The weather was hot and humid (like the back of a Pentium 4 laptop!) on June 26th at Transmeta's event in the Sea Grill Restaurant at Rockefeller Center in New York City during PCexpo 2002. A few dozen media, analysts, investors and industry folk browsed through a veritable crop of ultra-portable notebooks, tablet PC's, and other Crusoe-based devices as a calypso band played on. For gadget folk, it was pure valhalla...

With the first of many Martini's in one hand, and a fully-charged digital camera in the other, I set out to capture as much of the event as posible. There were perhaps 25 products on display ranging from the the newest and coolest (pun intended) Crusoe based computers, to the incredibly popular Sony VAIO PCG-U1 which has completely sold out in Japan.

There was plenty of technology to see except for one very noticeable exception - the HP Compaq Evo tablet PC which is based on the 1GHz Crusoe TM5800. We have since learned a few more interesting tid-bits which were not included in the press release, and which might explain why the Compaq Evo tablet PC is being held under tight raps. I'd bet that the mock-up computer images which were released on HP's website don't tell the whole story, and in fact, probably hide one very major aspect of the device which may give it the means to succeed en mass.

Other tablet PC's, like Paceblade's Pacebook with its separate keyboard were on display of course. The Pacebook is one of the few Crusoe-based Tablet PC's readily available on the market place, retailing for about $2,000USD. Since most people find it difficult to be productive while limited to stylus-input on a touch sensitive screen, Paceblade have designed their Pacebook to work in tandem with an infrared keyboard. Any successful tablet PC will have a difficult time with the masses unless its designers can find a way of marrying the portability of the Tablet PC with some type of enclosed stowaway keyboard, or other traditional human interface device. Lessons like this will not be lost on manufacturers who can afford to invest in longterm R & D.

There were three main Crusoe-based products which grabbed the most attention at the event. First and foremost was the OQO ultra personal computer. OQO, who wrote the book on "how not to build a website entirely in flash" have without a doubt the sexiest adaptation of a Crusoe processor - even if the realization is still a few quarters off.

Next up is the newly announced official Transmeta reference platform for developers, but we'll get to that in a second. Thirdly we have the Gericom Crusoe-based notebook. It may be true that Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and NEC have more pull with their subnotebooks, but Gericon has one of the fastest growing European notebook distribution channels.

The Gericom A2 notebook (based on the IIyama NT310S notebook) with an 800MHz TM5800 Crusoe processor will be available by Q3:2002 for somewhere in the range of $1300USD (est).

According to Michael DeNeffe, Director of Marketing for PC Platforms at Transmeta, the company is pretty pleased with the prospective markets Gericom will open up to portable Crusoe-based computing.

A few other Crusoe based devices caught our attention, so hold on for a moment before we hit the notebooks. First up are Gespac, a manufacturer of embedded industrial computers. These are not the type of computer you will ever see in CompUSA, but the type of fanless technology which powers high-reliability medical, industrial and military items. Comparable fanless platforms were limited to Pentium MMX processors running at 166MHz, so the prospects for a 800MHz fanless Crusoe processor are easy to see.

Crusoe based notebooks, subnotebooks, and ultra-sub-notebooks garnered the most attention from attendees, and one of the newest and smallest was from Sony.

The Sony VAIO PCG-U1 is so small in size that to type on it you only use your thumbs. From a western frame of mind the allure of a tiny notebook is there, but many of us have been perplexed by that small keyboard. Think of the U1 from a Japanese business persons perspective (the unit is 100% sold out in Japan) as they sit for an hour or two on the high-speed train for the daily commute. Squeezed up between other passengers there isn't much room to type on a standard subnotebook.

The Sony U1 fills the need by enabling the commuter wireless internet access while they speed off to work, and size requirements where they don't need to jab elbows into Mr. A San on the left and Mr. B San on the right.