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HP Unveils Small Commercial Linux Laptop
Ryan writes "HP had unveiled their version of a miniaturized laptop for school kids. The tiny device boasts speeds up to 1.6 gigahertz. They haven't yet decided on a name, but 'netbooks' is one possibility. They will be used for surfing the Internet and doing other basic tasks like word processing. The company plans to have 50 million units available in the marketplace by 2011. Optical drives have been left out to prevent kids from playing 'unauthorized games.' Weighing less than 3 pounds with a tiny 8.9 inch screen, the machines start below $500 for a Linux-based model. Prices are expected to be higher for Windows Vista models."
Try again.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Won't someone really think of the children for once?
They must have some massive orders lined up. Unless that number is wrong, no WAY do you talk about figures that large without clear knowledge of huge orders already in the pipeline. That'd basically be one for every schoolchild in the US by 2011.
Could they be in talks with, for example, the folks in charge of the education changes that will be coming with the changing of the guard from republican to democrat White House administrations? Or with foreign governments (in both developed and developing countries)?
A-Bomb
a core2duo laptop with a 120gb HDD and a DVD rewritable drive... not to mention a 15.6inch screen -_-
This kind of language reminds me of this great xkcd.com piece.
... of making inexpensive, simple and rugged laptops for world education? I do believe it's been co-opted by the idea of "small", but not necessarily "inexpensive", "rugged" or "adaptable" to hard environments. For instance, $500 is way above the original marks set by OLPC, I believe, and even the marks above the other OLPC clone manufacturers. Can anyone weigh in on this? $500+ is bizarre, given how inexpensive fully-featured laptops are these days... --Dave
Available today for under $500
Runs Linux so no need for chunky processor - doddle to use and no moving bits like Harddrive or DVD drive to break.
Right, cause we all know how many games there are floating around out there for Linux... on optical media no less...
"See? See? It's a feature, not a deficiency!"
The tiny device boasts speeds up to 1.6 gigahertz. They haven't yet decided on a name, but 'netbooks' is one possibility... Optical drives have been left out... Weighing less than 3 pounds...
How about 'NetBook Air'? Catchy, I think.
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"The machines start at under $500 for a Linux-based model... [It] lacks is an optical drive for ingesting DVDs and CD-ROMs... many schools requested the drives be left out to prevent students from playing unauthorized games."
:P ?
Was that REALLY necessary
Interesting.
I am sure they'll find some way to tie in some advertising and knock the price down.
bomb the us up set someone
They are late to the market and expensive with basically a clone of others. Sadly, It says a lot about the HP of today.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
these could always be accessed over whatever network connections these devices have even without DVD drives - kind of seems silly unless it's to reduce costs.
But they say many schools requested the drives be left out to prevent students from playing unauthorized games.'
That's a good thing since games can't be distributed on USB drives, SD cards or downloaded from the internet.
Better known as 318230.
From TFA: HP executives say the only major feature its Mini-Note lacks is an optical drive for ingesting DVDs and CD-ROMs, which can be bought separately. But they say many schools requested the drives be left out to prevent students from playing unauthorized games.
.SWF file, which one kid will figure out how to do in 5 minutes and the rest will know 2 seconds later.
Um, what? Every time I go to the library, all the computers are occupied by kids playing a million different Flash games online. None of them are playing games that involve CDs. And plenty of small games can be run locally by saving the
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I've always dreamed of more competition in the tiny laptop market. I'm not sure this HP machine is the best example, but if I walk to work and want to do my own projects on the way, this is perfect. I'm not an average consumer in the US, but even some 14" models seem bulky when 30 mins of your commute is on foot, the sun is blazing and your back is covered in sweat by the time you walk in the door. Finally PC makers are starting to understand what portable is. Yes, there is sometimes a price for that.
Still compared to the SONY $2000+ model, it is a deal. AND NO 17" and 19" "laptops" are not laptops. They are overpriced, slightly-movable desktops.
It's called the Mini-Note. It's aimed at the education market in general as well as "mobile professionals", not just schools. It can be configured with SuSE, Vista Home Basic, or Vista Business, and storage goes from 4GB SSDs to 160GB 7200RPM hard drives (accelerometer-based drive protection features are included for the HDD versions). The Netbook is something else entirely, and is made by Intel. There are dozens of reviews of the machine out already with better info than that Yahoo article. The HP press release is a good start.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I just discovered a secret. Most schoolkids don't even live in the US. Shocker!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Optical drives have been left out to prevent kids from playing 'unauthorized games.'
Of course, being kids, they will require ~30 seconds (maybe less) to figure out a way around this. USB optical drive / keychain drive? Check. Daemon Tools and ISO image? Check. No-CD Patch of whatever game they want to run? Check. Web games, bittorrent, whatever else their little hearts might desire? Check.
I have a vision of 1,000s of kids sitting in school, on school-approved laptop, all endowed with MAME and console emulators... "and god looked down, and saw that it was good."
Heh.
"Optical drives have been left out to prevent kids from playing 'unauthorized games."
Riiiight. So kids have never heard of a flash drive?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
FTA: "But they say many schools requested the drives be left out to prevent students from playing unauthorized games."
I find that interesting as historically manufacturers just try to fast talk schools into buying the latest and greatest when in fact those products just encourage the kids to play instead of work. I think schools that want to equip their students with a tool instead of a toy should take a close look at these things. In this case the 'limitations' may be a 'feature'!
Considering they have ran the HP-UX (HP Unix) OS on a variety of architectures, I'm rather surprised they didn't bring it to the x86 and use this laptop to launch it.
Granted, I couldn't imagine that porting an operating system is a trivial task, but I would think it could be a bit of a minor triumph to pull it off on a small POSIX laptop...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I've always understood games to in fact be regular applications - ie not being able to install games would imply not being able to install anything. Sweet.
Unless it has a math co-processor slot. Heh heh.
Anyway, for the cost of any of these small notebooks, you can buy a used IBM Thinkpad X31 or X32 and have an Intel Pentium M (Banias/Dothan) CPU, top-quality components, and Thinkpad fit and finish.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Optical drives left out to prevent gaming, hmmm?
Wonder how they got games installed on the graphing calculators and cell phones the kids have right now since those devices also lack optical drives.
How about just 'fessing up and saying "optical drives were not included in an effort to reduce costs, and to improve the lifespan and durability of the units"?
i wonder if they really think removing optical drives prevents kids from playing games they aren't supposed to be playing. I don't know about the rest of you, but when i was in grade school i was perfectly capable of downloading an iso and mounting it virtually. The market for these is probably poor old grandma who doesn't know what these machines SHOULD cost, but still wants something to email the grandkids with.
Seriously, kids these days grew up with laptops, you think they don't know better?
my nomination for a name is "brick" - as in "useful as a brick"
I imagine the people who will find this laptop most useful are Intel executives.
governments/NGO will probably end up subsidizing most of the cost to get the price down (under $200) - that will mean good things for Intel's bottom line (and I'm not criticizing them for wanting to make a profit)
hopefully I'm wrong about the usefulness of the machine but still sounds like a potential brick to me...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
...that Linux is open source. HP could easily modify the distro this ships with to disable all those workarounds you mention.
I have worked for HP and have always been proud of the past HP. It was a VERY inventive company. It always had a bit if NIH issue, but it also lead to interesting and new ideas.
Copying other sub notebooks, almost to the T, but charging nearly double is NOT innovative. They are claiming to want to sell a 500 notebook into classrooms, which is way too expensive. The classmates are about 350 and the XO are 150-180. Heck, even the Asus are 299. It is slightly greater power then these, but still can not compete against other $500 notebooks (which have diskdrives, DVDs, Ram, 14-16" monitors, 2.2G and bigger CPU, etc.
IOW, this item is either hopelessly overpriced or underpowered. That is NOT innovative and for me to call it for what it is, does not make me troll.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I sense an attempt to sell more USB drives.
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
Anyway, after looking at some of the early reviews you can see that the Linux model is almost the perfect machine for a writer. It's small and under 3 pounds. It has a nearly full-size keyboard so you should be able to type for hours on it with no problems. The 1280x768 screen lets you see how things look on a full page and do some editing work (which is why something like an Alphasmart doesn't fit here). It seems likely to be fairly rugged and has a solid state drive of some sort, meaning drops won't kill your work. The performance of the poky VIA processor is almost irrelevant; all you need to be able to do is type in Open Office without noticeable lag. (Or fire up a tty session with vi or emacs if you want to totally minimize distractions.) $500 isn't as nice as $400, but it won't kill you either.
The only problem I've seen is that at least one of the reviews goes on about the heat the thing generates and the accompanying fan noise. A small quiet computer is the scribbler's holy grail. There's some hope for the HP, as the reviews have all been of the $750 model running Vista off a spinning hard drive. Maybe, hopefully, the slower processor being taxed less by a lighter OS combined with a solid state drive will make the Linux model quieter. Still, if not, we've almost got a writer's computer. And hopefully someone else will come out with a perfect one soon.
I think PR should have gone with the real, better excuse for not including an optical drive:
This notebook is really small, and optical drives are going the way of the floppy disk.A hardware solution to the problem of too many games under Linux!
Is it too conservative to point out that you don't introduce new technology to a culture by selling it to the poorest of them, or even the "average"?
Is it too liberal to suggest that in some cases governments might invest in technology for students to improve their nation's future position in the world?
Is it anti-american to point out that $500 today isn't any more than $250 was three years ago to the rest of the world because their currency is up and ours is down? Those GDP numbers need some serious adjustment for recent changes in global currencies.
Whatever. There are cheaper options but the more diversity in the market the better from my point of view. Just keep the watts down. I don't want the third world burning 350W of carbon per schoolkid just to join us online. The gamers with their >1HP monster gaming rigs are bad enough.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
On the photo we can very clearly see Classical Mistake Number One: a highly reflective screen.
Congratulations: not interested.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Gee they're releasing a low end laptop aimed at the education market... and the software it will run will be... umm Suse Linux or Vista and whatever else you buy. Am I the only one that thinks this is a little lacking in the "innovation" department. I mean the OLPC project looked at the needs of kids for education and tried to meet them with a customized OS and software, with real innovation, and an accompanying custom server and worldwide internet service contract all at a much lower price than this.
This is just pathetic. This competes with the XO laptop in the same way PC's compete with the Wii. This is just a generic low end laptop with an above average price point and some empty marketing hype.
Hey HP, here's a clue for you. Why don't you copy the XO laptop's basic design, but with a better processor and ship it with both the OLPC OS and Vista pre-installed, maybe with an easy hardware switch so kids can actually switch OS's easily. Add some nice, customized software for one or both of those OS's that is actually aimed at the education market. Or here's another idea, ship it with Vista and a pre-installed VM running the OLPC in emulation with the option to run it in fullscreen mode easily and good hooks for all the hardware. Do SOMETHING to actually make this a better option for kids in education than everything else already on the market at a lower price point. Pre-announcing a new product that is an overpriced low end machine specifically without a CD drive is not going to cut it, regardless of how good your marketing hype is.
I'm seriously disappointed by this crap and feel you just don't get it.
http://www.danaquarium.com/gallery/vhacks/powerbook_pda
OK, it's a photoshop job, but that pic probably received more positive comments than any other photoshopped hardware I'd done. There's interest out there.
Netbooks/Nettops sounds so sterile and focus grouped. How about Crotchtops?
-Charlie
I imagine the people who will find this laptop most useful are Intel executives.
Seeing as it uses a Via CPU, I somehow doubt Intel will find it useful.
Does this device provide $500 worth of educational value, or are have we all just assumed that computers are now essential classroom furniture, and this is a good deal? A cheap computer is still a large educational expense that contributes very little on its own. Was there something that kids were learning before during the school day that we can now remove or teach better with this? How much educational value does a portable web browser and word processing machine really add? Are we going to start seeing standardized testing based on web research skills? Are we going to be able to teach people how to express themselves better because of the type of pen and paper they use to organize their thoughts? By the time kids need a computer in school, they need something that can do more than this. Computers have helped to enable distance learning, but when a live teacher is present, I think the âoecheap enough for every studentâ computer model dilutes more than it enables concentration.
WTH? Since when has 1.6GHz been needed for basic tasks like internet, email, and instant messaging? Give it a lower power processor, and grab some battery life. Or grab an old ultraportable off ebay. I had a thinkpad 240 for some years. It could hide under a sheet of A4, and had great battery life.
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.
What happened to "Never go up against a Sicilian when Death is on the line?"
IMS, the cost difference between Dell Linux and Vista laptops was not very much, even though the cost of the OS's was significant...can we expect the same in this case?
My web domain.
Where to send the scrap wood and nails you'll eat?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
They planned for everyone to be chipped by 2010.
Handhelds, no doubt with chip readers inclusive,
are useless without the RFID chips in place.
But we don't wanna talk about that.
RR
So my 8 year old sister and I were walking through Office Depot looking for printer ink when we ran across a pink Toshiba laptop ($1300). She says she loves it and wants it for her birthday. So I ask her what she needs a computer for and she says to write stories and surf the internet. This sounds like the perfect fit if it comes in pink or with the pics of some show from Disney, like Hannah Montana.
Can I bum a sig?
Remember Apple's eMate? I always thought it was a terrible shame that this device wasn't allowed to live through a couple more versions. The OLPC arguably is better, but if the eMate were still around, I believe it could actually fulfill the promise of a $100 machine and that would be very cool.
Producing this video must have cost a fortune in CGI then. This one too. Those Linux eee geeks must have an unlimited budget to mock up fakes like this one.
It's amazing how they can make that stuff look like it's happening on a puny little eee when, as you observe, that's clearly not possible.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The 1.6 GHz C7 is only in the $749 Vista model, which also comes with 2GB RAM. Just an FYI.
Foolish HP. Leaving out the Optical Drive is futile. Kids can get around this. If they feel like it, they will probably write their own games. And who can forget many of the open source classic games that are included with KDE and GNOME.
./configure
Remember kids:
make
make install
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
...it's insane. You can get a Dell laptop with a 15" screen and a core duo processor for that. HP must be planning some big kickbacks to some public officials to unload these dogs.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I can't wait for one of my class-disruptive pupils to get one...
"Gimme that thing, and go to the principal's office!"
I just walked out of a major retailer. Yep. Three C2D laptops under $450, two more under $500. All of them with big screens, DVD, 2GB RAM, decent HDDs. Several different brands. HP is going to have to try harder. The sub $500 notebook has already fully arrived.
Linux doesn't draw that much of a premium yet.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
After nobody buys these overpriced things, HP will dump them within 2 years, and they'll be on EBay for $90. Just like the 3Com Audrey, a diskless "internet appliance" a sort of Jetsons tablet computer. Was $495, now $85. If only this HP thing had a touch screen...
Is that it can install the OS, standard apps, open office, and a whole bunch of this free stuff in 1/10th of the minimum required for Vista, and it still looks this good.
Wait. No. It doesn't surprise me at all. Never mind.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
see sig.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The reversal of the trend is one thing that makes it new. Also, it's not just price. It's also weight and watts. Those two considerations in combination with the low price transform what people are willing the do with the thing, where they're willing to take it and hence how much they're able to take it for granted. It's not "The Precious Notebook" any more. It's just another ubiquitous appliance -- a lifestyle accessory like an iPod or satellite radio.
Besides, if the folks that get these things didn't have PC's before its "new to them". Don't try so hard to pick a nit.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If a 1.6 Gig does everything a kid needs for school now, why won't it in 3 years? They're not going to be running anything that takes a lot of computing power.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Like you can't just download the game and run it from there.
You can pick that particular one up on eBay for about $100 after shipping.
It's not very pretty, and it doesn't have much memory, but with 16 Megs and a flashcard slot, it's more than enough if your serious about dedicated word processing. I often have ten or more live documents open at once, which is really great. Whatever I feel like working on is instantly at my finger tips. You cannot, however, use this device for web browsing, even though it comes with internet options. The little processor was lightweight even back in 1998 when this computer was first made available; it really has to chug to get through graphics-heavy HTML.
But there are some features which have not since been matched. The keyboard is very comfortable and I've used it with no complaints for hours at a stretch, but the best feature, (and one which I wasn't even looking for before I bought it), is that the Jornada performs an 'instant-on' power up. That is, in a couple of seconds, you can go from the tickle of inspiration to full-speed keyboarding. The battery is a lith-ion, and generally lasts me for about 3 hours with all the power-saving features shut off. You can supposedly get a bigger battery if you hunt around, but I've never bothered. In any case, the Jornada isn't a traveler's word processor. (I'd probably get one of those Alphasmarts if I was heading into darkest Peru, and probably be griping about screen size and keyboard angles there and back.)
The screen is old tech, only 256 colors and it's sometimes easy to lose your cursor if you don't remember where you left it since the refresh rate isn't spectacular. Also it doesn't cut it with outdoor sunlight conditions. But for straight writing indoors, it's comfortable and responsive with no reflection problems at all; easy on the eyes. I also use it as an eReader sometimes.
The cursor works by touch-pad, and the machine has a USB port, so you can swap in a mouse if you like. The screen is 8.9", which is JUST this side of big enough; any smaller and I'd have been looking for something else. The 7" Asus Eee screen was a big turn off for me.
The two hinges aren't well constructed, so you can't be rough with it. When I bought mine from eBay, it came with a couple of hair-line cracks which blossomed over the last couple of years into a fully busted hinge. But the other hinge is holding fast, so my suspicion is that if you treat these things with a bit of care, they should last indefinitely.
I've often, when using it in a public place, been asked by people what it is and where I got it. A big screen and a proper keyboard on such a small item is obviously something people are impressed by, and who can blame them?
I'm considering getting another one or perhaps some kind of other replacement, but because mine is still working with a single hinge, I don't need to just yet. And also, NOBODY has made a decent writing tool on par with the Jornada 820. The new line of Asus Eee's due this month which will have bigger screens, are sexy and the web-surfing ability is tempting, but that small keyboard makes me leery, plus the price-tag is just insulting. $750 for an item which was supposed to be under $200. . ? Lame. --And even with the Eee's famous 20-second boot time, having to give up the Jornada's instant-on feature would be a major bummer.
I've written hundreds of pages on the Jornada, so when I see stories like this one from HP, (who also produced the Jornada series as it happens), I get quite excited. But you're right. Nobody's produced the holy grail of digital writing tools yet, despite the fact that all the technology is available and just waiting for some inspired company to put the pieces together.
Maybe next year.
-FL
Ha ha. I'll take my humble pie with a side of irony, please.
-FL
I hope they come to their senses before they mass-produce warehouses full of this turkey - their competition is way ahead of them already.
But my fingers are skinny. The keyboard is not perfect but I can adapt to almost anything. This is going to be a personal call. See if you can try it first.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Leads me to wonder why keep optical storage around, when flash memory is fast looking to supplant it. All that's missing is the write-once memory card. (which is kinda available if you flip the switch on a standard SD card)
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
OK, I admit that copying someone else's product isn't really innovative, but not everything people/corporations release has to be innovative. You mention the "other $500 notebooks" but completely overlook the part that makes a UMPC so attractive: IT'S SMALL. If my EEE had a 10" display, I'd still love it, but only if it fit inside the same form factor. If you make it any larger, you've ruined the whole concept. I don't want to carry a laptop that has a 14" display at any price. I don't need a laptop that can play Quake, WoW, and Portal concurrently. I need a computer that I can slap shut, shove into the small pocket of my backpack, sling it down the road, whip it out at the coffee shop, check the e-mail at the airport, connect external KVM to give a presentation on the overhead, and plays media just as brilliantly as full-blown PC's have been doing for over 5 years.
Most of your $500 laptops are junk anyway. The optical drive is shoddy, the OS is laden with malware, some of the screens are obviously 16 bit, and the rest of the hardware is poorly slapped together proprietary menageries of conflicting IRQs. While they are disposable computers, they are not nearly small enough to feel comfortable tossing to a friend or dramatically dropping it a few inches onto a table as you say, "take a look at this".
Somehow I doubt you're a troll. You're just missing the point. The 12" and larger laptops are just not "Ultra-Mobile" enough.
"Nothing's worse than a teacher with authoritah!"
How about a faster processor with the Linux models as well.
I think for school kids with price $500 no cheap..