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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".'
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.
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?
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
Or maybe some of us might want to buy one and Newegg is the only place that sells it right now?
Be serious. If you still have a VGA-only monitor, it's time to replace it. And a DVI-D to HDMI adapter is simple enough to be worth only a few dollars.
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.'"
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...
The industry could make large strides towards retiring VGA if they would just stop making "VGA-only" monitors. You can still buy them today, from all the major brands.
Yes, the odd use case requires VGA, I'm not saying they should stop selling monitors that support VGA. I'm not even saying VGA should be removed from the monitor... just stop making and selling LED/LCD monitors that ONLY do VGA.
For when you want the inconvenience of either needing wherever you are to already have all of these peripherals, or carrying them around yourself.
What I see is a way to own a Windows 10 PC without the biggest major drawback -- having to look at it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not too long ago, I needed an small monitor for work, so I went to my local office supply store, and picked up a small, cheapo monitor. It wasn't until I got it home and tried to plug it in that I realized it was VGA-ONLY. Yeah, a brand-new Dell monitor. WTF, are you kidding me? I mean, my fault for not checking the specs first (I assumed any new monitor would have DVI ports at minimum), but seriously? VGA monitors are apparently not dead yet - they're still selling them as we speak. Lame.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
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.
What's lame is lack of dual VGA on graphics card, or worse : most graphics cards and all nvidia ones still have one VGA, some recent AMD ones have none. DVI-I counted as a VGA output for the purpose of this post.
There are HDMI to VGA and Displayport to VGA adapters, the latter have crashed in price thanksfully (used to be 100€ and they seem to be available for 10€ or less) now what's needed is Displayport on 30€ graphics cards and 50€ motherboards it works both for 4K freaks and CRT freaks dammit.
I wouldn't expect many of those "other apps" to run terribly well on a $100 x86 PC. This is probably not something that will be a suitable gateway for all of those Windows legacy apps unless it's through running an RDP client.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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 ]
What kind of moron would want to buy something that runs Windows 10?
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.
Anyone that wants a small computer to tuck in their projector bag for sales presentations.
Anyone that wants to setup a kiosk.
Anyone that wants to run Windows apps 'on' their iPad (includes software for iPad to act as keyboard/screen for this wifi/Bluetooth enabled computer).
Anyone that wants to embrace the idea of 'hot desks' in their office without buying scads of laptops.
Anyone that wants to put an inexpensive presentation system in a conference room (just add Bluetooth keyboard/mouse and connect to large flat panel/projector).
Ken
The price marks this as a "low powered" device.
For low powered devices, Winders is free. Kind of a "lets get you hooked until you want a REAL machine" kind of thing. This breaks down as now these "low powered" machines now can beat a desktop from a few years ago.
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.
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.
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
What kind of moron would want to buy something that runs Windows
Somebody who wants an affordable[1] PC with a multi-window window manager[2] and no prompt to wipe the drive every time it is turned on,[3] possibly running the occasional Windows app,[4] in a shape or size that System76 does not offer.
[1] Not a Mac
[2] Not a stock Android tablet
[3] Not a Chromebook with Crouton
[4] Not an ARM box, which can't run Wine
Yo understand this device is being offered by Infocus, the projector people, right? Perhaps they view this as a device which compliments their current offerings?
How long before they sell projectors with built-in docking bays for these devices?
Ken
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
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
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
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.
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.
Anyone that wants a small computer to tuck in their projector bag for sales presentations.
I can already do this with my phone! The only thing needed in the bag is the adapter.
Anyone that wants to setup a kiosk.
RPi is cheaper and can do more.
Anyone that wants to run Windows apps 'on' their iPad (includes software for iPad to act as keyboard/screen for this wifi/Bluetooth enabled computer).
What windows apps would you want or need to run on your iPad that you couldn't get access to via something like CloudOn? What Windows apps would be needed to view or edit files on an iPad? Makes no sense to anyone that actually owns and uses an iPad. There are apps for that stuff already, way cheaper than a $99 POS.
Anyone that wants to embrace the idea of 'hot desks' in their office without buying scads of laptops.
Yeah, because that has worked out so well for the people that have already embraced that virtual office BS. It works for certain business units in certain circumstances. Besides, if you're doing "hot desks" then you're also likely to be doing a BYOD policy so you wouldn't be buying laptops for people anyway, if you're using the ultra lean model of office space usage.
Anyone that wants to put an inexpensive presentation system in a conference room (just add Bluetooth keyboard/mouse and connect to large flat panel/projector).
Again, RPi can do that, too. For less. Besides, if you're going to have heavy hitters in your conference room, a real machine is going to be needed anyway to support the graphics, memory and storage needs, or the presenter will have their own machine to plug in (which is the most frequent case in reality) so a machine in the room is superfluous.
This thing has no market except for gadget hoarders and really poor people that cannot afford a smartphone. It's doomed.
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
Needs better hardware for that 2gb ram / 32g HDD way to small for office use.
Also only 2 usb ports and no Ethernet?
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.
The price marks this as a "low powered" device.
For low powered devices, Winders is free. Kind of a "lets get you hooked until you want a REAL machine" kind of thing. This breaks down as now these "low powered" machines now can beat a desktop from a few years ago.
It also breaks down because it's a Sherman act violation.[1] I wonder how long it will take the DoJ to get around to prosecuting, or will the EU need to step in again?
[1] Dumping. Illegal under the Sherman and Clayton acts.
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?
No, you're not - Vista flailed about with only 2 gigs, Win 7 was usable w/ 2 gigs, Win 8/8.1 was decent, and I expect Win 10 to be at least as good as Win 8/8.1 was with 2 gigs.
Ken
SD Card AND Flash? And I think you left out WiFi adapter...
Ken
The newest Windows Phones do this, it's called continuum. It seems like this company is just selling a screenless phone.
I'm browsing Slashdot right now on an Atom processor. Until a few minutes ago I was dicking around at Civilization 5 (set to minimum standards and at less than 1080p, but still). $100 processor computers have reached the point that they're "good enough" for 90%+ of users.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
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.
Office does indeed work on an Atom processor, I use it all the time! It's just a normal x86 processor...
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I wouldn't expect many of those "other apps" to run terribly well on a $100 x86 PC. This is probably not something that will be a suitable gateway for all of those Windows legacy apps unless it's through running an RDP client.
Running something "not terribly well" is still better than not at all, which is the alternative if going with an ARM processor. And while many applications won't run well, many will run fine.
I do think that you may be underestimating how well this PC will run. While you wouldn't want to do highly complex stats jobs on it, it will be fine for applications that are more user-interface based (which tend to idle while waiting for user input). They will be especially fine for those legacy Windows apps that some companies have been running for years and just can't seem to shake off. At my company we have a program that started its life back on Windows 3.1. It runs like a champ on anything that you can buy today.
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
..And there isn't anything that fills those needs but runs a non-Windows OS?
You can take your chances with whatever Debian derivative is popular at any given time, but doing this with some recent Atom chipsets will result in a laptop that does not Just Work. You'll likely end up having to buy and connect an external mouse, keyboard, flash drive, and supported USB NIC through a hub so that you can download kernel sources, download patches, apply the patches, and recompile and install the kernel, just to get a machine's keyboard, trackpad, and Wi-Fi working. And even with all that, some hardware features still may not work.
Moron.
Please cool it with the personal attacks.
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.
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?).
Well, there is an open source port for Descent, so maybe? I guess it depends on which libraries it needs.
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!