Uh, Palm, the
Foleo just got shown up. VIA just announced the NanoBook Ultra Mobile Device, a reference design for a new ultraportable laptop which just happens to be lighter and smaller than the Foleo -- and which will supposedly retail for just $600. The NanoBook runs on either Windows XP or
Vista, weighs less than 850g (1.87 pounds), and sports a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M processor, up to 1GB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, a 7-inch WVGA display, 802.11g WiFi, Bluetooth (they don't specify which kind), DVI-out, a slot next to the screen where you can pop in a GPS, VoIP, or WWAN module (the module in the pic above is some world clock thing), and up to five hours of battery life. Packard Bell has already signed on to use the reference design as the basis for the EasyNote XS, which is due out in Europe later this year; VIA tells us that at least one other OEM is on-board, but they weren't ready to announce who it was yet.
We played with a NanoBook prototype the other day, and while there are a few compromises -- the touchpad is way too small, there's no integrated WWAN (apart from the possibility of that optional module we mentioned), the pop-in module takes up space that we'd rather they'd used for a larger display, and there's probably not quite enough RAM for a full-fledged Vista experience -- the prospect of paying just $600 for full-fledged ultraportable laptop that weighs under two pounds is mighty alluring.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
William @ Jun 6th 2007 12:06PM
Do you think you could water cool this SOB?
Lance @ Jun 5th 2007 2:57AM
I want one
bradskins @ Jun 5th 2007 3:05AM
Ten Grand sez that other OEM is Apple.
Giles @ Jun 5th 2007 3:26AM
...but it's not white (or that pretty)
Sounds like the perfect living-room laptop for mucking around on teh interwebs...
£300? sign me up... (I'll even import)
bombastinator @ Jun 5th 2007 4:32AM
yeah. That thing in the screen looks kinda iPhone sized. You don't need it to run MacOS to play nice with an iphone though.
Chrisboff @ Jun 5th 2007 7:11AM
Somehow I doubt that Apple would use the VIA platform.
LordFarkward @ Jun 5th 2007 3:11AM
MSTN display?? ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
waiownsyou @ Jun 5th 2007 3:48AM
lol, GG Palm!
Revels @ Jun 5th 2007 3:54AM
Straight outta the 80's
Tim @ Jun 5th 2007 3:55AM
Pfft, give me good old 8 year old technology for my palmtop. 1999-2000 were truly the glory days.
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/psion_revo_review
drtekger @ Jun 5th 2007 3:58AM
Back to the Future! This piece looks so cheapo. Like a CASIO calculator watch from the 80's but much larger in size.
ZSX @ Jun 5th 2007 4:15AM
Love it! What would be perfect is if one of the pop-out module options was a mobile phone. This would give you WWAN, and the phone screen could be used as a secondary SideShow display in Vista.
ottovds @ Jun 5th 2007 4:38AM
This is the worst design ever...
Why taking off such a big part of the screen of an ultra portable. The screen would already be that small.
I'd say you have to wait for a Macbook nano...
Otto Van De Steene @ Jun 5th 2007 4:53AM
why an an extra screen? especially when the big screen has to be smaller for it. A screen that can pop out isn't my thing too. That would be bad for the deign and ease of use. (I alwaysdo my stuff in bed, powerbook 12" on its side)
It would be nice if you would use your GSM/ipod for it (via BT) Or maybe one day the iPhone :-P
snife @ Jun 5th 2007 4:45AM
bradskin - i'll take that bet, this will be the easiest money i've ever made
husurdadi @ Jun 5th 2007 4:08PM
i think there is a big gap in cost between a 7" and a 10" screen. they also could not just place a smaller keyboard since it would be too dinky like the libretto. also i think the keyboard that they installed is more commonly used and hence cheaper. all in all they had to do something with that extra space. i just dont think they made a right choice in placing something like a digital clock. they should have just made it a compartment to store flash cards, usb flash disks, a $20 bill and a condom for emergencies lol.
peshue @ Jun 5th 2007 5:19AM
Is there some reason they can't have the little eraser head thingy in the middle of the keyboard like lots of laptops used to have and only thinkpads seem to now. I always thought those were superior to the touchpads, and they don't use of any space.
spam_from_engadget @ Jun 5th 2007 6:04AM
Nice spec and price, let down by the fugly wart where the right half of the screen should be. What were they thinking?
(Oh, and no thanks I don't want Windows. Foleo still has the advantage there.)
Richard Lai @ Jun 5th 2007 7:08AM
Wow, even XP can have a sidebar? And it is a physically REAL sidebar! LOL
DC @ Jun 5th 2007 7:09AM
This is something that I can use. If the popout module can display something like MSN, New Mail alerts, WLAN signal etc then that could be cool. Done properly this machine has far more possiblites than the Foleo does. At $600 (So 600 UK most likely) I'd buy one tomorrow.
Ryan M @ Jun 5th 2007 7:17AM
What about instead of taking up screen space, make an ultra portable with a break-out touchpad/iphone (it is a touch screen).
Rynth @ Jun 5th 2007 7:38AM
that side panel thing could be used for some sideshow device? maybe..
never mind, but I wouldn't mind one..
Shaun @ Jun 5th 2007 7:41AM
What am I missing? Shouldn't the reference design for this be the Sony Picturebook from years ago.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-PictureBook-Notebook-Crusoe-TM5800/dp/B00006J3JY
It was small, powerful enough to run xp, easy enough to use holding in one hand and working with the other, the screen was good enough to watch movies on, it was expandable, around 2 lbs, and it was actually a good quality build. So one would figure that manufacturers could bring down the price 8 years later. So why not? Where's Sony on this mini computing?
Erwos @ Jun 5th 2007 8:41AM
FYI, read link is wrong:
http://www.idot.com.tw/en/products/umpc-ce260/
Tony Colonello @ Jun 5th 2007 8:54AM
Now if you can dump the M$ and put one of the small Linux packages (think Slax Kill Bill or Knoppix) on it that would be cool.
My real complaint about these ultra portables is that people lose them far too easily. In my department in the last year we had 3 Dell full size laptops, 5 Palms and a Sony VAIO UX390 lost or stolen. I don't remember any one ever forgetting their Osborne 1 or the original Compaq Portable!
Adam @ Jun 6th 2007 7:36PM
Yup, the good old Osborne 1 and Executive are good enough for me.
Andy Chapman @ Jun 5th 2007 9:02AM
Whilst you can compare this to the Foleo because of its size and weight, there's a very import property of the Foleo that this doesn't address - simplicity.
Put everything else aside, Palm are about making machines that are extremely simple to use (compare Windows Mobile to Garnet). They differentiate themselves by having their own OS which focuses on elegance and speed. If Palm can make the Foleo live up to these philosophies, the Foleo will be something I can hand to my mother to use, which I could never do with this.
Mark @ Jun 5th 2007 9:33AM
Just another mini PC running Windows on a screen that's too small for Windows. The hardware isn't the problem, Windows is. I'll take a Foleo.
Oh, and that's no full-size keyboard either.
hydrogen_wv @ Jun 5th 2007 10:03AM
If this comes out within the next 6 months, I may buy one to take notes on in grad school. It may be ugly, but it's small, cheap, and has anything I'd ever need to use for a laptop for class.
dave @ Jun 5th 2007 11:25AM
Considering the damn nice specs for this small device and the low price, I would take this any day. Granted, it's not a beauty, but it doesnt look bad either. Screw looks, I'm more utilitarian anyways...
BlackCoffeeNoSugar @ Jun 5th 2007 12:25PM
I had a 7" Toshiba Libretto before, the keys are just too small to do anything effectively. This one is probably the same.
Stephan @ Jun 5th 2007 12:52PM
Please get rid of the the stupid side-bar-show-ho-whore thing put in a 10" LCD and I would gladly pay $600 for it, hell I might even consider $700!
roc ingersol @ Jun 5th 2007 1:06PM
it's got the sidebar thing because the smaller screen is cheaper, and no-one wants to type on a keyboard that'd fit under that dinky screen.
They probably could've centered the screen and junked the widget, but it's a reference design - of course VIA's gonna play up some proprietary interconnect that it's trying to license to third parties to make and sell all sorts of interchangable accessories.
but that doesn't mean the OEMs are gonna use it.
apeguero @ Jun 5th 2007 1:44PM
It's the dumbest picture ever. I mean, if you 're going to take a picture of your product with a guy typing, at least open up Word or Notepad, hell, even IE or Firefox and something like "www.engad" on the URL field so it looks like he's typing. Not what they did here. I mean, is he using some sort of uber-secret 8-key combination command to get this mini-lappie to do do something from the desktop? Totally stupid. The lappie however, don't know. Might grow on me.
Spanky @ Jun 5th 2007 2:51PM
a couple things to note, it is a womans hand in the picture so the unit looks larger due to the smaller hand. and the keyboard is a full sized key set.
Tak @ Jun 5th 2007 4:02PM
I absolutely MUST get one of these! Or something similar... Anyone know of any cheap things like this on the market right now?
OddManOut @ Jun 5th 2007 5:42PM
Uh...Vista on a 1.2ghz machine?
It better have 5 hours of battery life...it'll need it just to boot up.
Seriously though, I think it looks pretty good. The $600 price tag makes up for a lot of fugly. But I'd be happier if the lcd display were just a smidge more advanced. If it were say 320x240 or so, even if it was only grayscale it would be a lot more useful. say for playing MP3s w/out having to power the whole thing up or something...
RemingtonTypewriter @ Jun 5th 2007 6:04PM
If the price holds when it comes on market, this would be ideal for my needs: email, doc correction/creation on the go, a stable OS (if it has XP), smaller spreadsheets, etc.
Sure, you can't sit and work at it for 4 hours. But for working on the bus, restaurant at lunch, those kinds of scenarios, it's great. This is what the Foleo could have been.
Coleman Foley @ Jun 5th 2007 7:38PM
If you had this in your lap or on a table in front of you, you would have to hunch down to read things on the screen.
Andrew @ Jun 5th 2007 8:39PM
As has been mentioned above, I think that what makes the Foleo at least more *interesting* is that it runs an ultra-mobile operating system. An ultra-mobile PC with a desktop OS is at best graceless, and it's ridiculous to think that anybody is replacing their main PC with this, so it doesn't seem that this much complexity in something so small is particularly necessary.
On the other hand, the Palm platform has been kind of a mess lately, and I don't think Windows Mobile offers much better, so maybe what we *really* need is a platform actually worth building a UMPC around.
Roy @ Jun 5th 2007 8:53PM
"1.2GHz VIA C7-M processor" in a so small box,take it as a radiator.
Luke @ Jun 5th 2007 10:07PM
Knock it if you want- I think it's a damn good machine (for both the size and the price), and it's a message to other companies to start on the path to the cheaper UMPC. Granted, I think the sidebar is a tad odd, but my money's on it getting hacked.
trigatch4 @ Jun 6th 2007 12:07PM
My favorite article about this had something about Palm getting Punched in the Faceo hahaha I read it on some NanoBook site but it was pretty funny.
Seriously, should all of Palm Executives be fired?
trigatch4 @ Jun 6th 2007 1:14PM
I found the site it was on!
At the end they say, "All Your Foleos Are Belong To Nobody!" HAHAAHHAHAHHAH That's too good!
http://nanobook.info/nanobook-punches-palm-in-the-faceo
Luke @ Jun 6th 2007 2:46PM
Also, any word on when this will be available in the States?
chris @ Jun 7th 2007 2:30PM
i really hope that thing comes out in the Uk before i head off to uni, the look of its really grown on me overl the last erm...day , hope $600 doesnt equal £600, even tho we always have to pay higher prices over the pond. o well
Mike @ Jul 14th 2007 1:47AM
When will these idiots figure out that those of use who write English need to use the right-side shift key. The up arrow just to the left of the shift key really screws up your typing. Fujitsu eventually figured it out and changed its arrow configuration. Both the Via and the Eee are impossible to type on because of the placement of the up arrow.
Mike @ Jul 14th 2007 1:49AM
When will these idiots figure out that those of us who write English need to use the right-side shift key. The up arrow just to the left of the shift key really screws up your typing. Fujitsu eventually figured it out and changed its arrow configuration. Both the Via and the Eee are impossible to type on because of the placement of the up arrow. They're not for me.
Richard Mansell @ Jul 17th 2007 9:41AM
I think that most of the people who are commenting are missing the point of the Nanobook.
It is supposed to be a mobile PC, like the OQO or Sony Vaio, not something you can send texts on or play the latest 3D games.
Our company wants something that is ultra portable which can be used in a business mobile support role, for on-call IT professionals in call out situations. This is where I believe VIA have pitched their target audience.
For the features and money, it's well worth it.
When is it on sale in the UK?
Alex McKenna @ Sep 1st 2007 6:04PM
The size of the thing, the lighter weight. and the little keyboard are both very attractive.
It doesn't matter where the shift key is, frankly.
Shame it's Windows and not Mac though, which rules it out for me. Linux I could put up with I suppose.
I'll keep waiting for that one-pound mini! Being a photographer, I am already lugging 20 pounds of stuff around and don't need another 6 pounds, of the iBook say, when I'm running for underground trains, charging up escalators, and so on.
Alex Mac