1. The home screen

Here’s the most important screen of all: Home sweet Home. You’ll immediately note the four distinct “tabs” down the bottom, and the quick launch bar of pre-supplied apps.

What isn’t so obvious is that this is one of five “home” screens, but take a look at the top-right and you can see it’s the middle screen, as denoted by the bubble.

2. All the apps

I also mentioned in my first-look review that I was impressed by all the apps that were already on show, and you can see them here in their full glory. To access this screen (or to hide it), you just press the grid of buttons found on the bottom of the screen at the right.

3. DataViz Documents To Go

Toshiba is working in partnership with DataViz to provide a full-screen version of Documents To Go that provides full editing capabilities, but strips out certain features – such as the word count in the word processor.

You also can’t create new documents, but (as I mentioned in the first look) that’s easy enough to get round: just create a blank document on your PC, sync it across and use it as a virtual template via the wonder known as “Save As”.

Documents To Go also includes a spreadsheet, PDF viewer and presentation tool, and I include screenshots of them all below (and yes, the PDF viewer does look rather similar to the presenter):

4. File Manager

The AC100 includes an SD card slot and a USB port: just plug in your card or drive and their contents will appear in Toshiba’s File Manager. Right now, it’s best described as basic and functional, but it does offer a simple way to access and transfer files directly.

5. Picture gallery

And finally, for now at least, the picture viewer. Simply double-click on a picture to view it.

To be fair, my impressions weren’t helped by the fact that the IFA wireless connection was flakier than the plot of Snakes on a Plane. This meant I couldn’t test the JournE’s flagship offering, which is the ability – according to Toshiba’s Marco Perino – to browse the web like you would on a desktop PC.

Even if I could, though, there are some immediate problems. This is a tablet device and there’s no stylus, and because Toshiba has chosen Windows Embedded as the operating system of choice (with a version of Internet Explorer as the browser) there’s an over-reliance on tiny buttons.

As a piece of hardware, though, it makes a good first impression. Even though mine was an early sample, it still felt solid in the hand and it’s light too – you could hold the JournE Touch for quite some time without feeling the strain.

As can be seen from the photo above, there’s a conveniently located 3.5mm headphone jack, while the lesser used ports – USB, mini-USB and the SD card slot – will usually stay hidden away courtesy of the pull-out plastic cover.

In tough conditions – the IFA hall was brightly lit and very loud – neither the screen or speakers made much of an impression, but we’ll wait until the JournE Touch arrives in our Labs before passing proper judgement.

Don’t tell Sharp that the MID is dead, though – it’s just introduced a brand-new MID device at this week’s IFA Berlin trade show: the PC-Z1.

Weighing in at just 409g and measuring a mere 161mm and 24mm deep, the PC-Z1 feels feather-light in the hand and surprisingly sturdy: the 5in screen barely flexed, there was no hint of desktop distortion and the rest of the unit felt surprisingly durable.

Sharp dresser?

We’re less keen on its design, though, which is something of an acquired taste. Every sample model Sharp has bought to IFA is finished in an off-white colour that doesn’t go particularly well with the glittery, pink-hued hinges and, while we’re assured that the PC-Z1 will also be available in black, we’ll reserve judgement until we see one of those models in the flesh.

This is one of the first devices we’ve seen using the MID-specific version of Ubuntu 9.04 and, while it looks broadly similar to the desktop versions of the open-source OS, there are links to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube directly on the desktop. Firefox and a cut-down version of OpenOffice 3.0 are included, too.

Inside, Sharp has ignored Intel’s MID-specific Atom Z series in favour of an 800MHz ARM-based Freescale i.MX515 processor, which has a mighty 256kb of L2 cache and a 32kb instruction cache. It’s not the most sensible, choice, though – when we tested the PC-Z1, we found that OpenOffice took almost a minute to open and the rest of the system felt sluggish.

The rest of the specification is weak, too. 512MB of RAM is soldered onto the motherboard, and the 4GB of flash memory results in only 2GB of user storage once Ubuntu has been loaded onto the machine. 802.11b/b wireless and a card reader are also included and, although Freescale’s website boasts that the integrated graphics chip can decode 720p video, we’re not holding our breath.

This meagre specification does mean that the PC-Z1 should have pretty decent battery life, with Sharp claiming up to ten hours before you’ll have to head back to the mains.

Ergonomic Issues

Unfortunately, the Sharp’s keyboard is one of the worst we’ve ever used. The buttons, which are smaller than those on the average netbook, rock from side-to-side when touched, and their diminutive size means that it’s impossible to peck at the keyboard even slowly – and touch-typing is totally out of the question.

The slow components don’t help, either, with many of our button presses taking an age to register or simply not appearing on the screen at all. Typing a couple of sentences took an age, and we’re not sure that we’d manage to finish a whole page – by that time, the PC-Z1 surely would have been flung through the nearest window.

Mouse control is handled by a small Blackberry Storm-style touchpoint that lurks above the right-hand side of the keyboard. It’s not quite as disastrous as the keyboard, but it’s not a total success, either: small movements often went unnoticed and it’s all too easy to slip a finger beyond its parameters and have to re-adjust. The pair of mouse buttons, which sit on the left-hand side, felt about as weak as the keyboard did – and liable to failing sooner rather than later.

The 5in screen offers a surprisingly good resolution of 1,024 x 600 – the equal of many a netbook – but quality, sadly, is lacking. Our brief time with the PC-Z1 revealed a grainy, pale panel that struggled to do web pages justice.

We’ve got bad news if you’re looking to buy one of these unique machines, too – at the moment, Sharp only plans to release the PC-Z1 in Japan, where it’ll be hitting shelves in around two weeks. We’ve been reassured that Sharp is looking to bring the device to Europe, pending customer demand – and, if it does make it to these shores, it’ll cost around €360.

Although, when you can buy an A-Listed netbook for less cash, why on earth would you want to?

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