Slashdot Mirror
New Cellphone Sized "Computer" Takes Aim at Sub-Notebooks
IMOVIO has launched a new cellphone-sized computer that is aimed at something similar to the subnotebook market. While it doesn't have 3G of its own, it does have a QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, and a $175 price point. "It can connect to the Internet using a standard Wi-Fi connection, or it can use your cell phone's mobile broadband connection via Bluetooth. The company is currently pitching it to mobile network operators and retail stores. It's being compared to the ill-fated Palm Foleo. But the comparison doesn't work because the Foleo was Palm-phone only, didn't fit in a pocket and cost well over three times the price of the iKIT.
It's infuriating. I already have a computer the size of a cell phone. It's called a "cell phone". Damn it, why can't I plug it into a TV or monitor, and plug a mouse and keyboard into it and use the damned thing like a computer?
Free Martian Whores!
Because I hear tethered data connections are cheap. I could see wifi, but I don't see it going very well as a tethered device. That said, at that price point I could see alot of geeks, at least the /. crowd picking them up for novelty value -- so it should well well either way.
Add built in 3G and then we can talk...Otherwise, you have to connect your cell phone to this beast.
I'd rather hook a 32X up to a Genesis than carry this thing around with my cell phone dangling...
What's the screen pixels? An Eee 700 is usable at 800x480; this can't go much below that and be usable on the modern Web. Even if the resulting text is Flyspeck 3, at least it'll be detailed Flyspeck 3 rather than pixelated.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
So at what point can we start calling these things tricorders and be done with the whole sub-sub-mini-micro-net-note-laptops?
No thanks. I already have a cellphone with a thumb keyboard.
Gone!
Computers of this size and form-factor are not totally unprecedented. Things like the Nokia N810 internet tablet are similar. (QWERTY keyboard, fits in your pocket, WiFi or bluetooth connectivity...). Also, many smartphones have all the features and functionality of this device (including having a physical keyboard, etc.) with the advantage of direct connectivity through the cell network.
The only thing this new device can offer is a somewhat lower price ($175 instead of >$400 for the N810). But I think this device will only appeal to a very small market (most people would prefer to spend a bit more for a more capable device, or get something with a bigger screen/keyboard).
How is this not a PDA minus the PIM apps?
2.6?
Let's hope 2.4 stays supported for some time to come.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Nokia has a line of small devices that do the same thing. The 770 (which I use) and 800 have on-screen keyboards, the 810 has a slide-down keyboard. The access the internet via WiFi or a bluetooth connection on a phone.
[Insert pithy quote here]
After shrinking down audio technology with integrated circuits, true audiophiles decided that big, 'ol honkers with tubes are better. I predict that the same will happen with PCs. What? A PC in your pocket, how mundane. I have a tube powered ENIAC in my basement. In fact, it IS my basement.
I can really tell the difference, because every month when the power bill comes, I know it must be good, because it is using butt-loads of electricity.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If they added a USB port, it would be an interesting addition to on site troubleshooting of network gear if all you need is a terminal window. Just add USB serial dongle or something to that effect. Other than that my cell phone does everything it does.
Is because unlike our cellphones/pdas which have the same functionality, this is a clamshell design that looks like a shrunken laptop.
..goes between whether I can type with it using more than two fingers or not. Fail. Next.
Add some video glasses/goggles and I might be interested. The existing screen in to small for real work.
The only thing this new device can offer is a somewhat lower price ($175 instead of >$400 for the N810).
That and it's cheaper than the Pandora too.
For the same reason a Nintendo DS is not a PDA minus the PIM apps. At least a modded DS can run a primitive PIM app called DSOrganize; I imagine Linux has better PIM apps.
The specs seem much closer to a PDA than a netbook. Also the choice of using a 2.4 based Linux is interesting. I admit I haven't been following Linux on Xscale, so perhaps that explains the choice. Personally I expect more general purpose use out of a "computer" and these specs seem like it's more geared for PDA use.
- Processor: Marvell PXA270 312MHz
- ROM: 128 MB, RAM: 64 MB SDRAM
- User data: 12MB, User media files: 23MB
- Operating System: Linux 2.4.19
- User Interface GUI: Proprietary plus Trolltech QT/E 2.3.8
- Bluetooth® 2.0 with EDR, supports wireless stereo headset
- (A2DP) & DUN profile
- WIFI® IEEE 802.11 b/g
- Optional USB connection configured for HSDPA dongle
- QWERTY/AZERTY + numeric keys, other languages optional
- Micro SD (up to 8GB)
- 2.8 inch QVGA, TFT, 260,000 colors, landscape
http://www.webitpr.com/release_detail.asp?ReleaseID=10258
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
here's the actually spec and release data.
It looks neat and I'm sure it works well...but smartphones have GPS and 3G/data plans built in. Most have some developer support good to go and better cameras. Ultra-portables have a better keyboard/mouse, more ports to connect crap and full web browsers. Hell, some allow you to just stick in SIM card, rolling all 3 into 1.
The battery life is ok but not great, seeing how long it takes to charge. It honestly fills no niche or even covers everything. Solid Meh.
import system.cool.Sig;
You can do all of this on a Blackberry (AFAIK), so I don't see why this is news or how it will succeed.
I have an N800, and have a one-hour train ride to work every day. With two 8 GB SDHC chips in it, I'm set for a month of video viewing.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Pretty soon, your iPod/iPhone is going to be your computer. You'll be able to have your iPhone in your pocket, walk in to any building, sit at a thin client (monitor & keyboard) and connect to your iPhone using a physical cable and possibly even BlueTooth or Wi-Fi. Soon your iPhone/iPod will be a wearable computer, with sunglasses for the display and a bluetooth headset. Commands will be spoken into the handset instead of typing. You'll meet somebody and be able to look at their MySpace/Facebook while you're talking to them face to face.
:-)
Do you think I have a decent chance on the speaking circuit as a futurist?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
So, my iPhone can:
Access Google Apps for document processing.
Access the internet in a normal fashion (non-WAP)
Check email
Calendaring
PDFs
Hook up to data projectors using the component cable adapter
Play music on my home stereo/computer/car
And honestly, looking at that keyboard on this sub-sub-notebook, the iPhone's input is likely better (I'm one of the lucky people who LOVES the iPhone keyboard)
SSH using a new app I bought (sorry...I did buy it)
RDP using a free app (not as good as the SSH app, but it does let me control my office webcam)
Play games
Make lightsaber sounds
Seriously...this sub-sub-notebook doesn't offer anything I don't have and that the iPhone (and likely other phones) don't already do better.
HTC Qtek 9000, aka Grundig 9800, already featured 3G, Wifi, Bluetooth, full keyboard plus 640x480 VGA mode.
I use Dvorak, you insensitive clods! Seriously though, I'm always annoyed by the mini devices that have Qwerty keyboards, because they are too small to touch type on anyway. An alphabetical keyboard would make more sense (to me, at least).
Bah. A TRUE computophile won't settle for less than a full-fledged Analytical Engine. Gears are the true analog circuits! I can really tell the difference, because every month when the coal bill comes, I know it must be good, because it is using butt-loads of coal.
I think you're right, but it will be an x86-compatible PC, because the ability to run legacy x86/Windows apps is a major selling point. (This is, unfortunately, why other CPU architectures are doomed in consumer space.)
Also, the images won't just be drawn flat on the inside of the glasses. They will be drawn as if you were looking at them on a physical surface in front of you. In reality, there is only a mouse and keyboard on your desk, but you can also see two 25" monitors there.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
I own a nokia n800, it runs on maemo, which is an open-source debian derivative with a 2.6 kernel. It links up to apt repositories and has hundreds of packages available It's great for pen testing, I can run ettercap on it with no problem. It also has wifi and bluetooth and can do all the things this thing can. It runs skype, pidgin and can read PDFs. I can use it to SSH or VNC into my home computer. It's got a gorgeous 640x480 screen, runs firefox with adblock plus and fits in my jacket pocket. It can handle 5 hours of constant use without a recharge.
In summary the n800 is just as good as if not better than this thing and has an established community of people porting packages and developing for it
I have one already, its called a Zaurus.
why bother?
I still have my old tandy with whopping 4k of ram somewhere: http://www.trs-80.com/images/computer-pc5x300.gif Boy I miss that thing. I remember writing little programs for my physics class. It was also handy to write out equations "long hand" to make sure I entered them properly. If I buy a cell-palm-top, am I just trying to relive junior high? Maybe I won't get beat up so much this time.
meh
PXA270 is a pretty old core design, and 312MHz is very slow. 2.4 series kernel lacks a number of features that you'd expect from a *NIX, and it seems not to be running X11, which makes porting apps that don't use Qt quite difficult. Only 64MB of RAM is a bit tight too. Power up time of 3 hours is just lame - my 770 gets 3 hours of browsing time, and the OpenPandora units get around 10 hours.
Honestly, it sounds like someone was aiming for the £99 price point and ended up crippling the device to get it under the magic three digit mark. Maybe it's going to sell well to the teen market, but it fails as a device for geeks.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There aren't many PDAs with a clamshell design, and there aren't many cellphones lacking a cell antenna.
... and went back to 2003! Twice!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'll bet it really solutions its vertical market integration with synergistic functionality on a going-forward basis. Price points are so awesome!
OK, not the SL-5000 that people in the US remember but the more recent SL-C... series which had microdrives, better screen resolution, etc...
It sounds like a great little device but why would someone want to carry that plus their cellphone. It will fail for that reason. I can't wait for an actual open cellphone, no kill switches, not locked into some company's app store, etc... That means you iPhone. It would be great if it ran Linux and GPE (basically X & gdk scaled down for mobile use). Then existing apps would port easily rather than trying to develop a whole new software base for mobile use, not like Android.
Pandora handheld (2009)? Mini-Linux computer for those non-retro-gamers.
Computer the size of a cell phone?? Sounds like an iPhone. Or an iPod Touch.
I remeber hearing Steve Job introduce the iPhone. He said to think of this not as a phone but as a computer that runs a phone application.
RAM: 64 MB SDRAM
That leaves plenty of room for upgrades. Nobody will ever need more than 640MB of RAM.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I prefer a Pandora, which runs linux, has full gaming options and can be used kinda decently as a desktop if necessary.
Remove the keyboard, screen, and wireless stuff. Add one or two ethernet ports and one to three USB ports. Cut the price to $100, max. Then you'd have a perfectly useful micro-server, good for all those tasks that don't take much processor oomph. I could use one or two of what I've described. But this thing? It's neither fish nor fowl and I don't see the use of it.
I'll stick with my Nokia E90, thanks...whilst Symbian based rather than Linux, it is also a fully functional mobile telephone.
[Happosai]
I think todays Netbooks are the smallest you should go if you are wanting to put the device on a table and type on it (as compared to holding it in both your hands, typing with your thumbs). I have an Aspire One by Acer and it always takes me a few moments to get accustomed to the smaller keyboard when I fire it up. I really cannot see how I'd work productively on a journey with the iKit. It would be interesting to see development in alternative input methods =)
The Zipit2 has a 300 mhz system with 32 megs ram, 8 megs flash, miniSD card slot, has b/g wireless(does WPA), and can run OpenEmbeded Linux. It also has JTAG and serial pads inside, and I think someone is working on getting USB out of the weird connector on the back. The keyboard is chiclet, but it looks about the same as this thing. Honestly, the whole thing looks almost the same, except "business"ified.
The big plus? You can get it on amazon for $50 bucks. It was $150, but they separated out their IM/SMS service for kids into a separate subscription thing.
You can just go to the sourceforge project and put the OE boot image on an SD card, or the company set up a wiki with all the GPL bits, but the wireless chip doesn't have a GPL driver. Still, probably more support than the mfg of the device in the story will provide.
No bluetooth, though.
The Zipit Wireless Z2 has somewhat similar specs(no bluetooth, and only miniSD support) for only 49.99 new, a bit less if you hunt around. The default firmware is absolutely worthless(IM only, and demands that you pay a monthly fee after a couple of weeks of use); but the device runs linux, and there is an openembedded port http://linux.zipitwireless.com/ and http://openzipit.org/
Not quite as good, and not an out of the box ready to go kind of thing; but pretty cheap for a PXA270 platform that plays reasonably well with hobbyist linux. The product in TFA looks like a fun toy; but the zipit has the advantage of being almost as good, 1/3 the price, and available now.
My Dell Axim X51V has the same thing. It can do VGA, with the proper cable, has Bluetooth, WiFi and most everything else this thing has.
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/Dell-Axim-X51v.htm
It has a 16 meg RAM video system in it (not bad for a PDA, and it does VGA on screen as well as using the external VGA to monitor cable), although it costs 50 or so dollars (USD) more to get the VGA output on your monitor, it's still relatively cheap. (http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Axim-X51v-Presentation-Cable/dp/B000FFYALU)
Add a bluetooth keyboard, and you have pretty much anything and everything you need, unless you HAVE to run linux to be cool (or insert reasoning here, I don't bash OS's, they ALL have their place.)
At least, it does everything I need... Found an upgrade to 6.1 windows, and it works great for me.
Of course, YMMV, someone else will say it's crap, etc., etc., etc.... But the bottom line is, it works, and has been out for YEARS. Not to mention, it runs at > 500 megahertz.
Why does it seem any palm sized device that runs linux is behind the times... Either an old kernel, or a newer kernel, but they are playing ketchup (pun intended) with what's already out there? I mean, seriously now.... Can someone answer that question?
--Toll_Free
I already have one of these, but mine is called a Zaurus. It runs Linux, has WiFi, USB, a QWERTY keyboard.....
Well, I like the form factor actually. It reminds me of my Casio dictionary. I also have a Windows Mobile phone with a flip-out QWERTY keyboard, and I use it for a Chinese dictionary (Pleco), but being able to perch it at an angle like a computer would be much better. I guess something like a HTC Athena is what I want, but that's too expensive for me. If you could get Wenlin running on this, it would be great for Chinese students... The keys look like a cheap Besta though.
Lalala
Burning all that coal is going to black out our atmosphere and leave the world in shambles for our children and animals. When you decide to finally join the 21st century, you'll learn that CLEAN computphiles use hydraulic analytical engines powered by slaves on rowers! I can really tell the difference, because every month when the mortality report comes, I know it must be good, because I'm going through butt-loads of slaves.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
...The iPhone with a 8 inch by 6 size (or so). Kinda like an ebook reader + full computer.
It's "quarter VGA", ie. 320x200. It's pretty useless, no wonder they had to use acronym to disguise it.
RAM? Even worse - 64Mb.
It's nothing more than a geek toy - looks good, but it functionally useless. I'm not even sure it would make an interesting MP3 player.
The Eee PC 701 is being marked down in price now the 901 is out and it's a zillion times better.
No sig today...
I was at first thinking, "Man, I just paid too much for that thing..."
I really do want a pocket linux box. Here's the problem: the keyboard on my EEE PC is just usable. Make it smaller, and you can't really type on it.
And then I learned that it's QVGA. And that it doesn't even have a GB of storage. I think it's a cool gadget, but it's more like a linux PDA than a pc.
I'm feeling better about my EEE PC now.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
htc universal is the device you want. you can buy it used for about 150 euros already.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Way underpowered.
Pay $100-$200 more and get an N810 or a Pandora.
But even at $180, this one is over priced.
Piss off. Gears? That's like putting a CRT on your ENIAC.
Everyone knows you're supposed to use the best of the old and the new. REAL geeks and hot rodders are buff men and women and else who use pistons running of a sterling engine coupled to a home made fusion reactor. Steam and coal, if need be for lack of deuterium or tritium, is acceptable, and certaining for the metalwork is okay.
And no sissy "I bought it on ebay" crap either--you drink Mountain Dew or Jolt or whatever of your choosing and recycle the aluminum cans and cast the pistons m over asphalt wearing asbestos pants. And then cut them to size on your own homemade lathe.
Gears? The only gears needed are on the lathe--anything for readout is just LAME. REAL geeks check the pistons by sight, running along the corridor if needed.
Shame on you. As a /.er, you should know better. The only thing worse than you are the ricers of our breed, who insiste on using water valves for their computing needs. Off municipal water hookups no less.
Meh - have you not seen the Stone Henge in my back garden.
AT&ROFLMAO
If I have a keyboard, I want one I can type on - not twiddle thumbs on.
It's infuriating. I already have a computer the size of a cell phone. It's called a "cell phone". Damn it, why can't I plug it into a TV or monitor, and plug a mouse and keyboard into it and use the damned thing like a computer?
You can.
http://www.openmoko.com/
While I believe you'd have to use a USB VGA adapter to get a TV-out, you can certainly use it with a mouse and keyboard. (Tragically, it seems most developers do, as the device's built-in UI is still lacking. The OLPC is (about a year after I got it) just approaching tolerable, I suppose it'll take the Freerunner just as long.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Seriously...this sub-sub-notebook doesn't offer anything I don't have and that the iPhone (and likely other phones) don't already do better.
A phone needs a 2-year commitment voice/data plan and a legal residence in a covered area. The basic iPhone plan is $70 per month and unavailable, for example, to Vermont residents. You can get an iPhone without a phone (iPod Touch, $229), but that's still more expensive than the device of the article ($175).
I mean, this is a great competitor for palms and noce PDA stuff, I mean yet another small thing with tiny screen This one got a keyboard?! Well, so could a Palm... but hey, this computer's keys are so tiny that are a little infuriating, you should see that even the much bigger keyboard used by the eee is already pretty hard to use unless your fingers are thin, I think this computer's keyboard is more or less just decorative so it looks like a computer (so people that still don't get it that cell phones and palms are also computers would buy it)
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I'm not one for making a big deal about form over function of a computer, but Sony made something a lot like this a few years back called the UX-50. Ran Palm OS, etc. Probably could have run linux quite well if someone wanted to do a little hacking. It looked 10 times better than that shrunken 1989 looking laptop.
This IMOVIO device looks really cheaply made, and that's just not acceptable in any small form-factor mobile device. Those things take 5 times the beating a normal-use laptop takes. It also offers new in the way of usability, and that's another really, really big thing with small form factor devices. This IMOVIO thing looks poorly made and it looks like it could create a whole new kind of carpal tunnel syndrome. At least with the UX-50, you had a touchscreen.
I also have a really hard time imagining it being compared it to the Palm Foleo, which had an entirely different purpose. It was a device meant mainly for hardcore business-oriented Palm users, not really targeted as a subnotebook. The idea was to create a small laptop that could be used as a base station for the handheld (that was smaller and more oriented to support seamless syncing, wifi shared networking, and the like).
It was hard to see, since it was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf...
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
The iPod touch already owns this space and has a large collection of apps and third party accessories available. The 8GB model is about the same price, has a better screen, multi-touch, and Wifi. It lacks the bluetooth and camera, however
There are other products, most notably Nokia, that do the same thing and have a keyboard.
Not sure where they expect to carve out a market
I find that the tube-based computers produce executables with more "air" and "top end" that are missing from the transistor product. I also find that using gold-plated USB cables pass data with 1s and 0s that are much more pure.
I want one that snaps into a netbook sized device (giving you a bigger battery, a bigger screen and keyboard and perhaps some more flash memory), or a laptop (ability to access optical drives, longer battery life, etc), or expand that laptop like it is a dock to make it a desktop with full sized monitor and keyboard and good mouse. The same basic unit, but highly modular. A very portable computer that functions as a cellphone, or "other" depending on what is is snapped into to and what accessories are then present. *That* would be a slick little gadget, and once it was attached to another thing, you'd have two or even three screens!
I tried one the other day, it even ran my 3D editor perfectly at speeds which would put one of those old SGI boxes to shame. It has VGA output for big-screen presentations and would have saved me a lot of shoulder ache from lugging a laptop around last month. I'm getting one as soon as I've got a few hundred bucks to spare.
The ONLY thing I can see that this thing has got going for it is the WIFI. With some custom applets it could do all sorts of cool things wirelessly.
Then again, so could an Eee PC...
No sig today...
But do you have one of the new 66-megalith models?!
(apologies to Terry Pratchett)
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You can already get a much better version of this all over Europe for sometime. Just can't seem to get it in the US.
http://www.ogo.com/en/
Check out the OGO clips, those are cool.
You can buy the unlocked version on Palm's site. But it only comes in white for the unlocked version.
My problem with smartphones is that they tend to be good at their secondary function (pda, music player, etc). But only mediocre at the phone function. iPhone and Treos are a good example. Treos are terrible phones, and iPhones are arguably only mediocre. It seems like I get a lot better phone-only functionality out of a cheap little Nokia or Samsung.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Why a "qwerty" layout? Who the hell can touch-type on that thing?
I have had a few Sharp Zauruses in the C-3XXX series that did just that a few years ago.
Surprisingly usable, they were...
So, how is this new? This sounds like news from the past coming through a rip in the time-space continuum...
Looks like a fancy two-way pager.
How appropriate that a user named CorporateSuit refers to his IT team as "slaves on rowers."
Wowie! I want one!
Oh, wait a second. My HTC 8925/Tilt/TyTN-II IS such a computer!
"It can connect to the Internet using a standard Wi-Fi connection, or it can use your cell phone's mobile broadband connection via Bluetooth.."
Yep. This here 8925 does all that, QWERTY keyboard, et c, PLUS has its own internal mobile carrier access, independent of Bluetooth (which it also has!) That seems to be at least one notch better than TFA's "mobile computer" if you ask me.
HTC 8925 = Windows Mobile = Pocket PC = Pocket Personal Computer. (computer being the operative word here)
As the legendary Blackbeard once said, "This arrrrren't news...!" ^_^
-W5i2
[BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY]: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVI
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention..
There's a thing called the RedFly which lets you basically add a subnotebook-sized console to your mobile phone via bluetooth or USB.. It has no CPU or storage, per se, but appears to work kinda like a thin client: it adds a 7" screen, QWERTY, touchpad, and some host USB ports. I dunno how well or fast it works, but it's definitely out there. http://www.celiocorp.com/ about $300 IIRC..
-W5i2
[BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY]: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVI
At about 1,000RMB it would not even get a glance from a Chinese student unless it had a GREAT dictionary. That is what they look at those small devices as and they are judged by the quality of the dictionary.
Wi-Fi is a next to useless feature in China and Wi-Fi is not popular outside of the Hostels that cater to westerners. Even if a student put a wi-fi router in their dorm room it would not be useful as most colleges only allow Windows computers to connect to the network and the internet.
This is nuts: why can't portable products which are usable on their own be available?
As someone else said, this thing basically differs very little from a cell phone - except for its software and lack of connectivity. It's essentially useless on its own.
Personally, I want to see those yet-undelivered "$100 laptops" we've seen promised several times (and made available through bulk buy or self-import) which appear to be based on the Skytone Alpha 400/Hivision Mininote (the variant with built-in wireless) (seen here: link).
Yes, I want one; I want one very badly. They're basically 8-year-old technology, but with some newer additions such as wifi. You can run a fair amount of "modern" software on those old HPC computers, and the best of them only have 64Mb RAM. I'm currently running ion 3 as a window manager (matchbox-wm was an option, but it wasn't as intuitive) with dillo2, wordgrinder, irssi/bitlbee, and half a dozen xterms on a Mobilepro 780 without the need for swap. This is on NetBDS. Not "full featured" but well worth $100 - if I could get another one with twice the RAM. $200, well, that'd be cutting it a bit close to what an Eee costs given the feature set.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
It's a Treo 650, from 2005? Same specs! OK screen is .6" larger WOW!!!
What else is there to say? Wait, my cat likes it. He feels the thumb keyboard limits him, and discriminates against paws. He hired EFF to make full size keyboards standard so cats aren't victims of discrimination.... ( My pocket will be so stuffed with the KB mouse ( down kitty!) and monitor cables )
Does it have an 80% of full sized keyboard or bigger, and at least 800x600 resolution? If not it isn't competing with sub-notebooks. The sub-notebook form factor is about input and output devices [b]not[/b] computational power. It is about getting the smallest notebook you can with a usable keyboard and monitor. Unless you can sit there for four plus hours typing text on this thing, it isn't competitive. It is the reason I didn't buy an early EEEpc, and waited for the competitors with bigger keyboards to come out.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
As in taken from you, or taken from your luggage? And by the way, my SL5600 for some reason was really easy to type (figuratively) on, I got pretty fast at it.
> when you add in that the average American is as smart as a radish.
Hey: I am a radish, and I resent that remark.
Gears are the true analog circuits! I can really tell the difference, because every month when the coal bill comes, I know it must be good, because it is using butt-loads of coal.
Also, the analog gears mean that the computed numbers are crisper with rich undertones and better definition.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is reminiscent of Timex Sinclair from the late 70s for some reason, much more powerful no doubt, but it's interesting how the compact size is new again. And this seems about as interesting as the Sinclair did at the time. Fail.
Salut,
Jacques
I find it odd that whenever there's an article about cell phones, somebody always complains about how they can't do x with their cell phone, forcing me to reply that I can easily do x with my Nokia N95, which was released a year and a half ago. (Several other Nokia models should also work, and I'm fairly sure some Samsung models at least have TV-out ports.)
And this is different from a Nokia N810 how...?
AFAIK all hardware electronic dictionaries on the market are intended for Chinese who are studying English. With a device like this you could possibly run Wenlin (PC/Mac/Wine software). With a PDA you can run Pleco (WM/Palm software).
As for Wi-Fi in China, I don't know where you live (oh, Henan, right), but when I lived in Beijing last year I found Wi-Fi everywhere. All Starbucks stores have it, most smaller coffee shops have it, Subway has it... Wi-Fi was plenty available in my own personal experience. Much better than Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Japan, where though it may be available for the most part you apparently have to pay or at least register. YMMV of course.
Lalala
Interesting. Yeah, that would indeed have been an excellent choice. I don't think I ever saw that at the used phone market - if I did it must have cost way more than 150 eur, because 150 eur (approx 1400 rmb) barely got you a Blue Angel when I was looking. I'm not that unhappy with what I've ended up with though, which is a Toshiba G900, which I got used for 2700 RMB (at the time about 260 eur). Dictionary software itself cost 120 USD anyway.
Lalala
This is a pretty cool computer. I have a blackberry already, so I don't think I would buy one. I think their is a sweet spot for the size of a laptop.