Toshiba Libretto ff1100CT/V
The wackiest Libretto yet?
Basic Specifications
>Intel Pentium 266MHz
>64MB RAM *proprietary card, NOT shared with first, second or third generation Librettos*
>6.4GB Toshiba Hard Disk Drive (special thin Toshiba disk drive, can use most 2.5" laptop hard drives)
>Windows 98 (FE or SE)
>7.1" TFT Display with High Color
Buyer beware / things to look out for
>Red or green vertical lines on screen (usually left most corner)
>Screen frame and lid are fragile, almost guaranteed to crack or break off plastic clips during disassembly
>Broken lid latches
>Crack on lid nearest to left hinge (screen facing you)
>Dead battery, you will ALWAYS have a dead battery. I have never seen a single ff battery hold a charge for more than 60 seconds
>Leaking CMOS battery (far more common with these models)
>HDD actuator arm is stuck
>Max RAM is 128MB using a very VERY hard to find 64MB Upgrade module
>Can get VERY hot
>The cooling fan is VERY noisy
>Jammed Scoopy (camera) lens
>Decent system for running old software, but performance isn't leaps and bounds better than the older Librettos, and is overall very difficult to find.
My unit
While the repair on the vinegar screen was a success, the backlight was considerably dim from use. The barely used dead unit, in contrast, has a nice bright backlight.
My rant about my own unit is going to be cut short as littered throughout the following information you will find more of my thoughts on individual things about these Librettos.
The battery
I will set the expectation now. You are NOT going to find a working battery for these Librettos. I don't know what it is about these Sony cells, but they are hot garbage. What's worse is that you will no longer find new genuine 17670 cells either, and the only other possible replacement, 16650 is in the same boat. You will most certainly be able to find recycled cells on eBay from Chinese sellers claiming them to be brand new, but that's a gamble you will have to take on yourself. 18650's will also not work as they are too large for the battery pack, in case you were wondering.
Somehow the older second and third generation Librettos seem to have batteries that still hold a charge. Your best bet would be to steal some cells from those battery packs if you can find a working one. You can also fit a Libretto L1 battery pack (PABAS009) into a Libretto ff, if you aren't comfortable rebuilding battery packs. It's really sad that it's more or less not really possible to rebuild these packs as these are intended to be portable machines, and yet all 3 of mine find themselves tied to an outlet...
Differences between the 1100CT and V
On paper the only difference between the 2 is the CT has a 3.2GB hard drive, and the V has a 6.4gb hard drive, but I've happened to notice that the CT I have has a different fan vent vs the fan vent of the V. I'm not 100% sure if this is a revision difference or model difference, but the V has far better air flow than the CT... Also, not pictured, the V includes a sticker on the screen frame distinguishing it as "Libretto ff1100 V" where as the CT does not have such sticker, and the bottom plate stickers have different model numbers. PAL110JA = 1100CT, and PL110J-32813 = 1100V
Bottom, Libretto ff1100CT underbody. Top, Libretto ff1100V underbody
Display panel woes
A Libretto ff1100V with a bad display panel
I'm not sure what it is with the SHARP panels that these (and the 100/110,SS series) Librettos use, but they are massively prone to failure, mainly in the form of vertical red stripes (although sometimes they seem to be green, as well). There is NO WAY to fix this issue. It is not a ribbon cable issue and I have tested this theory myself by swapping a red striped display with a working display (and not swapping the display cable that is ran through the right hinge. As expected, the red stripe did not persist when the known working panel was swapped over. This seems to be purely an issue with dead pixels. Even units without vertical striping likely have a few red colored "stuck" (dead) pixels on the display. If you're curious about the model # of the panel, here it is : SHARP LQ71Y03
You will not find new panels despite the claims you see. These will be used panels from China that will be highly expensive, and highly likely to have very tired looking backlights due to use. In some cases the polarization film will be replaced on the panel if marks/scratches were once present.
That said, there is still a chance you will get a very nice bright used display, it all comes down to whether or not you want to take the gamble. Personally I would rather buy an entire good working unit for the cost of the screen panel alone and swap parts over.
Not so fragile, but still fragile...
The nice thing about these Librettos is that you can actually take them apart without any problems... Kind of.
The entire bottom half can be taken apart with no repercussions, but the display is a different story. I guess due to stress and cheap plastic, the clips on both the lid (there are two, one below each hinge) and the screen frame are prone to cracking/snapping, causing undesirable cosmetic damage. I suggest leaving the screen assembly alone unless you absolutely need to get in to replace something. Even still, it's probably just about as much to source a good parts unit on Yahoo Auctions if you can find one.
There's also a fatal design flaw of some sort on the lid of the laptop. Due to the hinges being secured with plastic mounts that have brass threads fitted into them, for whatever reason the left hinge puts a lot of stress on the plastic mounts + lid, and causes some real nasty cracking to develop. Just about every single Libretto ff will have this issue, it's unavoidable. If you need to take apart the screen assembly for whatever reason, you might as well apply a light layer of JB weld inside and over the crack (from the INSIDE of the panel) as well as along the base of the plastic mounts. This should fill in the crack and help evenly distribute pressure to slow down the crack from getting bigger.
300MHz hardware overclock
If you're feeling crazy enough ,there is a hardware overclock that you can perform to boost your little Pentium all the way up to 300mhz. This bumps up the FSB if I'm not mistaken, meaning the system memory will run a bit faster too. You can find out more about it here (Japanese only, sorry!). I tried this for myself and didn't really notice much of a difference honestly. Thermals were a tad hotter but nothing to worry about. I would say not worth it, but feel free to experiment for yourself!
"Scoopy" the worlds 2nd integrated webcam
As far as I know, the Libretto ff was the second personal computer to feature what we now know as a "webcam". The winner of the first integrated webcam would go to the Sony Vaio Picturebook. However Toshiba had a little trick hidden up their sleeves for this one. The camera, called "Scoopy", we detachable from the unit (bet some of the more sensitive folks here would really appreciate that feature eh?). In addition, the camera had an adjustable to change the focus, was hot swappable, and had an extension cable with a tripod mount on the other end. I have no idea why Toshiba went to such lengths for something so silly, but it's made for some fun discoveries during data mining of Libretto hard drives.
Considering it's a little tiny camera from 1999, it's surprisingly good! By no means would its quality be acceptable by todays standards, but it for it's time it was seriously good. Unfortunately a common issue seems to be that the little wheel for adjusting the focus gets jammed. I haven't figured out a way to fix that...
How to increase the quality of photos & video captured by Scoopy
Once you're done you can click "適用" button, and then click "OK" in the "LIVE MEDIA STILL" panel to apply settings and return to Live Media Still.
Hard drive buying guide
-Of course the non standard thin drives used since the first Libretto are the go to for these systems. They are now a bottleneck in performance, but they have the perfect clearance. These Librettos also still shipped with the thin drives as well, so compatibility is guaranteed.
-Drives that have their interface pins entirely covered by something will not fit. This eliminates basically any 2.5" Fujitsu HDD from fitting. Basically what happens is that the display/mic/mouse cable does not have enough clearance to click into its connector due to its tight fitment in the case. Example of one such drive here.
-Storage media should be less than 8.4gb. There is some BIOS issue that causes the hibernation function to go on the fritz and start overwriting data on drives with partition bigger than 8.4gb. I don't quite understand how it all works, and it is allegedly fixable, but I don't understand how the fix works and I've since lost my links to the few sites that talked about it in detail.
So unless you're something of a purist, I would recommend switching to flash storage immediately if you intend to seriously use your Libretto. If you don't care about the whirs and hums of vintage hard drives, there is literally nothing but pure benefit in doing the switch.
The verdict
I love these Librettos, so I am being quite biased when I say that they're the best ones to buy hands down, but seriously, they are! Despite the groovy features and flashy looks, though, they are still limited in their performance... You will find them to be a bump up from the older Librettos, but not by a huge amount. They will still work well enough for "retro gaming" as in MS-DOS titles and such. Basic old software runs great, but even stuff that came out during and shortly after the release of this system can put a strain on it. That combined with the crazy heat output, and 0 portability thanks to rare battery cells mean that this thing is still more of a novelty than anything else. Regardless if you are really set on buying a Libretto, these are my only recommendation. If nothing else, you will at least probably find something interesting on the hard drive, like a Japanese "strip" rock paper scissors game...
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