ARM-Powered Linux Laptops Unveiled At Computex

Charbax writes "At Computex in Taipei on June 2-6th, several companies unveiled ARM-powered laptops that are cheaper ($99 to $199), last much longer on a regular 3-cell battery (8-15 hours) and can still add cool new features such as a built-in HDMI 720p or 1080p output, 3D acceleration, connected standby and more. The ARM Linux laptops shown as working prototypes at Computex will run Ubuntu 9.10 (optimized for ARM), Google Android, Xandros OS for ARM, or some Red Flag Linux type of OS. In this video, the Director of Mobile Computing at ARM, is giving us all the latest details on the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts), the optimizations of the web browser (accelerating rendering/scrolling using the GPU/DSP), the stuff that Google is working on to adapt Android 2.0 Donut release for laptop screens and interfaces and more. At Computex I also filmed an interview with the Nvidia team working on Tegra laptops, the Qualcomm people working on Snapdragon devices and the Freescale people doing their awesomely thin ARM laptops in cooperation with manufacturers such as Pegatron as well."

Comments

Re:$99 huh

[billcopc]

At $199 they can shove these things where the sun don't shine, considering the current crop of PC-based nettops start at $249. As much as we hate to say it, a laptop that runs Windows is more valuable that one that does not. It's true in the mid-range laptop market, it's even truer in the nettop scene which taps into a tremendous small-budget market that was previously untouched, and thus is largely populated with untrained users.

Say what you will about community support, but I've had much better luck troubleshooting Windows problems over the phone, than trying to find answers in Ubuntu support forums where 9/10 questions go unanswered and every other answer is prefaced with "This worked for me, but I have no idea what it does". Deaf leading the blind, that's never a good thing.