Video: Mobinnova élan sporting a custom Tegra UI

Although we get irked by all the names assigned to netbooks, smartbooks, or in this case, viewbooks, we are still pretty excited about the élan's 1080p capabilities, and now the Netbook News crew are adding to our enthusiasm with a pair of videos investigating the machine's chassis and software. The UI they looked at is notable for being supplied by NVIDIA, and may therefore give a good indication of what future Tegra-based devices of all shapes, sizes and naming nomenclatures may look and feel like. We like the media-centric approach, which complements the platform's strengths well, and the chunky navigation icons avoid the pitfalls inherent in a screen of this size (8.9-inches). Click through for the vids, but be warned: super-glossy screens and pink laptop enclosures lay ahead.

[finalboss @ Jun 30th 2009 8:21AM]

Aha. The videos make a combo.

[boolean22 @ Jun 30th 2009 11:15AM]

I dig the chick with the handycam...

[LondonConsultant @ Jun 30th 2009 8:22AM]

Is that battery from a different laptop?...

[loopyoyo @ Jun 30th 2009 8:26AM]

think that guy in the ui video needs to lay off the caffine

[pedro @ Jun 30th 2009 8:42AM]

This device looks tasty and so does the camera woman ;)

This will be on my Christmas list if its out in time.

[Andres @ Jun 30th 2009 8:46AM]

check out minute 1:04, you can see the girl in the reflection stick out her tounge!!

[darkmax @ Jun 30th 2009 8:56AM]

Anyone caught what OS it is running on?

[pedro @ Jun 30th 2009 9:04AM]

It has some kind of OS built into the BIOS, but also runs Windows CE

[Hearsay @ Jul 1st 2009 4:38PM]

It is running on windows CE it cannot run windows XP or Vista because the Tegra is an ARM based chip. The creators of the Mobinnova elan have modified the OS to have the pop up menu at the bottom of the screen similar to what is seen on OS X. I have seen other tegra devices running on Android but this is most definitely Windows CE.

[ZeroK2 @ Jun 30th 2009 9:08AM]

I noticed that the 1080p demos were in MP4 containers, unless this thing plays 1080p MKV videos then there is little point to it.

[loopyoyo @ Jun 30th 2009 9:28AM]

once again..mkv is just a container...mpeg 4 is the real beef..its easy to make something support a container

[Beastage @ Jun 30th 2009 9:26AM]

Damn , looks very nice in that dark bronze colour.

[linking123 @ Jun 30th 2009 9:34AM]

so do any of you think when this comes out,
people here in the states will be able to buy one of these?
cause i was looking at getting the archos 10 nettbook,
but all i do is surf the internet and listen to music and watch movies,
so do you think this is a better buy than the other?

[Art @ Jun 30th 2009 6:06PM]

luxury pleasure entertainment time....i love engrish

[uwgandalf @ Jun 30th 2009 11:05AM]

hell, it can't even output 1080p while it CAN decode it.. great there goes my cheap portable htpc

[thelostswede @ Jun 30th 2009 12:04PM]

Well, Tegra is supposed to be able to output 1080p, but it's possible that there are some current software or hardware implementation limitations at the moment.
It's using the 650 Tegra chip http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_tegra_600_us.html and according to that, it should be able to do 1080p output...

[David Roberts @ Jun 30th 2009 1:02PM]

When does this sweet netbook come out?

[Gad Get @ Jun 30th 2009 4:40PM]

Don't call it a netbook; that's just insulting.

[loosely_coupled @ Jun 30th 2009 3:06PM]

If Nvidia wants to compete, they badly need to update the Tegra. While it may have a great GPU and video capabilities, It still uses the ARM11 architecture, while all the new smartphones are using ARM Cortex A8 and eventually A9 CPUs.

[John @ Jun 30th 2009 7:30PM]

It has 8 individual processors on it, the arm11 being one of them. There is a seperate one controlling the encoding, decoding, music, UI. It is why it is so good at multitasking running 3D graphics, playing back a 720p video, and playing back music at the same time and how it manages to get days of audio playback.

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 1st 2009 4:49AM]

If you are going to comment, please make sure you know what the hell you are talking about. Nvidia's Tegra DOES NOT have "8 individual processors". That is an idiotic statement.

It has two ARM11 processing cores. It also has a programmable GPU, dedicated video encoding and decoding logic, and an imaging processor (for camera). These other components are not general purpose processors and are never included in some arbitrary total number of "processors".

Every major ARM smartphone platform, like T.I.'s OMAP3 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon has similar components. They all have programmable GPUs, optional DSPs, dedicated video encode/decode logic, and Imaging processors for camera capture. Tegra is nothing special in that regard, other than having a GPU that is most powerful than the commonly used PowerVR SGX 530/535.

Again, Tegra needs to be upgraded to use either a high-clock ARM Cortex-A8 core or eventually a dual-core ARM Cortex A9. The ARM11 cores are about half as fast as a Cortex-A8 core as seen in the iPhone 3GS or Palm Pre.