suprising that we’ve offered zero info about Sharp notebooks here at Laptopical, despite Sharp’s achievements in the mobile world, which include bringing us the first laptop with a 3D screen – the Actius RD3D. However, thanks to a sterling article from Scott Wasson of the Tech Report we’ve been inspired to rectify this shameful situation, and introduce you to Wasson’s thorough review of the ultraportable M4000 WideNote.

Scott didn’t just crack open the cardboard box, snap a few shots with his digital camera, and offer us his shallow opinion, he spent 4 months using his silver M4000 Sharp WideNote before sharing his thoughts. One of the features that most impressed him was the clarity of the WideNote’s glossy wide-aspect display. Sharp has managed to offer a 1280×800 resolution on the M4000’s 13.3″ LCD screen – Bonus. Wasson gave another thumbs up to the almost 6 hours of battery life, granted that’s not methanol fuel cell longevity, still you’d probably squeeze 3 DVDs out of the M4000 on a long haul flight.

The stylish WideNote’s portability was another plus point, tipping the scales at a more than manageable 3.7 pounds, it sports 512MB of DDR2 533 memory, an 80GB hard drive, and an adequate Pentium M 740 processor. Ok, things have moved on a little since the “Sonoma” 915GM chipset, indeed many new laptops are now boasting throbbing “Yonah” dual core processors.

Scott does concede that cutting edge performance is not the forté of the M4000 Sharp WideNote. If you’re looking for gaming capability perhaps the high end VAIO SZ1VP would be more suitable.

Still a lovely looking laptop, boasting impressive portability, a gorgeous display, and almost six hours of battery life is worthy of closer inspection.

Read the review – M4000 Sharp Widenote at the Tech Report

By Lucy Layman – Laptopical

Wednesday, April 26, 2006