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New Web-Based Netbook From Litl — Based On Clutter, Uncluttered
cananian writes "The webbook company of Gnome's own Havoc Pennington (with a healthy dose of ex-Nokia and ex-OLPC engineers) finally shed its secrecy today, with a new web site and an article in the WSJ. Technical specs on the hardware were found by Engadget last week, and now comes a bit more information on the software behind the UI. Most of the client software is written in JavaScript with GTK/Clutter bindings, and the UI has some superficial similarities to Pentagram's designs for OLPC's Sugar."
Let me be the first to say that this thing's gonna be huge!
This guy's the limit!
... ok, ok, so it's $699.
Or $1398 for two. Not sure how that's a saving, except that you get two free remote controls ($19ea if bought separately).
Couldn't readily find hardware details though...
Why would anyone spend $700 buy a device that is dependent on the web to function, when a netbook costs half and can access the web and still function when offline?
This product will be awesome for one simple reason:
The founder is named Havoc Pennington
Seriously! That's a Bad-assed name. That's like halfway from what you might expect Duke Nukem to name his dog or child.
I'll buy one, just so I can claim I have a Havoc machine.
They look like chicklet keys. I know this is a casual device and I'm not going to be typing my senior thesis on this thing, but I wonder if this is going to have the same fate as so many "Internet in your kitchen" devices of five years ago--which is to say, they mostly failed.
1.6Ghz Atom. 1Gig of ram 2Gig of flash.
Oh look! Facebook!
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
I'm not keeen on storing my stuff in a Google/Amazon cloud service - but I love the device.
I may get these and "hack away" to be my own provider. BTW: These do not yet appear on Amazon.
The article inclueds everything but a ship date. I'd order now, but I don't want to charge a card - then wait 10 weeks.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Cute; but I'm really not seeing ~$500 worth of improvement over a mini9 running Moblin. Or buying a netbook for normal use, a chumby for widgets, and booze with the rest.
For $699 I can get two eee 10" netbooks. Forget it!
I can see a place for this.
Handy for people who want their computer to "just work"... like my parents.
This is a classic example of what happens when a bunch of engineers get together and they're all so dead on convinced that they've got the next great idea that they don't stop for 15 minutes to look at the market, learn what their potential customers actually want, or even write up a business plan. No one is going to pay $700 for one of these. It's just not going to work. How is a salesman at Best Buy supposed to talk me into buying a device that has no hard drive, a tiny screen, stores all of my data out on the Internet, and doesn't run Microsoft Office when there's a cool looking 15" laptop siting right beside it for the same price? It's just not going to happen. Mark my words. This will all end in tears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mattelaquarius.jpg
The design, IMHO, is nice.
But an underpowered CPU combined with only 2 GB of SSD storage and a single USB port make this a slightly unattractive proposition.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Now *this* explains the somewhat surprising move of pushing Javascript (that everybody hates) for Gnome shell. I think HP was one of the guys promoting this move.
I figure it's not that bad in the end, javascript is becoming a viable scripting language (whether we like or not). Too bad the development tools (and ecosystem, and culture) for Javascript suck badly. Hopefully this will change soon, as the community is gradually accepting the fact that Javascript just won't die, and we are better of biting the bullet and learning to hack it properly.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Actually, the screen isn't really tiny - 12.1". Problem is, it's a bit heavy for an ultraportable, especially considering the lack of storage.
That said, laptops with small screens DO have their place in the marketplace, just as 15"-ones.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
$700?! And it doesn't even come with the stupid remote? I don't think so.
Apple gets away with this because they have an established brand and reputation.
I can't believe they don't even have a video of the UI they are hyping. Show, don't tell.
Wow. This is just ridiculous. Is the Internet being punked?
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
This is going to be more awesome than WebTV! Because old people REALLY DO want to use computers... despite not being able to use a cell phone.
I foresee a not so Litl flop on the horizon.
The WSJ article was not linked, but it's at http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/11/04/litl-introduces-its-web-based-netbook/
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Even worse, you can get an EEE for far cheaper with better specs. If I'm going to get a netbook the things I'm going to look at are A) Price B) Specs C) Portability and D) Drivers for non-default OSes. Lets see here, 2 gigs of flash, even my $350 almost 2 years old EEE PC 701 had more than that. Intel Atom is generic, the screen size is meh, the keyboard is crap, etc. etc. Would I buy it for $150? In a heartbeat, would I buy it for $200? Possibly. But for $700?!? No way. For $700 I can get a "real" laptop with a great CPU and more RAM and HDD space than I will ever use. Plus a better trackpad and keyboard.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Finally someone that gets it. Connecting computers to HDTVs and other displays via HDMI is a great experience. The video and sound automatically go through, the plug isn't giant, and it only goes in one way. If you have a 1080P display, your TV instantly becomes a giant screen. This is great for presentations and home media and internet activities. In fact if everyone would bother, it would make connecting to a "workstation area" that much easier. Now if only there were some USB connections bundled into the same plug...
If there's one thing GNOME isn't designed for, it's underpowered hardware.
Could still be entirely useful, though. Scrub the existing OS, and put either Damn Small Linux or NetBSD on it, with blackbox/ratpoison, screen, vim, and cplay/xine for multimedia. It'd make a nice upgrade to my current laptop, actually.
Good for email, web browsing, office work, a bit of shell scripting, note taking and the usual laptop stuff, and low end multimedia. Depending on the video card, 1.8 Ghz will also play WoW, if somewhat limply; but you'd want Linux rather than NetBSD for that.
Drop the price by $200-$300 as well, and then we could talk. $700 US (prolly $600 AUD) is too much for a machine with these specs. I can buy a new desktop for $1100 or so.
With that weight, it's more of a netbrick than a netbook.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In the late 90's, hundreds of companies[1] thought that Network Appliances were going to be the next big thing. Turns out, almost nobody wants a device which is 100% paperweight as soon as the network goes away. Until we have wireless broadband that is ubiquitous, robust, and (most importantly) cheap, network appliances are going nowhere.
1. Sun was the biggest of these, see their "The network is the computer" marketing slogan
Until we have wireless broadband that is ubiquitous, robust, and (most importantly) cheap, network appliances are going nowhere.
We do. Its the cellular network. iPhones and kindles are network appliances. Unfortunately this device doesn't have a cellular modem. And its architecture is too hungry for bandwidth anyway.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The support videos at http://litl.com/support/ give a good idea of how the UI works -- and they also feature Annie, litl's friendly customer care rep!
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The cellular network is not ubiquitous (ubiquitous means it's everywhere), and not cheap (IMO). Robust, maybe. I haven't used data services much so can't comment on that.
From the official site (http://litl.com/versatile/every-room-in-the-house.htm):
First of all, it’s light—as light as 3 pounds of feathers
Wow, and that's how much pounds of plastic?
especially the "stores data in the cloud" bit - hasn't the Danger fiasco told us that's a bad idea jeans? But gjs looks cool.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
the folks from Litl started setting up their demo table. I glanced over and saw that they had a small gadget that looked like a laptop (appeared to be the size of of a Macbook Air) with a flip screen. As I was reading an interesting article, I overheard some explanation of what the machine did and I was tempted to get up and check it out as I am always open to new gadgets. However, that temptation quickly went away when I overheard the price being quoted after the explanation of what it did. For a good five or ten minutes I put my reading material aside and tried to imagine just what market this device is trying to cater to that one would be able to justify paying $695 (the price I overheard) for. In my quest, I came up empty handed and promptly went back to my reading. At lunch time I got up and left without so much as glancing at the demo table. I doubt any reasonable person will spend more than a minute in the same quest before they promptly dismiss it.
Sell what you think you can build, instead of building what you think you can sell. If not you'll get a solution to a non-existing need resulting in zero business.
The one point they missed then and now is, that the network coverage is carp (not too much change there, crap also meaning expensive, no unlimited tires that relate to offline). For the same reason it will fail now, and for some years in the future, sadly.
ps. Oh, and there were no specs that would competitively make any sense of that price. Just too damn expensive for the mass market.
It's the new OLPC project with new management and a new brandname...
A comment by Lucas Rocha on his own blog:
http://blogs.gnome.org/lucasr/2009/11/04/litl-webbook-some-technical-comments/comment-page-1/#comment-1030
agree. Even Dell is having a hard time competing on that, at least with me: I was given some leeway for a business expense purchase, so I decided to get myself a little netbook of my own. Decided on Ubuntu, checked out the Dell Mini 10 (for $350), and then started configuring. Hmm... worth upgrading the hard drive from 160GB to 250GB (you hear that, Litl? 160GB!). Also worth upgrading the battery from 3-cell to 6-cell. Before long, I had the 3year warranty, HD-resolution screen, and 2GB RAM. It weighed in at $643.
I figured I should check out a physical model, so I went to the local Compu-Frys-Buy. Well, there was an Acer Aspire One with 250GB hd and 6-cell battery, for $350. Now, granted it did not have the 3yr warranty, 2GB RAM, or HD-resolution screen ... but at that price the Dellbuntu Mini 10 had 160GB hd and 3-cell battery.
I thought really hard about ordering Linux from Dell and being counted as an official Linux user, versus getting the bigger hard drive and battery from Acer with a copy of Windows 7 to wipe and replace with UNR. In the end I figured, "What the hell. I already bought an Ubuntu laptop from Dell two years ago. I'll just go save myself some money now."
So, Dell got undercut for $350. I could buy a second one and still undercut the Litl.
So: Litl, you're not quite there yet. Keep working on it.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
This is insane crap- the problem with this is that for 300 bucks more you can buy a mac and get the warm fuzzies that the litle is trying to sell you.
when looking thru the website and seeing the specs I thought wow maybe 150-250 bucks I would get one. then I found out its 700 bucks and all my personal photos, etc will be combed thru by the NSA, google and whoever else cause in america you dont need a warrant anymore. fuck that. they should pay me for putting my shit on the cloud. and when they go under I have a 700 dollar door stop. good value prop.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I knew I smelled something fishy.
But in all seriousness, yah, this Litl sure won't fly with me -- not least as I live in the boonies. Wi-Max? Fuhgeddaboudit. Even cell phone coverage only happens when the weather's right and my wife doesn't open the fridge or turn on the microwave. Just before dinner while we're cooking is really a bad time to call me -- which at least helps weed out a lot of telemarketers. :)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Cellular networks are ubiquitous but are neither robust nor cheap.
The iPhone's intended core functionality is greatly reduced in the absence of a network, but it's still a general-purpose computer. You can play games, music, video, and run a variety of other applications offline. The Kindle is still perfectly useful when the network goes away, as long as you don't need to buy a new book that very moment.
Anyone else reminded of the chumby?
If this was ARM based, I would probably jump on it (and it would probably be a little cheaper) but it is just the standard netbook with a fancy interface. There is plenty of fancy interfaces around so I don't know how this Litl plans to compete.
There is a lack of good ARM based netbooks! Always Innovating has the only half decent one.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/06/macbook-wheel-debuts-on-the-onion/
The slogan had to do with the fact that Sun made very easy to implement a server or client for any protocols on any machine.
When you got a Solaris system back then, the restrictions and differences between a basic system and a high end monster were minimal.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...a netbook with a screen that can be folded with a wider angle than others, and a simplified (read: oversimplified so far it's strongly limited (read: retard fostering) instead of efficient) UI... with a price tag of $700.
I guess their motto must be: Offer less, pay double, and make the world a worse (=dumber) place.
Yeah... "great" idea... Oh and that wider angle is sooo "genius". Nobody could have ever come up with that one!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I would've bought a couple of these in a heartbeat (even with the ridiculously lofty price) if I could have easily had access to my own local content. Watching Hulu or youtube is fine for previewing a show or movie, but not being able to watch content that hasn't been compressed and pushed into the "cloud" is ludicrous.
I just spoke with their tech support and had this confirmed.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
700 bucks for a functionally really slimmed down notebook? Ouch. Take a look at the young company that's probably going to go bankrupt soon.
I am not devoid of humor.