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InFocus's New Kangaroo: a Screenless $99 Windows 10 Portable PC (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: InFocus today debuted the Kangaroo, a $99 Windows 10 portable PC that "goes anywhere and works with any screen." The term "mobile desktop" may seem like an oxymoron, but that really is the best description: Picture your typical desktop PC tower shrunk down to the size of a phablet sans screen; just like any desktop, you'll still need to connect a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.
I know what I'm getting for Jesus' birthday!
So you carry with you a small spray can of instant screen; spray on any flat surface and the nanomachines released by the spray assemble into an instant lcd, and connect to the unit by radio (would have to be better than bluetooth). When you're done the nanoparticles disassemble, dissolving the screen. Just need that part.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
"Company X selling New Product Y at Store Z for Price $foo!" -- News for nerds. Stuff that matters (to some of them. maybe.)
People keep doing this sort of thing. IBM had Metacard, there was Oqo, and wasn't there a Palm device which was viewed as mostly a media storage device?
Why not go ahead and add a touch screen (and a stylus) so that one can use it w/o needing to cable up?
I use a Toshiba Encore 2 Write 10 as my main system in pretty much this way, connecting when I don't wish to use the touch screen / stylus to a full-size keyboard and monitor (fortunately, Toshiba provided an adapter for the single USB port which affords two connections, one for charging, one for devices).
The functionality I'd really like to see is this sort of thing done as an iPhone / iPod Touch sized unit ---- Apple could take their laptop, make the trackpad a removable unit which was exactly the size of an iPhone/iPod Touch, and one could replace the trackpad w/ the portable device which would then function as a customizable trackpad and which would load the user directory and backup the portable device.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Soooo . . . like a Raspberry Pi, then? Except for the Windows bit, of course.
Windows 10? No thanks. Is this supposed to be InFocus/Microsoft's version of a Mac Mini or something? Two gigs of RAM, 32 GB of hard drive space... it's not a Mac Mini by a damned sight, but more like a Chrome Book without a screen or keyboard or convenience. Four hours of battery life if you're lucky, which might get you through a presentation but not a long flight. Oh, wait, you couldn't use this on a plane because there's no input or output, just sockets for you to connect shit that you can't carry with you conveniently.
I'm wondering where the advantage is over a cheap 100-200 laptop... Walmart has a laptop on clearance with the same RAM and storage but also with a keyboard and screen.
You should see my mobile basketball court. Well... it's just a ball really.
That it Made the News.
Small PC's have been around for ages. Is the news that this has Win 10 on it?
I can't understand who this is for either. I mean Infocus so I guess its for presentations. If you can cable up a display or projector how likely is it you need a battery? What the hell is the point in that? Are supposed to pair with a portable battery powered projector? Is there really a market for people who need to give a enough presentations in places without basic instructor to buy this thing?
In every other use case I can think of and in fact even giving presentations its hard to imagine you'd not be better off with a gently used laptop for about the same money. A media PC, sure I guess for streaming but if you want to do that might as well use RPi or if you don't want to bother DIYing it at all a Chrome-cast or Amazon stick for less money.
This is like a Pet rock with a shitty PC inside it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It's just like a NUC, or Compute Stick, or any of dozens of other micro PCs.
Wait, this one has a battery, but I'm not sure how much of a feature that is when you need an external monitor anyway. I guess it gets you through power hiccoughs?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
There's no short supply of small form factor PCs. What about the Raspberry pi, that /. loves to talk about?
Does it run Linux?
Seriously, though - sounds like a great setup for a low power HTPC.
Ooh, I can connect it to any screen I already have, as long as its HDMI, or I buy additional adapters?
My parents have a tiny little box like this. Why? Because they are getting old and won't be looking at a 10" screen and fiddle with microscopic virtual buttons or cramped keyboards 2mm deep. Huge monitor, full size keyboard and mouse but in terms of computing power their needs are practically non-existant. Sure it could be a laptop, but the lid would be closed 99.9% of the time so why bother.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If you can cable up a display or projector how likely is it you need a battery?
In the hotel, you connect it to the TV in the room, which usually has HDMI now. In the meeting room, you connect it to their projector, or to your own portable battery-operated unit. I presume InFocus makes one of those, too, but I don't work for them so I'm not going to look it up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For when you want the inconvenience of either needing wherever you are to already have all of these peripherals, or carrying them around yourself.
That sounds really familiar.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I got an HP Stream 7 for the same price (same specs) and it has a screen. It's nice to carry a portable 7" Windows 10 full desktop OS around with you sometimes.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
So I can buy Windows 10 Home Edition for $100, or a complete computer with Windows 10 Home Edition on it for $100. What?
Well there is it, the dumbest thing I've read all day.
If you want to run Linux, buy something ARM-based
That's fine for people who use only applications that are Free and native. But others may need just that one application that's only available for Windows but runs correctly in Wine on an x86 PC, and ARM isn't for them.
There are quite descent boards
But do they run Descent?
15" monitors went out with the '90s, man. [But] like many, I take public transportation, so bulky and heavy workstation type laptops are not particularly desirable.
Are you trying to imply that 15" is too big or too small? If too small, then how do you get work done on your bus/train ride to and from work? If you don't expect to actually pull out your laptop on the bus, you could just carry a 32 GB USB flash drive to and from work and use the computers you already have.
This is a useful form factor for some niche applications. The Quantum Byte is a bit more money, but has ethernet, and the I/O ports are all built in - no dock. No battery either. I've used two of these: one sitting in a closet running the client software of a cloud based backup service. The tiny PC backs up the NAS it is sitting next to. I put VNC on the little PC and run it without any attached peripherals at all. The other one is sitting in the server room of a larger business and is connected to the systems there as an alternate way to access them that does not depend on the servers being up.
As others have mentioned it would also serve as a fine little media PC. I could see my parents using it as a full on home computer that was dead quiet, booted nearly instantly, and runs full versions of desktop apps. They have, and like, tablets for casual web browsing, but sometimes they want a big screen and a regular keyboard.
Seriously, though - sounds like a great setup for a low power HTPC.
You can get an Intel HDMI Compute Stick with way much better specs at nearly similar price point.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
the midrange iPad has better specs than this thing and a better operating system.
Until you need to use that one app that isn't ported to iPad, possibly because Apple won't let its developer distribute such a port through the App Store.
That sounds really familiar.
Well, at least the Atari used to have a keyboard, so it could be used as a transportable desktop, you can move it around and need only to plug it into any TV.
TFA's device doesn't have any input, so you need to supply your own keyboard and mouse.
So it isn't as much like Atari/Amiga/Commodore compute of past history, as much as yet another variation of Raspberry Pi, Asus eee, Intel NUC, Intel HDMI compute stick, etc. only with much shittier specs.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Wait, this one has a battery, but I'm not sure how much of a feature that is when you need an external monitor anyway.
That depends on whether there are enough plugs for the external monitor but not for the computer. This might happen, say, if you're using an existing TV as a monitor and can bum an HDMI cable off a game console or cable box but don't want to fool around with finding an outlet. Or it might happen if you're connecting to a projector but don't want to run a power cord that someone can trip over.
I guess it gets you through power hiccoughs?
Having had a four-second power outage at home last night, I can attest to the convenience of always having a UPS with me. All the applications on my laptop stayed open, and two minutes later the Internet came back. But that's when I usually discover that the backup batteries in a lot of the clocks around the house have run out.
There are lots of these small, portable computers around. People like them because they can take their compute environment with them between work and home, because they can tape one of these to the back of their TV, etc.
At $99, this looks like a pretty good deal for an Intel-based computer. If you want to run Linux and are happy with an ARM, of course, a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone is better and cheaper.
Trade the battery for 2GB more ram.
2GB system is to low.
i remember an aopen or some such from early winxp days that was basically the same thing. super-mini everything but keyboard, mouse, monitor, with desktop chip and windows inside... but with a real spinny hard drive not shit flash storage, shittier atom cpu, and shittiest windows evar...
I can think of a few cost reasons to make VGA-only monitors:
I wouldn't expect many of those "other apps" to run terribly well on a $100 x86 PC.
As I understand it, an Atom CPU roughly matches the performance of a Pentium 4 CPU clock for clock. This means an old application that runs well on a P4 will also run well on an Atom.
They don't seem to understand the functional minimum in terms of RAM for any Windows OS above XP (x64 Vista, 7, 8) is 4GB's of RAM! These tiny PC's are interesting, but ultimately useless unless you plan on running Windows XP, or Linux. As soon as you boot the OS, you're out of RAM with 2GB's
Such a shame. Such a waste.
The GNU/Linux version is often more expensive, and I'm told this is for three reasons: lack of economies of scale, cost of handling returns from novices who end up buying the wrong thing, and the claim that the royalties paid by publishers of included trialware more than subsidize the royalty paid to Microsoft for Windows.
Seems like this would make for a nice Kodi/XBMC box. Too bad it doesn't have a hardwired Ethernet connector.
I got an HP Stream 7 for the same price (same specs) and it has a screen. It's nice to carry a portable 7" Windows 10 full desktop OS around with you sometimes.
Can you connect your HP Stream 7 to an external monitor or projector? Different use cases I guess then.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Reminds me of the Espresso PC. A very niche design at the time, but let's see if 2015 will be the year of the slabputer (or whatever you want to call this thing).
"Hasta la victoria siempre!" El Comandante
I really like the form factor and it may be priced decently, but I'd like to get some answers first.
Does it run Linux? (Seems like it would.)
How does the performance of this processor compare to the Raspberry Pi 2?
How long does the SSD last?
How long does the battery last?
I can do a Raspberry Pi 2 with a 32GB flash drive and a small USB battery pack (3hours full load) for for around $90, but the form factor sucks in comparison. So, if performance is comparable, I'd love a few of these. I'd love them more with longer battery and lower price.
Pi 2 - $35
Case - $8
Power supply- $5
SD Card - $12
32GB Flash - $15
2200mAh Battery - $12
Also don't forget that (legally speaking) Microsoft is buying ad space from manufacturers to put that little Windows 10 sticker on the case, which also helps to bring down the total cost of manufacturing.
Rawr
Ok, I went to the kangaroo.cc website for the product to try and see who they were marketing this to in the first place. After having been there and read the whole site I can't see why anyone with a smartphone would buy one of these. If you have a laptop or desktop at home and a cloud storage account, or a home server, you can already do everything this thing is supposed to do with a smartphone that's already in your pocket. Makes no sense. This product would have been great in, say, 2003, but in today's world it's nothing more than an extremely poor person's alternative to the functionality already inherent in any smartphone. It literally has little to no market and no market advantage to drive it into one. I predict it will die in the next few months.
I don't have an HP Stream 7, but I do have a WinBook TW801 which is almost identical in specs but slightly larger and it has microHDMI out.
Rawr
The problem is, though, that operating it in such a way would violate FAA regs that require the device to be powered off during take-off and landing, so in order to keep it legal you'd have to fiddle around in your baggage anyway. But that's all pretty trivial when you consider that you have to dig around in your bag to get out the iPad in the first place, so you may as well take this thing out too, which mitigates the whole point of not having to worry about it being in your carry-on.
Rawr
It's called a 'deck.'
The NetBurst architecture in the P4 is legendary for it's terrible performance per clock.
Authors of applications intended for said architecture were probably aware of its terrible IPC. This means the applications will run fine on Atom, which has IPC that's similarly terrible but for a different reason.
I bought an £80 8" tablet running Windows last Christmas. It has quad core cpu, 2GB RAM, 32GB SSD, HDMI out, plus a screen, battery, wifi etc. It's hardly impressive to see devices without the screen or battery coming out for similar prices.
This is just a solution looking for a problem.
Rawr
I hate laptops...I work in specific places. I tote my Mac Mini to and fro and plug it into the prepositioned mouse/keyboard/screen combo. It runs Linux and Windows.
And are typically blocked off either physically or in software. But if you're in a hotel you could just plug it into the wall anyway. Plus most laptops and tablets have HDMI out, and if you're carrying around clothes for a trip adding a laptop or tablet into the mix doesn't add too much weight or bulk to your luggage.
But you'd have to have the entire room up and running before people come in, unless you want to waste their time watching you boot the thing and load everything up. And if you do have access to the meeting room before hand you'd have the extra time to plug in the device, negating the need for a battery. A laptop or tablet would still be superior here since all you have to do is load up your stuff, put the thing in sleep, walk into the meeting room, wake it up, plug it in and hit "Present" and you're off to the races.
Rawr
That's one way to get around Windows 10 keylogging!
In your face Microsoft!
This thing would be perfect if you want to gargoyle it up, you'd just need a handheld control device and a head-mounted display.
This is getting closer to my ideal smartwatch concept: Where the smartwatch is your primary, maybe only computer, with a basic interface because you're not really meant to use the watch as an interface. You'd use something like a phone, tablet, or laptop sort of like a remote desktop terminal to interact with the computer on your wrist. Something like this might be practical in about 20 years.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Windows 10 is INFINITLY better than ChromeOS. More apps, more users, more privacy and security since it isnt from google, more cool factor stuff like integration with xbox and one drive, proper office document editing, etc etc.
Needs better hardware for that 2gb ram / 32g HDD way to small for office use.
Also only 2 usb ports and no Ethernet?
...they'll have to pay me a hell of a lot more than $99. ;-)
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
On the other hand, every ARM-based device I have (about 8 now) is a pleasure to use.
Say I have a few Windows applications that are free software, something like Modplug Tracker or FamiTracker. Has anyone had success at recompiling Windows applications with Winelib so that they'll run on ARM Linux boxes?
The GNU/Linux version is often more expensive, and I'm told this is for three reasons: lack of economies of scale, cost of handling returns from novices who end up buying the wrong thing, and the claim that the royalties paid by publishers of included trialware more than subsidize the royalty paid to Microsoft for Windows.
Maybe true, maybe not. I find these guys deal fairly and don't sell you junk:
http://thelinuxlaptop.com/
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It has wifi & Bluetooth, a USB 3 to Ethernet adapter isn't so expensive...
Ken
I've got an old original Ipad - this might make it a bit more useful, anyone know if the Windows 10 'App' that connects with this run on the original Ipad?
All the drawbacks of a desktop, and almost none of the benefits of a mobile.
The newest Windows Phones do this, it's called continuum. It seems like this company is just selling a screenless phone.
ermahgerd!
what's with the stock photos used on their microsite for this stupid new toy product?
for a second, I thought it was television: hardly any white people, but niggers and spics everywhere.
I really want to like these products but my first foray into the field was a disaster. The Intel Compute Stick was my first cheap-o headless "full Windows" PC and it was total garbage.
It was so slow that installing Windows Updates took for-ev-er. And worst of all, in its shipping configuration, it just failed to install most updates. You'd watch it grind away for 30 minutes, throw an error, reboot, and then uninstall the partially complete update.
If a computer can't even successfully keep up with Microsoft's recommended patches without crapping itself, it isn't very useful.
I got some moderate use out of the Compute Stick by disabling WU entirely, but then its built in wifi started to fail, and then the provided 2 A USB power supply died, and then I gave up on it.
This isn't a computer company, this is a projector company. Did no one else immediately think "Oh, they are going to build the dock into projectors, you have a conference room system in one piece that just needs a wireless keyboard/mouse/presentation remote."
The battery means the projector can be as small as a pico projector, with its own built in battery and you have a complete presentation system that fits easily in the briefcase with your sales literature and you are completely wireless.
Add a smartphone with hotspotting, you have complete connectivity (unless you live in the boonies where I live) with no other pieces required for your sales presentation, whether it is in a hotel room or the corner of a MacDonalds.
So yeah, all us geeks want to know how it would work in a beowulf cluster, but I think the real target is going to be non-geeks who really can benefit from not having to worry about whether the potential client has a projector with VGA or HDMI in the conference room.
In the longer view of things, if InFocus standardizes on this dock connector you can upgrade the computer or the projector one at a time. At this price you could even have computers dedicated to a specific presentation, swap the computer, the IT guys back at $bigCo set it up to auto run, you just plug in the computer with your presentation on it. Even easier than swapping out those itty bitty micro SD cards.
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
Go re-read those rules and regs, they've changed in this last year, sonny-boy.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This device looks vastly superior but this sort of Windows/Intel form factor has been around for a while. I bought a WinTel device last april for around $100 - about the same shape as an Apple TV. The device from this story is vastly superior as it has a legit x64 CPU that supports 64-bit OS (the WinTel seems locked to 32-bit OS via the UEFI). It looks like the next iteration up of the Atom SoC. Also, the WinTel has an invalid Windows 8 key burned into the firmware. And I can't seem to install 32-bit Windows 7 on it (yes, I've tried every method on the web). Really wish I had waited for this device instead of getting the stupid WinTel.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
Newegg product page has been updated to indicate "Kangaroo Dock Included"
Has anyone here ever actually tried to use a laptop on a bus?
I regularly do. The fact that my laptop's screen is only 10.1" makes it practical space-wise.
Oh, goody, I can carry around my files but not any of the expensive proprietary software installed on the work PC necessary to actually work on those files.
Then install "the expensive proprietary software" to the flash drive rather than to the computer. Or do not use proprietary software in the first place.
If you install Windows 10, you have been warned: It is complete spyware AND malware AND even adware. Globally.
I think the majority of the Internet public know this already. If you can format it and put Linux on it... it's still not the best option. sub-$100 Android HTPC's have been #1 on Amazon for a long long time.
See a Kangaroo? fucking bounce.
Get rekt Microsoft. Fuck any and every back stab company, especially global back stabs.
Only $99? If anybody expects me to use Windows 10 on a computer, they'll have to pay me a lot more than that.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Tango PC too... Which never happened (I guess?).
I plugged it in and it would not power on. I left it plugged in to charge overnight, but it doesn't power on. So I got an RMA from NewEgg from without issue, and back it goes. I'm looking forward to the replacement, but how frustrating?!?
That said, what I can say is that the construction is very solid, and it is quite compact--about the size of a large smartphone. It's an intriguing device that could have many uses. This could serve as a simple Home Theater PC running Kodi, Plex, Netflix, etc. I might even consider getting one for my parents who are moving into an independent living facility to give them an extremely compact yet usable computer that would more than suit their needs.
Given that I couldn't power it on, I can say that physically, the only real con I found is the AC adapter: The connector seats very, VERY loosely into the dock. (Maybe that's the issue with mine?) There's no perceptible click, snap, or even tight feeling to tell that it's seated correctly. One bump, and it could easily jar loose. (I checked for obstructions and found none.)
I am looking forward to getting the replacement.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!