Memories of the NEC Mobio NX

Netbooks, subnotebooks and other tiny computers. Don't need to be vintage, but vintage ones are also welcome.
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Kyodai
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Memories of the NEC Mobio NX

Post by Kyodai »

Yesterday I played around with one of my NEC Mobio NX MB12C/UDA1. So I thought I'd shed some light into the murky world of Mobio NX models. SO at first here comes the model overview:



mobioNX MB12C / UD

This is the first model and UD means they come with an old fashioned DSTN display. Intel Mobile MMX Pentium 120 MHz. 16 MB base RAM. NeoMagic's MagicGraph 128ZV Graphics card, Windows 95. The "sub" models only differ by software and Memory expansions included:

MB12C / UDA1-memory 16 MB, model without Office software
MB12C / UDC1-memory 32 MB, Ichitaro Office 8 pre-installed
MB12C / UDD1-memory 32 MB, Word / Excel pre-installed




mobioNX MB12C / UV

Actually same as UD, but with a more practical TFT display. Also all models come with 32 MB RAM.

MB12C / UVA1-Model without Office software
MB12C / UVC1-Ichitaro Office 8 Pre-installed
MB12C / UVD1-Word / Excel Pre-installed




mobioNX MB20C

Featuring an Intel Mobile MMX Pentium 200 MHz. All models now have 32MB of base memory and can be upgraded up to 96MB. Unlike the MB12C system all displays are now TFT. Graphics card is NeoMagic's MagicGraph 128ZV + and they come with Windows 98 or Windows 95. This was the last mobioNX ever made.

MB20C / UVA4-Windows 95, no Office software
MB20C / UVT4-Windows 98, no Office software
MB20C / UVU4-Windows 98, Ichitaro Office 8 pre-installed
MB20C / UVV4-Windows 98, Word / Excel Pre-installed





My personal mobioNX are both MB12C / UDA1 - with the cheesy DSTN display. Somehow I like these STN displays especially because of all the flaws they got. DSTN is super slow - where gamers discuss if a TFT should have a refresh time of 8 or 4 ms the DSTN can rather be measured in seconds. If you close a window it rather "slowly fades away" and your mouse cursor leaves a trail - even though you clearly disabled that option in the settings. That also makes scrolling what i would call an "optically unique experience". With DSTN you also constantly keep fighting with a phenomena called "ghosting" which means that larger geometric figures on the screen like for example the edge of a window - influence neighbouring parts of the screen. So most of the time you'll play with the contrast and brightness settings trying to find a halfway usable combination.

For every day work the TFT would obviously be more practical, but being more of a collectible I prefer the DSTN display simply because these are a rare collectible these days and a glimpse onto the very beginning of LCD screens.
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