This is quite possibly a better
Vaio P... you know, if it actually worked. This non-functional stunner of a prototype is sitting pretty at Computex, an event where OEMs (like Sony, HP, and Dell) shop from the latest ODM (like Foxconn and Compal) designs before tweaking for retail launch. Instead of taking chances with
Vista overpowering an Intel Atom processor, however, the ECS T800 on display at Computex is destined to run Android on your choice of 800MHz OMAP3 3440 or 1GHz OMAP3 3450 TI processors. It measures in at 246 x 121 x 20-mm / 800-grams (1.76-pounds) and packs an 8.1-inch display, 512MB of memory, a 2.5-inch hard disk or SSD, and a pair of internal Mini-PCIe slots for WWAN cards. Regarding ports, we're looking at 2x USB 2.0, a 4-in-1 card reader, and an audio jack for your headset. Hey ODMs, we're interested (even if the case for Android on a netbook hasn't been clearly defined) especially if it can be offered for $99 or less through a subsidized carrier agreement. So who's going to bite first, huh? Maybe you Dell now that your
Mini 9 netbook has been discontinued. Video after the break.
posted June 2nd 2009 8:17AM
why is it using DDR??
Last nail in the coffin of MSFT (and the first one of many in te coffin of AAPL, all you worshippers)!
I liked the look of the girl doing the filming...
It looks like a unibody macbook, shame they flatten it and make it really flashy and ugly.
Ok. Just for the hell of it - let's run the numbers and compare this to a proper netbook.
Same storage. Same memory. Same audio. Same USB. Same WAN and ethernet. Similar display, keyboard and chassis. So no real savings there.
Different CPU, but we're talking maybe.. let's be generous... $50 difference taking you from a 1.6GHz Atom (that can run anything) to a 1GHz ARM (that can't). Microsoft tax? Nuh uh - you can get netbooks with Linux (and thus theoretically with Android) on them.
So the cost to manufacture will probably be not a whole lot less than an equivalent X86 based netbook.
So what does this buy us?
Well, battery life - I hear you say.
Yes and no. If you took a netbook and downclocked its Atom to 800Mhz, the battery won't last twice as long, although obviously it will run longer (at the cost of being significantly slower), so the notion that just sticking an ARM processor into a netbook will magically give you days of continuous use is kind of wishful thinking.
Will the battery last longer for intermittent use? Probably - but what gets missed is that really the goal isn't '24/7' - it's 16 hours. Expecting a user to plug the netbook in overnight isn't unreasonable... and the ARM based devices will also have to be plugged in regularly as well. In this case, 36 hours is actually *worse* than 16 because you'll end up with oddball recharging patterns.
Add WWAN/3G? Now you've made it *more* expensive than a netbook. Subsidise through a carrier? Sure - but then you add on the cost of the plan. And you'll STILL need to buy a phone because very few WWAN cards support voice services (not to mention - if you thought the Nokia HeadTaco was hilarious - try using your netbook as a phone... unless you're one of those dweebs who walks around with a bluetooth headset in their ear all the time.)
That leaves software. People who use the "OpenOffice is as good as Office" argument (other than being - well - wrong), miss the bigger point. You're asking people to give up using the software they're used to and are good at using in order to use a device which otherwise doesn't really give them any obvious benefits. This is the exact same problem Linux has on netbooks and why the return rate on Linux netbooks is so much higher than for Windows ones.
In the end, there really is no logical benefit in an ARM based netbook-device running Android. I'm willing to bet money that the ARM/Android experience will make the Linux one look like a huge success by comparison.
she's hot