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First Android/ARM Netbook To Cost $250, Maker Says
ericatcw writes "There was a flurry of excitement earlier this week when the first Google Android netbook, the Skytone Alpha 680, was spotted by Slashdotters. Now, Computerworld has scored an exclusive interview with Skytone's co-founder. Among many tidbits, he reveals that the Alpha 680 builds upon the success of last year's $180 Alpha 400, which shipped 100,000 units, mostly in Europe under names such as Elonex OneT; that the new Alpha 680 will weigh 1.5 pounds, 25% less than the first Eee 701 netbook; that its ARM11 chip (basically the same as the one used in the iPhone) can handle YouTube video; and that he hopes to have Chinese manufacturing partners producing the $250 Alpha 680 within 3 months."
First past the post with the same sort of spec., but at $100, will rule the world.
:-).
Well, not actually Rule the world but sell a shed load
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
I love my G1 and go over 5GB a month on T-Mobile's 3G plan. It works very well in most cities I visit. It makes me MUCH more productive and saves me a ton of time and even money (ShopSavvy actually saved me about $300 last month!).
I also have an Acer Aspire One netbook (paid $170 for it new by luck) and I love it, too. I rigged an AT&T 3G card into it, and it works just fine with XP. Monitor resolution is a bit off for some sites, but it handles everything great -- and I love the extended battery life.
An Android netbook? I'd buy one, only to try to get more developers to make apps I really need and can use. If Google can make Google Docs work on an Android netbook, I'd buy 8 (two for me, and 6 for the rest of my staff who can use them). I don't need much more than Google Apps right now (we use many apps daily). The downside of the G1 is the lack of Google Docs working properly (you can view, you can't edit).
I see no purpose to use XP/Mac very much. I hate Apple, but I was a huge Newton MessagePad fan, and I would consider a huge iPhone -- if I had a big enough screen and a stylus. Somehow, I doubt it will. I prefer my G1 touchscreen to my iPhone (unused now) screen. I also _need_ the built in keyboard.
I wonder if some netbooks will have the option to use a Bluetooth headset to make phone calls (via GSM or VoIP)?
You might be interested in the Touch Book from Always Innovating. At this point they're only taking pre-orders, but it definitely looks pretty neat. The keyboard is optional and detachable, so its not really "built in", but it gives you a good compromise between netbook and tablet, and its ARM based and cheap. I'm sure people will have Android going on it within days of release, as its basically a Beagle Board (which Android already runs on) with a touchscreen.
... nor of a notebook.
What I would like to see is a laptop with whatever the most powerful ARM processor is, a power efficient discrete GPU (ala the iPhone/iTouch), a 120 gig OCZ vertex, a 10" OLED screen, and a built in 3G dongle, all running on the recently ported to ARM Ubuntu 9.04.
Something that I can use as a "real" laptop, not one of those tiny 4" abominations with squeezed keyboard thats hard for anyone but children to type on. However I don't want it to be my workhorse machine. I can build a desktop for 1k with enough processing power to hack the matrix. I can build a laptop for 3k that would be roughly equal. I don't want that. I want something that will last 300+ hours asleep and get 24 hours of web browsing out in the middle of nowhere (assuming I have a cell signal). I want something I can keep a bunch of movies or tv seasons and my music library on, not something with an anemic SDHC card that I have to switch out everytime I want to watch something new. Something I can play simple games on for the duration of my 12 hour flight to wherever without having to plug myself in the whole time.
THAT i would LOVE to drop 1k++ on. Netbooks/notebooks now can have that in processing power but are not nearly there in power efficiency. Realize the ARM/power efficiency revolution is coming in relation to MID's, gimme some quality linux ARM ports, and enjoy watching me stumble over myself while I throw money at your products.
As far as I understand, purpose of a Netbook is having Windows or Linux with a huge set of software selection/support (thanks to x86) instead of a Smart device.
This really only applies to Windows. The huge selection of Linux software is open source. Opera is the odd one out, being closed source for Linux.
I'm running Linux on x86, x86-64, PPC and ARM, and thanks to open source I can run pretty much any software I want on any of these platforms. I'm running the same things on embedded appliances, desktops/laptops and supercomputers. Of course, some things are not practical on the embedded ones. But this just means I can choose the platform on actual technical merits like memory and CPU speed, rather than the availability of closed binaries.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
As far as I understand, purpose of a Netbook is having Windows or Linux with a huge set of software selection/support (thanks to x86) instead of a Smart device.
Actually, that's exactly NOT the purpose of a netbook. A netbook (as its name implies) is suited for browsing the net and doing the occasional wordprocessing and perhaps even spreadsheet. Skype and some IM software, and a few games - but that's it for a netbook. Noone expects more from it. So, the Linux for ARM apps available are more than sufficient for the kind of use-case that a netbook is targeting.
By the way, the Nokia 9300 is a very nice smartphone! I'm a big fan of it - the later devices have, sadly, a bit too many bugs for my taste.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I watch Apple cleaning up resources (languages), releasing single architecture OS (Snow Leopard) and there are some reports of massively shrink Mail.app etc. in OS betas. As they (and you) sure know there is ZERO performance enhancement of cleaning languages, removing architectures whatever windows switchers may think :)... I mean, Apple seems to do a huge spring cleaning lately.
I don't say they will put plain OS X to a phone, it will be still modified of course... At the core level though, Developers may see something like "really stripped down OS X but still OS X", something they can use exact same core and just have to write different GUI. You know, like "Write once run anywhere as long as its Apple". It was what I expected right at the first iPhone announcement but I was too naive and early thinking for such thing it seems.
Funny is people missing the fact that Apple themselves choose not to support the hardware, OS X code is massively portable, the sub-system sharing the same roots does run on Windows/Linux right now as GNUStep.
Apple could release a "OS X on mysterious x86 killer CPU" as early as next month and I wouldn't be surprised at all. Sadly, for political/financial reasons, it wouldn't happen but still, they can do it.
Hopefully people will just see this fact, I mean what OS X really is. It is not just Cocoa on FreeBSD running top of Mach which can be coded with a weird C language variant. The OS itself is object.
Could one just slap Debian ARM on this instead?
Skype so far does not support anything but 32 bit Intel based linux distributions. This is one of those things again where you want a open source alternative.
Adobe flash have the same problem - I cannot run neither Skype or Adobe flash on my ppc based mac mini running Ubuntu 9.04. That said, flash work fine for Youtube using Gnash/Gstreamer or Swfdec. But these does not support the full Flash 9/10 functionality... Youtube works apparently flawlessly, but other sites may not work as well. Netbook providers will likely have a hard time to get Skype provide additional binaries for Skype. Flash they can deal with by supporting Gnash, Swfdec, or convince Adobe to provide additional binaries (good luck)...
A netbook is whatever marketing/journalists decide to call it any given week.
This "Android netbook" isn't one. It's a wifi-capable smartphone without the phone capability, i.e. a Mobile Internet Device.
MID Competitors: Nokia N810, Sony Mylo.
Slapping Android on it makes it new and shiny. Whatever! :)
Linux is consistently failing to grab much desktop market share, in spite of MS's numerous goof ups. Android seems to be yet another credible attempt to achieve that (big name backer, supposedly sleek interface, noob-friendly...), so anything "Android" is exciting.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
> Skype so far does not support anything but 32 bit Intel based linux distributions.
Skype already supports the Nokia Maemo platform. Maemo is Linux with a mutant Gtk/GNOME stack. So if there is a major OEM wanting Skype on a Linux/ARM based netbook it will be there.
> Adobe flash have the same problem - I cannot run neither Skype or Adobe flash on my ppc based mac
Adobe doesn't care about PPC anymore but they care about ARM. They have a full Flash solution for Linux/ARM, again probably because Nokia needed it for their tablets. Adobe, despite being banned from the iPhone, doesn't plan on being left out of the smartphone marketplace. They just don't make it a free download, they charge money for the ARM port. If lots of netbooks show up and folks start running generic Linux distros on them it will be interesting to see if Adobe adds free ARM binaries to their repositories, especially with Gnash nipping at their heels.
Democrat delenda est