Video: Sharp Mebius NJ70A Netbook with LCD Trackpad & Optical Sensor

Whilst, to a very large degree, we limit the number of netbooks we cover here on TFTS – mainly due to the fact that so many bring nothing new to the table in terms of features and capabilities – the newly introduced Sharp Mebius NJ70A netbook is wholly deserving of its mention here due to being the first netbook to offer an integrated LCD trackpad.

In terms of general specifications, the Sharp Mebius NJ70A netbook is a fairly standard affair in being Atom N270 powered, offering a 10.1″ display, integrated webcam and sporting a 160GB hard drive but the addition of a 4″ LCD trackpad certainly distinguishes it from the throng of Atom powered 10.1″ netbooks currently doing the rounds.

The Sharp Mebius NJ70A netbook’s LCD trackpad comes with optical sensor and runs at 854 x 480 resolution and boasts full handwriting recognition – allowing you to write notes either with a fingertip or stylus directly via the pad itself, and, apart from being cable of running its own applications (Sharp demo a piano and calculator app, as can be seen in the video below curtosy of Akihabara) also supports gesture control (specifically multi-touch) allowing you to dynamically scale content, such as documents and webpages, much in the same way you would with the likes of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch (and in the same was as with a Mac Book and a number of Acer netbooks that have supported trackpad gesture controls for some time).

There’s no word from Sharp at the time of writing concerning the Mebius NJ70A netbook’s pricing, however, both black and white versions are set to release sometime in May in Japan with further international rollouts assumedly happening sometime thereafter.