SmartQ 5 MID scores itself Ubuntu, a ridiculously low price tag
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 18th 2009 9:11AM
posted Mar 18th 2009 9:11AM
[Via iTech News Net]
posted Mar 18th 2009 9:11AM
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Those characters under the E in "GOOGLE" are translated as "beta."
does anyone know how you can buy one of these....even if it means having it shipped from China ?
I have found somewhere that claims to sell it. It's going for $150 but i don;t know how credible the seller is.
http://www.eletroworld.cn/
Just realized how dodgy that website it. It sells poor quality knock-off goods. You've gotta love China's attitude towards copyright laws.
The two Chinese words under the last two letters of google are the Chinese name of Google. The first word is valley. The second word is song. Google is pronounced similar to Valley Song in Chinese.
It is Ubuntu! It is not M$. Nor is it fruit. Next month I will go to China and buy one. Anyone interested?
Nah, they mean beta.
try google for these 2 word and see what u get :)
谷歌
those 6 letter above the 谷歌 means what??????
I think it is a message from the Chinese government:
Google beta (not link you to any websites about freedom...)
*that was meant for AVG
Actually, it says 'Google' in Chinese, but then that'd make too much sense wouldn't it.
yeah, why don't you quit stirring s*** up for a change, I'm sick of folk like you dissing my people without even knowing what goes on. Don't believe everything you hear on CNN or Fox.
@ William Lau
Yeah, rather believe in what you see and hear from Chinese CCTV!
/end sar
@Uchiha Sasuke,
The truth resides somewhere between CCTV and CNN... That's why I subscribe to Playboy.
William, there is a difference between dissing your people and dissing your government. If you're unable to draw that distinction, that's a problem.
well, some people like the chinese government, so dissing the govt = dissing them.
btw, in pinyin, those two characters are gou ge. that is pronounced like go guh, which = google. it DOES NOT MEAN BETA. that guy is just trying to stir up trouble, like the previous chinese ppl said.
wow some ppl are so gullible.
Nice!
at that price I'll take two please!
This looks like a great product for anyone who's pissed off at:
a) Intel
b) Microsoft
c) Apple
d) Their credit card company
e) any of the other usual suspects
Seriously though, I'd love to know what variant of Ubuntu it's running (especially which GUI) and how well it performs.
Looks like Gnome (ie Ubuntu itself, not Kubuntu [KDE] or Xubuntu {Xfce])
It's probably a photoshop though since there is an MID version of Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile
I hope it is that version as it has a simpler interface IMHO.
its running ubuntu with lxde
lxde is a desktop environment like gnome, kde, xfce, but with lower system requirements.
@Andir 30 the stupid "simple" interfaces are what is hurting Linux on the desktop/nettop IMO dumbing it down TOO far
Will the value still look good when this thing transitions from beautiful render to bulky plastic garbage?
That's already the physical product. Google it and you'd find some coverage showing shots in the wild and hands-on shots which, well, look the same as this.
You don't even have to google it. The SmartQ 5 link in the article will take you to other posts about this MID, one of which has actual photos of the device.
HOLY CRAP look at the size of the SD slot! If that's to scale, then... this is the smallest MID ever.
Why would it not be available stateside? aren't there sites that sell stuff straight out of china.
I just sold 2 Nokia N800s due to frustrations with Maemo. A tablet running Ubuntu would be SWEET. Linux Mint would be even sweeter!
You can run Ubuntu on those N800's now ... someone on the ITT forums has a thread going about having ported Jaunty to it.
For not much more than that, you can get an N810 ... which has a keyboard, can also run Ubuntu, runs a very strong native version of Linux (Maemo), is a mature product (out for 1.3 years), and is from a reputable company (Nokia).
the N810 costs more than "a little more"....try 2X the price.
You fail at math. Significantly less than 2x the price.
$200ish doing a very simple Google search. So, 1.5x the price. Just $70 more. I think $70 qualifies for "not much more" when talking about tech gadgets, especially when you consider the high quality of Nokia hardware.
My Google search told me it was nearly $400 at Amazon.
The N810 seems to be selling at over $400 most places. A quick Google search showed the first 10 price results at around $400 or higher. So that is the price - even if there is an out-of-the-way bargain somewhere that you know that most people are not aware of.
So to correct you: the N810 is almost 3 times the price of this.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=nokia+n810&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=10657832716709053816&scoring=p#ps-sellers
1 store (mobile city online) at $200
Buy.com at $221
6 stores under $225
21 stores under $262 (2x the price of the SmartQ 5)
Your Google-Fu seems kinda weak.
Did you actually bother to check any of those links? For example, even though that pricing page says $220 at Buy.com, the actual price when you go there is $380.
And the $200 verison is a backordered open box from a retailer I've never heard of. You're selling me pipe dreams here.
Well, if the SmartQ MID clocks in at $130 and the N810 is $70+ more, that's still a large relative price jump. And while the N810 may have some advantages over the SmartQ, it has some weaknesses, too. Against the SmartQ's 16 million color screen, the N810 has only 65K colors. The N810 chugs along on the relatively slow 400 Mhz TI OMAP 2420, and while I don't know what the SmartQ MID uses, their now fairly dated T5-II uses the 600 Mhz ADI Blackfin processor. The point is, while it's way too early to directly compare these two products since so much is unknown, by the same measure it's also way too early to point people to one over the other.
vidikron: the provantage one is in stock, and at the listed price. and, while you may not have heard of mobile city online, that doesn't mean they're completely unknown or fly-by-night.
defek: the N810's speed is quite usable and decent, and I'll take decent speed on reliable hardware from a known company over something that _might_ be faster, but may be so cheap because it is constructed so cheap, and for which you can't get any support because it's a flaky company. I'll pay the extra $70-$100 for reliable hardware and reliable support.
Shoe: I don't know what Google Search you did, but just searching for "Nokia N810", clicking on the Google shopping results for the N810 (not the Wimax edition), and then sorting on price are exactly where the above URL came from. The top 10 results are definitely not in the price range you quoted. By your own logic, "the price is $200" (not $400), even if some other convoluted google search yielded bizarre results.
It's really nice, I wonder if XP could be ported to it. I want one for sure and will find out how to buy it and get it shipped to me. When I do get it I will do an unboxing for all your viewing pleasure...
Unless Microsoft does a native ARM port of Windows XP (very unlikely), I don't see this happening.You would have better luck running Windows CE.
It's an ARM processor, so no. XP only runs on x86 processors.
XP == No
Vista == No
Win7 == Probably Not (I don't think they have an ARM version in the works)
Windows Mobile and Windows CE variants == Probably.
It's an ARM CPU.
Microsoft would have to port XP to ARM as it is Closed Source!
XP Embedded?
Even if MS did make an XP/Vista/7 Arm port, it would would be pretty much useless since it would have no program compatibility with all the existing x86 software. Window's default install is pretty useless.
If the performance are good enough for casual web browsing and if it is a well supported Ubuntu distributions, I will take it without hesitation :D
That looks wonderful!
I would imagine that the Open Pandora crew may glance nervously at this...
pretty good, I wish they have an extended battery + keyboard accessory for it.
"Sure, it'll probably never surface Stateside, especially not for that price"
Strangely it costs money to carry things across the pacific, who would have thought ?