Thanks to a slip of the fingers on Posterous (and Robert Scoble's serious Twitter addiction), new images of Michael Arrington's pet Internet-tablet project -- the
CrunchPad -- have shown up looking very,
very close to a finished product. As you can see in the gallery below, the (supposedly) $200, WiFi enabled pad has gotten dressed up in multiple colors and been shoved into some fairly handsome looking packaging. There's no telling if this means the device is any closer to a buy-able reality, but one thing is for sure: a microblog is no place for secrets.
[Via
Scoble's Twitterfeed,
Arab Crunch]
posted Apr 9th 2009 9:49PM
First
Why don't they have an auto-filter for these dickwads?
Twitter is for people without a life and who's psychological need to feel wanted are greater than normal. People do not care what you are doing, when you are doing whatever and however you are doing it. Normal people do not have time for that crap.
Your parents must be so proud!
WANT SO HARD
welcome to the club, buddy.
$200 is kind of hard to believe, especially when the packaging in no way screams $200 either. Is this thing strictly just meant for surfing the web?
$200 to produce maybe but it'll probably go for something like $300 retail. That's what the last Engadget article on this said. And it makes sense as production costs alone can't be what they charge for it. They have to cover R&D, any continuing customer support (i.e.: warranty), etc.
I think $200 is do-able. The device in the pics looks more expensive, but the original design guidelines could be met at a $200 price. The Crunchpad was intended not to compete with netbooks, it's sole-purpose is to browse the web. They were talking about 800 MHz processor, 512 MB memory, 4GB flash storage.
I've seen 7" and 9" EeePCs selling for $200. Sure, the Crunchpad won't be doing the same volumes as Asus, but they could hit that price if they want to. The increased cost of the touchscreen should be mostly offset by the lack of keyboard and lower complexity of construction (meaning a larger device with no hinge mechanism).
Make one in black, Mike.
I second that notion.
So is this thing for people on the go or just for casual browsing while watching TV?
That second thing. If they can do something where the charger hooks up automatically when you drop it in the stand, so much the better.
oh my god that's awesome. i'll just wait for apples though :)
Actually, Victor, this is a fine example of what happens when you don't *need* to wait for Apple. And I'm pretty sure you won't have to worry about hairline cracks in the plastic either.
well actually if apple made a tablet it would probably be aluminum seeing as thats they're new design language...
"i'll just wait for apples though"
How do apples supplant an Internet tablet?
Give this thing a nice keyboard and I'm in. All touch, no sale,
Ever heard of wireless desktops?
I think one of the points is that it's keyboardless.
I think that without a full size wired gaming keyboard and mouse and SLI graphics and a 24" 1920x1200 monitor this thing won't even be able to play Crysis.
This is Awesome. If i can load my Firefox extensions on this. And it has a good Battery life. It will be a must buy day one.
Last I heard, it runs Ubuntu. So Firefox or anything else that can run in Linux will be fine.
sure, i'll take one
I hope its out soon
Oh my God , I want it so much; actually I desperately need it, as soon as possible.
Use the touch screen when I'm out and about, and a nice wireless k-board when I'm back home.
I swear That I would buy more than one of them even if I should stop eating for some weeks.
This is what I want , it can be the ultimate touch screen nettop, the perfect portable netbook, the best digiframe, and the dream HTPC all rolled in one smart, inexpensive and ubercool device.
El Jobo is gonna bite his (pea)nuts when he sees this thing.
Hadn't thought about that... yup it can be a digiframe when the screen saver kicks in.
Course now it needs a motion sensor... crap.
Ever heard of wireless desktops?
Since that's the second time you've asked: NO. WTF are you talking about?
Most of my desktops are wireless. One, in fact, is a large door sitting across two file cabinets.
@Information Central
I asked twice because is well known that you are specially thick, Anyway , you should really investigate further the wireless desktop innovation, maybe you could place one even in top of your door... No , you right , forget about it, this kind of things are not for folks in your unfortunate condition.
Keep on playing with your crayola and try not to hurt yourself.
If it has a battery life shorter than 6 hours its fucking useless....
6-8 hours = ok, i guess
8-10 niiiceeee
Yeah because everyone sits down and uses a device for 6 hours straight where there's no charger... Totally useless.
There's a place where hundreds of people at a time do just that. It's called an "airplane."
I haven't been on a plane in ages, but don't a lot of them have 110 at the seats now?
I just want it next to the TV. So if it can handle Wifi web browsing for 4 hours or so without being plugged in, its fine.
Anyone think this thing will run openoffice?
Probably just Google Gears for google office.
GLORIOUS!!!!
I guess I could have one next to my couch if I was too lazy to walk to my bedroom where my computer is sitting. That is what i use my G1 for now but a bigger screen would be nice
Apple FTW
Spelling "WTF" backward: not funny then, not funny now
Its For The Win, you were so close.
Not knowing what "ftw" means in 2009: not cool then, not cool now.
I'll break the ice for you.
FTW=For The Win.
Apple For the Win, aka, Apple to make this sell, etc.
Like MP3 players.
Nuff said.
I never did understand why they went with the Via nano. for the CrunchPads self proclaimed objectives an ARM processor would have been far superior.... still an interesting looking tablet. If I remember last time engadget posted about the pad they were claiming that it would cost more on the order of 300 USD.
Specs? I wanted to know ~~~
Is it like MID? battery life is really important to me.
I really wish this was capacitive...though that's just me.
Hack! If you can find the screens it *might* be easy to simply replace the resistive with a capacitive. They are about the same thickness, the hard part would be the control circuit if there is one...
Maybe I missed it, but in all the coverage there's no mention of a RIGHT CLICK function. No multitouch, and only one button so no chance of holding something down while clicking... For a device aimed at heavy internet surfers who want a more mobile device, not having the option to open pages in new tabs/other right click functions seems like a bit of a dealbreaker.
I haven't seen any mention of bluetooth either, which seems like a logical technology to include in a device that lacks its own keyboard or mouse.
Click and hold, that functionality is in the tablet PC versions of windows for a while now and it works quite well.
"Click and hold"?
LAME. No UI should be based on WAITING. Not only is this non-discoverable, but it's infuriating and wasteful. A delay-based UI guarantees that this device will purposefully waste your time.
Is your time worthless? Why would you pay money to a vendor that has so little regard for you?
I have a vista tablet and use hold to right click, it works very well. Just hold it in one place very briefly about a quarter of a second a circle will draw around the pen about a 1/2 second. A very easy operation less than a second is wasted, not as fast a a mouse but having a bezel button for right click on a touch screen would be more annoying to use. I built a custom wacom pen using a old cracked one and a plastic grip pen, I do not miss the side button I find the hold option easier since you can hold the pen any way you want.
Basically, this device boots into the browser (I've been reading the updates TechCrunch has sent out; they've been very open about the process) so tabs vs. windows is immaterial. Probably clicking on a link will take you straight to another tab.
This is not a PC.
It is a web tablet.
So in response to some other comments, it absolutely will not run anything except linux and a custom browser (at least, that what the word has been so far).
holy shhh!whoever puts this out on the market first will dominate in sales,especially here in usa.
guaranteed to be a success trust me mark my words ,save this email.,$200-300.,?insane...
Damn that looks amazing...I want one!
I want! But probably will wait for Tmobiles android powered tablet
I'll take 1 of 2. Asap.
Named after the sound you hear after accidentally leaving it on the living room floor...
No FCC filing, so push the date out a little
I would luv one in stainless steel :)
That's what she said.
"I would luv one in stainless steel"
Good thing you saved one character there. Are you on dial-up?
Lttrs ar prcious in this conomy, just trying to make my "e" last as long as possibl.
$200 my ass
Wow, my last escort didn't charge nearly that much.
Why do they need such a big packaging???
That's what she said.
Crunchgear updated with more info and pics.
According to CrunchGear has Intel Atom processor and a 12″ capacitative touchscreen
I have been dreaming of this thing since day 1. i hope they keep the USB port and add some support for my wireless usb dongle... mmm sexy!
imagine this thing running windows 7...it already flys on every netbook out there so this will make it affordable for anyone to have a tablet to carry around with them...reading the morning paper would never be better!
Who cares what OS runs on it? As long as it can handle Firefox, and Flash, it doesn't need to do a whole lot else really.
all this needs aesthetically is a little steampunk/ben heck love!
Ermm .. none of these are actually *on* or .. *working*. For all we know, this could just be a set of photo's of the prototypes and the prototype packaging.
So .. yawn. Wake me up when you've got a pic with something actually *on* the CrunchPad ..
MMM
For The Win...
Any chance it'll play video? It looks like the perfect device for watching tv on the elliptical.
It will have full flash functionality, so you'll be able to stream videos from the web, so yes. If you mean play downloaded video, a. there will be no apps except the browser and b. it won't have the drive space.
Landscape and portrait mode?
gimme gimme gimme, I want, I want, I want!