Casio chooses Crusoe

Japanese consumer electronics company Casio has confirmed it will next week unveil a new member of its Casiopeia PDA family, this time based on Transmeta's Crusoe CPU.

The Casiopeia Fiva is a sub-notebook machine, running Windows ME rather than CE, the OS of previous Casiopeia's. Casio hasn't said what speed the machine will run at, but reckons Crusoe gives Fiva six to nine hours' of continuous use on a single battery charge.

The A5-sized machine sports a 8.4in 800x600 colour LCD, 100Mbps Ethernet, 56kbps modem, IEEE-1394 and USB ports, and PC Card and Compact Flash add-in slots.

Fiva will be demo'd next week at Comdex in Las Vegas. Casio didn't say when the machine will ship.

Casio's decision to go with Transmeta follows Sony's use of the CPU in its own sub-notebook product, the Vaio PictureBook, and confirmation form Fujitsu, NEC and Hitachi that they will use the chip in similar machines. Meanwhile, IBM, Toshiba and possibly Compaq have decided that Transmeta's products are not for them, or at least their mainstream notebook PC lines. ®

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