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7-inch Android Netbook From GNB

Posted by timothy on from the zehr-zehr-nett-aus dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Netbooknews.com has scored a video of a 7-inch Google Android netbook from a company called GNB during Computex. The device is powered by a Freescale iMX31 CPU. The design might not be to everyone's taste, but it could turn out to be a super cheap Android netbook."

12 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Some information would be nice. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Informative

    You know, maybe a description of the spec, a couple of decent photos, that sort of thing...

    1. Re:Some information would be nice. by hotfireball · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Definitely not super-thin. BTW, why I need Android (roughly saying, a limited Linux) on my netbook if there is a regular Linux?..

    2. Re:Some information would be nice. by wisty · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unless you just want to stick to VIM (or emacs), a 7 inch screen screws up a lot of user interfaces. My eeePC has dialog boxes in pre-loaded software that can't be "OK'd" because the buttons are off the screen. :(

    3. Re:Some information would be nice. by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Funny

      can't you just turn the computer upside down and shake it till the button is visible?

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    4. Re:Some information would be nice. by angryphase · · Score: 5, Informative
      • CPU: 533MHz Freescale i.MX31 ARM-based processor
      • Operating System: Google Android
      • Display: 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen (Sascha says it's not glossy, but you can see a fair bit of glare in the video)
      • RAM: 256MB
      • Storage: Up to 8GB SSD
      • I/O: 3 USB ports, mic, headphone, and 4-in-1 card reader
      • Weight: 680 grams, or about 1.5 pounds

      See working video of it here

    5. Re:Some information would be nice. by corsec67 · · Score: 5, Informative

      In most of the window managers I have used, if you hold alt, dragging anywhere on a window moves the window.

      Having the OK buttons off the screen is a very bad design, but it can be worked around.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    6. Re:Some information would be nice. by value_added · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unless you just want to stick to VIM (or emacs), a 7 inch screen screws up a lot of user interfaces.

      Or possibly you mean switch away from vim or emacs? ;-)

      Seriously, I'd think that in a lot of cases, a small screen is actually more appropriate. Whenever I see someone using Outlook in full screen on a giant monitor, or using their browser in the same manner, I have to chuckle at the absurdity of it. You figure the ideal width of 74 characters or so for maximum readability and comprehension, but the latest and greatests in technology brings us mile-wide sentences?

      Or, as this is a tech site, how useful is it when trying to troubleshoot a system where the BIOS setup, boot messages and everything else appears in giant poster-sized fonts? No one's arms are long enough for that nonsense.

      I don't know what kind of person is representative of the netbook market, but I'd think that the majority of the great unwashed masses expect their computers to function like an appliance. A netbook seems to meet that requirement. So if checking email and browsing the web is all most people do, how big a screen do they really need?

    7. Re:Some information would be nice. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Informative
      Note that the i.MX3 series is very old (in CPU terms). The current generation, the i.MX5, is based on the Cortex A8 and is a very nice chip capable of, among other things, running Flash and encoding H.264 in real time. The i.MX3 is an older generation (there was no i.MX4) based on an ARM11 core. It does have the VFP (vector / floating point) coprocessor, but does not support the NEON SIMD instruction set. It is likely to be significantly slower than a 600MHz A8 as found in something like the OMAP3, and a lot slower than the 1GHz A8 found in the i.MX5. The i.MX3 didn't have an on-die GPU, so this may be using a simple frame buffer while most A8 SoCs (OMAP3, i.MX5, etc) include an OpenGL 2.0 ES-compatible GPU.

      The A8 is currently in the process of being superseded by the Cortex A9, which includes a slightly improved pipeline, out-of-order execution, and support for up to 4 cores on a single die. ARM started licensing it a year ago, and SoCs based on the core (e.g. nVidia's Tegra) are beginning to appear.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Site slow by boiert · · Score: 4, Informative

    Better link the youtube video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZlKnubPUbk

  3. OK, saw it and my likes and dislikes are: by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Informative

    First of all, it's a real netbook, with keyboard and touchpad (I wish it had the nipple, but ok) and all the connectors one can find on a number of (intel-based) netbooks. So this is good - this is the first real ARM-based netbook I have seen so far.

    I like the weight - 650g! Amazingly light.

    But battery consumption is not good. It will work for 2.5 hours on one charge. That's pathetic.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  4. Pondering on power consumption... by commlinx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've done quite a bit of work on ARM processors without an operating system and limited work using ARM9 devices with a Gentoo based distro and something I've wondered is if under Linux there's a way to conveniently enable low-power mode essentially putting the processor to sleep while allowing certain peripherals to remain running? An obvious example would be leaving the LCD controller running to display an e-book page while the CPU was in sleep mode or running at a low clock rate until a button is pressed. I know how to do that when programming most ARM CPUs natively, but are there any attempts out there to standardize some low power behaviour for the kernel?

    It could really help some of these devices that are no doubt often used for a single task at a time. Perhaps it could even be in the form of some sort of system call that allowed a process to request the minimum slice of CPU time per second and wake-up latency required per task and the scheduler could determine the required clock frequency and possible sleep time required to fulfil the requirements of every process. Just seems to me it could be a way to extend the battery life and take advantange of some of the amazing low-power modes of newer ARM cores in a standard manner.

  5. I've got one already... by Pembers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...or something very much like it.

    It's called a CnMBook. Have a look at this page. (Yeah, I know - bare IP address looks suspicious. I don't think the manufacturer's quite got the hang of this Internet thing. Google is your friend if you don't trust me.) It's sold under a lot of different names.

    The specs are similar to the gadget on show here. Mine has a slower CPU, less memory and no touch screen. Battery life is 2.5-3 hours. The OS is a heavily-customised Debian. I love the small size and low weight. I can fit it into my coat pocket. The screen is nice and clear. The keyboard is reasonable, but is prone to registering phantom keystrokes - running vi is therefore not recommended. I don't know if it's just mine that does this, or if it's a design flaw.

    The main app I run on it is a text editor. It's a bit slow for anything else.

    I paid £139 for mine just before Christmas. I bought it from Maplin, who are now selling them off for £99 - probably because they were evasive about it not running Windows. They now have a Windows CE version of it, which has "Windows CE" in the product name.

    --

    Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...