Windows CE-powered Cuol Book gives netbooks a bad name

Amazon's top 10 laptop sellers may be clogged with netbooks, but you can bet this one isn't in there. Paradoxically available from The Really Useful Store, the very useless Cuol Book shames itself with a Windows CE 5.0 operating system that should honestly be reserved for PDAs manufactured on or before January 1, 2004. For those who care, further specs include a 7-inch display, SD / MMC card slot, two USB ports, 1GB of RAM, a 533MHz Samsung ARM processor and a built-in speaker for good measure. Sure, the thing only weighs 1.5-pounds, but the almost insulting £159.99 ($298) price tag really pushes it over the edge. Thanks, but no thanks.

[Via BoingBoing]

[jay @ Sep 25th 2008 9:00AM]

there's no touch pad either. is it touchscreen or you gotta use mind control.

[Jakob @ Sep 25th 2008 9:02AM]

Or they probably just forgot a mouse!

[Rob Bourne @ Sep 25th 2008 9:03AM]

According to the site it comes with a mouse.

Woe.

[john @ Sep 25th 2008 2:50PM]

A netbook with a f'n mouse!?

Running Windows CE??

For $300!?!?

Yeah, that is kind insult/injury/salt.

[Alexandre Emond @ Sep 25th 2008 9:19AM]

Battery: 3000mAh !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do not agree with Engadget. This is a good machine to achieve the longest battery working time for a netbook, palm computer or smartphone! This is a good machine for students to takes notes for more than the first course in the morning. But we need a battery test to sort this out.

[Jeff Jones @ Sep 25th 2008 9:22AM]

Jokes aside, you are not wrong here. I had a couple "handheld pc's" back in the day and they were great for working on Office documents, etc. If that is all you need this might just be the ticket. Although I think one would probably do better to pick up a used Jornada on ebay rather than shell out $300 for this clunker.

[Jeff Jones @ Sep 25th 2008 9:20AM]

Yeah, so 1996 called and they'd like their Jornada 720 back please. They are looking to rock out to a badass Macarena remix.

[James @ Sep 25th 2008 9:30AM]

CE 5 is a good OS for low powered devices. There's nothing wrong with new devices using CE 5 (although CE 6 is of course much better).

However, it is very misleading that the device implementors have given this an XP-like skin. This won't install any XP software.

[unicode787plus @ Sep 25th 2008 3:09PM]

AND, don't forget, Windows Mobile 2003, 5, 6, & 6.1 are also based on WinCE 5.0 (well, WM5 says WinCE 5.1; WM6 & WM6.1 say WinCE 5.2, but still it's basically the same CE core). I don't know if Windows Mobile 7 will be based on WinCE 6.0 or if it will continue the WinCE 5.x fashion, though.

[hyperweaver @ Sep 25th 2008 9:34AM]

is it Cuol Book or Culo Book?

[Rob Bourne @ Sep 25th 2008 9:47AM]

Easy now, it's too culo for schulo

[MM @ Sep 25th 2008 9:46AM]

I'd be ordering it now if it also had 3G/UMTS/HSPDA

[BigTeebo @ Sep 25th 2008 10:00AM]

I still have my old Zeos Pocket PC from almost 20 years ago, a spiritual successor to the netbooks, and definitely this Cuol book. I like the keyboard, reminding me of a shrunk Thinkpad keyboard. Surely there's some lightweight linux replacement one could put in?

[cjstuff @ Sep 25th 2008 10:03AM]

Hey, for $100, I'd buy one of these. There are plenty of times when I need a machine for entering text--either meeting notes, maybe a draft of something I'm writing. I don't need a full-blown XP machine to do that. I don't even necessarily need the full power of a netbook. I want something that turns on and off in seconds and that has a decent keyboard--oh, and the ability to easily get documents to and from the computer.

I'm still sad, even after all these years, that the IBM z50 (Windows CE 3.0) never had a second act. That machine, which had an 8.4" screen and a 90 percent IBM ThinkPad computer, was fabulous for taking notes, and it looked enough like a "real" laptop that I only got appreciative stares, not derisive comments.

[Paul H @ Sep 25th 2008 10:37AM]

Now available at that price in Robert Dyas (hardware store) on the UK high street.
Looks a bit low rent even compared to an EEE. Might have been a Psion killer 7 years ago mind...

[debatem1 @ Sep 25th 2008 7:19PM]

@Paul H: is there a link for that? I'll buy at $100.

[evileuropean @ Sep 25th 2008 10:42AM]

Robert Dyas! Robert Dyas are selling netbooks!
For those that dont know Robert Dyas are a hardware store, but hardware as in shovels and pick-axes!
Talk about losing focus!

[Chris in CA @ Sep 25th 2008 10:42AM]

I guess Engadget is just quick to dump on anything Microsoft. CE is a very stable platform and designed specifically to run on low power devices. It is also designed to allow quick development/porting of windows apps from the desktop Windows environment. Snarky comments aren't news, relecant facts are.

[Javier @ Sep 25th 2008 10:58AM]

1.5 pounds? i'd seriously consider it if it can run Linux (533Mhz is not so bad for DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org) )

[Jash Sayani @ Sep 25th 2008 11:03AM]

Yay! And it goes to the museum !

[BigD145 @ Sep 25th 2008 11:07AM]

No, the "netbook" name give laptops a bad name.

[*brotha @ Sep 25th 2008 11:24AM]

I think my Dell Axim X51V beats this thing except for the fact that it does not have a keyboard...

and is cheaper too (now that its old)

it also fits in my pocket

has two memory card slots

and a faster 625 MHZ processor.

[Mark Roddis @ Sep 25th 2008 12:24PM]

I think this is great.

It's a netbook so all you need it to be able to run is a browser yes? I think Windows CE 5 (not this is not Windows Mobile) is more than up to the job of running a browser. With a battery that size and that much memory, this thing should boot faster than any Linux or Windows XP/Vista machine and run for days.

This is exactly what netbooks are about.

UNLESS

You are one of these people who are too ashamed to admit that you can only afford a cheap notebook but by calling it a netbook instead, you dont have to be ashamed that you couldn't afford a real machine :-)

[Shade @ Sep 26th 2008 2:16PM]

I much prefer the Dell Axim x30 with built in Wifi/Bluetooth, touchscreen, and oh yeah, its size. Why did they stop making plain old PPCs? Not everyone wants to buy an f'ing smartphone. I miss the good old days.

[Lucinda Lee @ Sep 26th 2008 8:33PM]

do people realise there is a credit crunch
for 150 pounds it is great value
i bought 2 for my kids aged 14 and 7
it has everything you need for a first computer

[alyson @ Sep 30th 2008 1:14AM]

I've just got a CUOLbook, awesome and compact to travel. very valueable for the 150 quid.
thinking to buy another one for xmas prezzie for my BF