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Sub-$100 Laptops Have Finally Arrived

Posted by timothy on from the near-enough-at-least dept.

Roman Phalanx writes "OLPC had promised that it would be possible to mass produce a sub-$100 laptop. The folks at OLPC tried to realize that dream by re-imagining what a laptop looks like. How large of screen and keyboard it has. What OS runs on the laptop. Now that OLPC has decided to super size their systems to run Windows XP, the $100 price point has slipped beyond their reach. A Chinese firm has realized that dream. Taking the best from both the OLPC and EeePC. They ditched x86 compatibility and switched to a MIPS architecture to further reduce production costs. HiVision has managed to create a UMPC that sells right now for $120.00. They say they have refined the manufacturing process and have learned from building this laptop how to mass produce a laptop that will sell for $98.00." (More below, including a link to a video of the device.) "The new HiVision MiniNote is due out in October of 2008. TechVideoBlog has footage of one of these Mini Notes being shown off at a trade show in Germany. They have managed to borrow a unit overnight for a while and have done a quick review on it. Overall it looks pretty good. MIPS based processor, WiFi, 1GB flash storage, it runs Linux, has 3 USB ports, Ethernet, SDHC card reader, audio in and out, multi-tabbed Firefox browser support and Abiword for word processing. Running a custom Chinese Linux distrubution named Xip.

Overall performance seems snappy and no problems connecting to WiFi. Other than the lack of a webcam and the Adobe Flash Player it seems perfect. For $98 it looks like quite a value."

2 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. useable? by B5_geek · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Ahh, but can you type on the damn thing? I love my Eee, but I hate using it. The keys are too damn small to type on. Screen size I can live with, but IMHO it's only good for a few non-interactive things. (I know I could add an external keyboard, but that defeats the portability that I was after.

    --
    "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
  2. There's better products out there /w more RAM by NRAdude · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Most developers are using a Beagleboard @149 for a MIPS development platform; though like a few other development platforms as the MagicEyes Pollux, was only a precursor to the actual product. I'm puting the money on a Pandora /w features as:

    * ARM® Cortexâ-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux * 430-MHz TMS320C64x+â DSP Core * PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware * 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD * Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host * Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output * Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls * 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad * Around 10+ Hours battery life

    It's no Indrema console, and better designed. At $350 per unit, It's not cost effective as a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS, but competitive to a mix between a QWERTY PDA with usable RAM/TV-out/redundant-expansion. In other words, it's a trade-off of a better Motorola A12000 CellPhone without the lock-in, more battery life, and better than the bulk of a laptop.

    I'm somewhat nervous towards the that communist KOREA government-sponsored Gamepark Holdings' GP2x Wiz. It may be better designed as a gaming system, but it lacks the keyboarding of a Pandora

    Arm9 533mHZ processor, 2.8" oLED touchscreen, 3D Accelerator, and 64MB RAM

    GP2x Wiz is looking more like a MagicEyes Pollux SOC board.

    --
    without prejudice