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First Android-Based Netbook, Set-Top Box
An anonymous reader writes "China based Skytone famous for making skype headsets have brought out a $100 device, the Alpha-680 netbook running Google Android for its OS. The device has Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB ports and an SD card slot. After watching the video though, I get a feeling that the boot time is somewhat long. IMO good enough for browsing." Also on the Android front, ruphus13 points out what the maker claims is the first "fully realized" non-mobile Android device (though I think there were some other non-mobile gadgets on diplay at CES), a set-top box from Motorola based on Android. According to the linked post, it's "capable of playing DVDs and CDs, transferring music and video to a mobile device, and ripping and storing files" and "will have a full-featured Chrome-like browser."
$100 isn't very much. As low spec as that is, it's very good for $100. I don't know why they were bashing it so much.
sorry, but my cell phone takes more than that to boot!!
Did anybody else notice that the web browser shown in the picture of the device in the summary's linkappears to be a simulated screenshot of Firefox on Windows XP? ;) Specs indicate only Android.
I'd be much more impressed with android if there was a full JRE available.
...amateur astronomers have just spotted a flaming mass falling towards Skytone headquarters. Initial reports indicate that it is shaped like a chair.
MacOS, Linux, and Windows have enough apps that they can be considered full-blown operating systems. Android is absolutely not in the same league. It's closer to phone firmware than to PC operating systems.
This is just a glorified phone, at least for now.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Dell and HP must be cutting shit-bricks with their sphincters right now.
Fortunately Google is a nice company that gives its employees great workspaces, so we'll all be happier when they take over every software and hardware related business right?
I'm actually wanting one if it's around $100. It would be perfect for showing simple stats or doing very basic quick commands. Could even write a custom application quickly.
I'm not anywhere close to disappointed by the specs as the author of the article is.
internet like monkeys'
Geez... The reviewer was criticizing this netbook saying that this thing was "low-end" and a glorified cellphone. Well I have no idea what kinds of cellphone you can get with a QWERTY keyboard, an RJ45 Jack, USB, 3G, Wifi an SD card slot and an 800x600 screen for $100.
according to the reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/21/android_set_top_not/ If you are getting your hopes up...
It's not as if there's tons of legacy Java GUI apps that people want to run.
so rather than having to go through the rigmarole of developing for this tiny set of Java classes, I'd much rather just develop for the Java SE and ME APIs with which I am already familiar.
One of my favorite features of Java is its cross-platform compatibility.
Given that android is a Linux kernel, that would mean that all of these devices are going to make their (kernel) source available right?
I wonder what avenues of "hackiblity" having that source will provide for these devices.
Transforming that STB to be a decent Mythtv front-end seems most interesting.
Any info on the battery? ARM cpu could make for some impressive battery life, especially with that tiny screen.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
This guy is dismissing the specs, calling it a Cellphone. Fine, call it that, but geesh, for $100, a smartphone with a 7" screen and full keyboard, that is one sweet phone. Sign me up right now!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
If it wasn't a toy, it would be running a real OS and not Android. Android is Linux for Hardware Dummies.
The netbook shown booting in the video is slow because it is x86 and using grub to dual boot fedora and android.
Given that android is a Linux kernel, that would mean that all of these devices are going to make their (kernel) source available right?
TiVo makes its kernel source code available, but is it useful?
I know the licensing for cable cards is stupid and companies aren't willing to pony up for it, and I know there's yet more talk about some new standard, but until more set-top boxes can handle them, they're getting to the point where they're not overly useful. I have three Tivo's, and being somewhat older models, they can't handle a cable card - so I can't use them with our HD FIOS. The Apple TV box (whatever it's called. AppleTV or something?) is the same thing. I'd love to get it to use as a DVR or whatever. But without a cable card, I can't...
Bark less. Wag more.
but geesh, for $100, a smartphone with a 7" screen and full keyboard, that is one sweet phone. Sign me up right now!
Is that $100 alone, or $100 with the purchase of a 2-year data plan at $720 per year?
This set-top box have arms and legs?
-- Simon said: Die!
I think these upcoming ARM based devices would be the thing
to get a decent e-book reader which can be used for something
else as well.
I wish I had one of these few of months ago when I had to
stay a couple of nights at a hospital. Xvids, e-books and mp3
collection.
This is what the netbooks should be: really cheap, small form
and great battery life.
Ok, so you're probably going: "why would you put a phone OS on a PC, why not just go with a 'real' OS" I'm sure there are several reasons, but I quite like the idea what this would do for the OSes of phones, if people start using it on laptops they will at some point demand the same or similar software/performance of a genuine OS as much is possible, which I hope will be a big boost for the development of the OS which will benefit the phone OS since it will have more software ported to the OS/phone which will make phones even more like second computers.
Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers
Does it run Debian? Would make it even more useful.
Better and Prower ...from the website...
Is there anyone actually selling one of these netbooks? Or is it just vaporware?
A tablet like this one would be a very useful teaching tool. As a teacher I see many potential uses for it and with a low cost it might actually be able to pry loose the money for one per kid. oh, the possibilities. Its going to be a few interesting months ahead when the ARM netbooks start to appear...
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Some nice pictures of the device on the manufacturer's web site:
http://www.skytone.net.cn/en/products.php?bigclass=4&smallclass=15&show_type=1
The SkyTone corporate picture at the top of the page has a road leading to a city... apparently straight toward the Manhattan's erstwhile World Trade Center.
KTHXBYE
Sold. If this thing is as advertised with "unlimited" internet, I'm buying one.
I'd pick this up simply because its a decent sized touch screen for a $100 bucks. Hacker and hobbiest paradise!
He drove the price of a basic laptop down to $100 just like he said he would.
What was it Ghandi said? First they mock you, then they fight you, then you win?
... (posting anonymously for obvious reasons) the browser KreaTV is switching to is not Chrome.
The KreaTV stack uses a browser engine as its default frontend (currently an old version of Gecko) and they're switching to WebCore and JavascriptCore. Sure, Chrome uses WebKit, but it's not the same thing.
$100 isn't very much.
As low spec as that is, it's very good for $100.
I don't know why they were bashing it so much.
Agreed, the blogger makes some rather opinionated statements but misses the forest for the trees in this case.
It's a good trend that low cost hardware manufacturers are getting into the netbook game and featuring systems like Android. Backed by a mega corporation and open sourced, Android is bound to keep getting better. I think it's going to give the iPhone a run for its money eventually.
As for netbooks, it seems like a good idea for some purposes--a handy little sub laptop. If it works with Skype--and given that the manufacturer makes Skype headsets, and Android does support Skype, you would expect it to--it would be a sweet travel laptop to replace the brick (albeit, a fun Ubuntu brick but still rather hot and energy hungry).
I'm just a little worried about the origin of the hardware. I've bought several gadgets direct from Chinese resellers or factory sites via Ebay, and I've been underwhelmed by their quality.
For example, recently I got a little 4 gig MP3 player that turned out to have terrible firmware, a nonstandard headset jack, a very poor battery, crappy UI, and just plain didn't work very well. I later got a Sansa MP3 player that was approximately the same price but much, much better engineered. This pattern has played out several times.
I think the Chinese copycat manufacturers have some good ideas but their execution, especially their engineering, is nowhere close to American, Japanese, or Korean standards. It's ironic because they make great products when they are spec'd by Americans (e.g., the iPod family and millions of other things), but on their own they seem not to pay the same close attention to detail. Or else, could it be that I've just had bad luck? But I don't think so, or we'd be seeing more Chinese-branded products on local store shelves. Sooner or later, of course, like the Japanese, they'll get it right, and they'll blow the foreign manufacturers out of the water, but not yet.
In the meantime I think I would tend to trust a unit that was designed by Apple, or Google, or some Taiwanese or American manufacturer rather than one of these homegrown models.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Unless I'm missing a video posted elsewhere, the video in the article is not that of the Alpha-680 as the summary implies. You can clearly see the Intel logo during boot.
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
The article suggests it might have a touchscreen, while the specs say no such thing. Has anyone seen any evidence either way? At that price, it could be a flipping screen that's meant to be controlled with arrows/trackball
I want a car PC. GPS/Nav, ~7" screen, music, bluetooth for my cell, rear-view cam, voice recognition, browser if possible (at least if near Wi-Fi, ideally with 3G if my phone supports it), more. For $100, this might serve as a good basis for it.
I'm not looking to compile code on it, play FPSes, etc., so the specs don't have to be impressive.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I already own two ALPHA 400 netbooks from Skytone and they work great. They use the MIPS processor, which is good for learning MIPS assembly without an emulator. The real thing is always better than emulation, I believe, and their cost was the same: $100.
TFA states that Motorola has built the set top box for the Japanese. No further details that I care about are given or linked to.
Intriguing and fine and good, but not being an Android guy, maybe somebuddy here can help me out: play DVDs and CDs - how?
I'm in the US and use VLC on my Mac mini (pulls duty as a set top box, among other things), and damn the consequences - who's going to stop me?
But what would a commercial, Android-based set top box use without violating whatever license(s) seem to the problem? It couldn't be VLC, could it? Or could it if the mfgr paid someone some sort of licensing fee?
I am very confused. Maybe Linux guys are using other things for media playback. I use Linux - quite a lot - but haven't gone near media with it, ever, having had no real need before.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Argh I have 256MB RAM on my MP3 player and just for that it's not enough.
Nope not for me. The OS needs about 340MB to run comfortably fast. You need a bit more(around 512MB) to run some other apps comfortably.
I don't care what OS you're running, if we want reuse, need a bit more than that if we don't want everyone coding in assembler for mips/arm.
This is a waste of time. This looks like a "make work" project to me.
Everybody should be focussing on making faster/more faster at a better price and "making due with the hardware" and remarketing it with a new spin.
Recycling old hardware design only goes so far and from my experience attempting to reconfigure old pc's with 256MB with linux to get more bang for the bug has been nothing but a waste of time.
Nobody appreciates the end result. It's best to invest your time and money in new faster/bigger hardware BUT using Linux on it to get the most bang for your buck.
$100 bucks? Made in China? I love the Chinese people, but given these two facts, I give it a good 3 weeks before the hinge breaks off. Newsflash kids: You get what you pay for.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
Also, does anyone make a USB to multi-port Ethernet adapter?
Am I the only one who can't seem to find the dimensions and weight in the specs?
I mean, 7in screen tells something, but how hard is it to provide full dimensions?
I'm glad Google trimmed some of the fat out of Java; bloat is one of the reasons Java has failed to go mainstream for desktop applications. The JVM and the JNI also were badly designed, and Dalvik improves on them.
If we're really lucky, Oracle will deprecate 90% of Java SE (since it's open source, you can still use it if you like).
I actually RTFA: the video on that link is showing a prototype called the "i-Buddie" which is running on Intel Atom. That's not the same thing as the Alpha 680 which the bulk of the article is discussing. Mind you, I don't expect the Alpha to boot any faster, although it might, since it's not just a prototype like the "i-Buddie".
My question: is there a VGA output on the Alpha 680? If so, it would be a decent ultra-mobile device to use for slide-show presentations.
Also: where does the author get the $100 price point? There's no such info on the Skytone web site, or at least I didn't find any.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."