On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 12:18:06PM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
On 25-May-05 Jonathan McDowell wrote:
The only snag is they're only available in Japan. Several companies will import and and translate one for you for around £500-£600. See http://www.shirtpocket.co.uk
I nearly bought from Shirt Pocket, but am glad I didn't as I've heard some horror stories about them since; I got a Japanese importer to send me my Z, which worked out cheaper but meant I had to do the English conversion myself and sort out my own PSU.
That's interesting information! At under £500 (how much, roughly, might one expect to pay by this route?) it becomes very reasonable. And it certainly seems to be a very attractive item.
It worked out as around £450 including the PSU and import duty. I used http://www.pricejapan.com/ but I can't really recommend them; although delivery was swift (I ordered late Monday night and had the Z by Thursday afternoon) they never actually sent me any order confirmation or tracking details nor did they reply to my email asking about this, so I wouldn't be confident of being able to resolve any issues that did occur.
I wasn't fully aware of the 4GB hard drive aspect, which makes it very interesting indeed.
What's the gen on netowrking/connectivity?
There's no networking built in, which is the major downside IMO. It has built in IrDA, a CF slot (which I tend to use for a wireless card) and USB OTG; which means it can do host or slave, but I haven't found a sufficiently cheap cable that'll make it do host yet.
Whom might one contact for importing?
I remember reading somewhere that you have to watch out for what OS is installed on it (versions differ, apparently).
Finally, in the event that I went down this route, would you be willing to advise on the conversions you mention?
http://www.trisoft.de/en_c3000howto.htm is the page I used IIRC. J. -- No bathroom? Just boldly go where no man has gone before! This .sig brought to you by the letter E and the number 10 Product of the Republic of HuggieTag