Snapdragon and Tegra smartbook rumors swirl before likely year end push
By Vladislav Savov 
posted Aug 3rd 2009 9:51AM
posted Aug 3rd 2009 9:51AM
posted Aug 3rd 2009 9:51AM
Number of applications downloaded from the iPhone App Store
After hitting a historic 1 billion downloads, Apple says the store cleared another half a billion apps in the following three months.
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Finally, can't wait for an multimedia/internet device with more than 10h battery.
iPhone
10 hours? iPhone? Hahahaha, no.
today must be national rumor day.
They have to hold back their boat anchors in order to see what Apple is going to offer in the way of a slimline tablet. Meanwhile they'll be loading up their copiers with plenty of paper and new cartridges. Like that is going to do them any good. Acer and ASUS will have the best hardware money can buy and no software to put on them. They think there might be some weak demand? Who woulda thunk it?
What the heck is a smartbook? I'm looking forward to these Tegra machines. I hear they are powerful graphics chips. Now maybe if they can build netbooks that are much more powerful than today's current machine, that would make more sense.
Yea I've wanted a nettop, smartbook, whatever ever since the original EEE but still have yet to pull the trigger as I'm waiting for acceptable battery life mainly. I'm sure there are plenty of people like me so delaying innovations due to weak demand is...dissapointing.
@iphone: are you really an iphone user or just trolling to make them look bad?
that aside, these aren't more powerful netbooks - they're smaller, cheaper, and significantly *less* powerful netbooks. IIRC, Tegra is two ARM11s duct-taped together, while Snapdragon uses a (single, but probably still faster?) Cortex A8 pretty much the same as the iPhone 3GS, but neither is in the same class as Atom. Both have graphics acceleration so they can play video, as long as it's using a media player that supports the hardware accelerator.
I think the future for small ARM-based netbooks (probably running fairly standard Linux variants rather than Android) is good, and I want one. :) But not quite yet. Next year, Cortex A9-based designs (with similar on-chip graphics) might be the real answer to Atom, especially if they're dual-core or even quad-core. [Not sure the latter is due next year, it might be later.]
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww snap dragon
teehee
why not post on how all of gawker seems to be down?
aaand we're back
Palm Foleo?
What's up with all this hype!? Nobody want's Android on anything other than a phone! And all Tegra "smartbooks" are going to be Windows CE based.
Most importantly, the Smartbooks will cost starting at $150 unsubsidized and will run Chrome OS when it's released open-source in a few months.
I think there needs to be a chart diagam with everything from a smartphone, to a full fledged notebook PC and the differences between them.
Personally?.. I am just trying to come up with the next useless portable device that will give me crumbled fingers before I am 50.
How about --- SmartSlate! Or... Smarter-than-the-average-smart-phone-but-without-a-phone-NetCellBook!
well, since we're combining smartphone and netbook, why not a phonebook? Who uses the paper version anymore?
I'm excited about these because they are what netbooks were supposed to be. Small, light, inexpensive($400 is not inexpensive) with huge battery life, and meant to be used for web, music, some youtubing, and occasional non-HD video watching.
Then buy one of the many netbooks that are going for $200 or so and can run windows xp.
These will not run windows. These will be overpriced and will fail.
As fa as I know, those sub-$200 netbooks won't have that much battery life, are probably tied to a cell carrier, and have had costs cut elsewhere, and XP isn't needed for the tasks I mentioned.
That said, I'm not so sure these things will do real well either because mainstream public's head explodes if it isn't running windows.
very true. take for instance MIDS. some offer linux OS's , but most people who buy them quickly swap it out for windows.
i dont see what the benefit is of these devices without a robust operating system to support them. its all very well saying it does internet , but most people want internt and some other thing . nobody buys a $2-300 device just for internet and word processing.
what they have here is a real opportunity to cater to the mid market , a real thumb-able device with a 5-6 inch screen with NO think bezel and real quality fast keyboard and they are blowing it. intel cant do it yet , the mids are too heavy , too thick and dont offer the battery life.
well, its nice to see a netbooks without Intels crippled hardware, its about time a better vider card gets added to netbooks,and I imagine better overall speed than all those intel netbooks.
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I don't see Crome OS being the best choice for these devices, it needs a couple more years before it take front stage on these new platform..
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AMD/ATI where the hell are you!
You are clearly misinformed.
Although smartphone chipsets like Snapdragon and Tegra include better hardware video decoding than the old GMA950 Intel Atom platform, Intel's GPU is faster. And this will certainly be the case when the new Atom SoC chipsets come out at the end of the year.
Likewise, the Intel Atom CPU is also faster than the ARM Cortex-A8 chips, and probably the dual-core Cortex-A9. The main draw of these ARM-based SoCs is the very low power of the platform. However, with an optimized linux build, the ARM based netbooks should do very well. (Look at the iPhone 3GS).
For decent graphics on a netbook, Nvidia's Atom--based ION platform is excellent, and AMD's new low-power platform should be out very soon.
Hopefully, these devices will include all the typical smartphone hardware (accelerometer, GPS, compass, etc.) and run Android, making it essentially a smartphone with a bigger keyboard & display. Then, they could be used to make cell phone calls, send SMS/MMS, in addition to running all of the other cool Android applications.
I suspect the mobile operators would love these things, because of the additional revenue opportunities over and above basic data contracts.
Yeah, an accelerometer will be useful because when I fly I always turn my laptop on it's side to make a private porn viewing chamber...
I'm tired of these announcements! Can we actually see these devices released already?
I agree. There seems to be a flood of announcements of "bigger and better" netbooks and ultra slim low power consumption laptops every single day, and yet, we still have yet to see anything inspiring. I got frustrated with waiting, so I bought an Asus mid range laptop instead, which kid of defeats the purpose. As much as i like it, it feels like it weighs a ton compared to my Asus eeepc. I honestly thought I wouldn't notice much of a difference. :P
Foleo II with WebOS FTW!!!!!
If rumors are true, everyone is waiting to see what Apple will do with the market segment: a bigger iPod? a Tablet PC? Nobody wants to risk upstaged by Apple's slick new product.
Apple smapple, who cares. These are going to be high performance, low power and low price. Apple won't be able to compete with their high prices and out of date technology.
Launch!!!
No one gives a shit about Apple's product in this particular market space. Two completely different targets.
Cupertino is incapable of selling a computer in the price range these are targeted for (if the predictions are correct). Jobs and others have shown their disdain for "Cheap" computers time and time again. While I do think Apple is full of self righteous yuppies, I do agree with them on this one.
Apple is able to produce attractively designed hardware because their high profit margin gives them the money to hire R&D specialists, Designers ect, that most higher volume lower price companies don't have the margin for. Whether it's something you like, or you think it's worth it, is largely up to the consumer, but the reason why Apple is "different" to most people has nothing to do with the OS, it's the fact you definitely know an Apple product from any other just by looking at it.
In any case, it looks like these are being targeted as lower priced, light weight, long battery life little smart devices that provide the same features as your phone, but with an easier form factor to use for longer periods. I am looking forward to having one to use while I travel, since the battery life will be great.
Though I am excited to see the Apple tablet (if it exists), I have been dreaming of a large 100% tablet/touch interface device since I watched Star Trek TNG as a kid. However, I don't think the companies producing these $250 computers are at all worried about some $700 device.
as successful as I want these things to be (even though I won't be buying one and have no use for them), I'm skeptical as to how they plan to succeed given that:
- there's no indication that they won't succumb to the netbook price disease (announce at $200, sell for $350+, fall to $300 6-9 mo. later)
- netbooks at least offer XP/Win7. I can run Office 2k7, SPSS, STATA, Dreamweaver etc if I need to. I've also been fine with using Ubuntu. What sort of market niche is likely to buy a machine with a smartphone/propietary OS when contract-price cellphones with Wi-fi can do the same thing, if on a smaller screen. I know the Iphone can't be bought without a data plan, but plenty of other, large-screen phones can. Netbooks are useful because you can work on them. Smartphones like the Iphone, G1, Xpressmusic are not good for this purpose, but are good enough for browsing, email and music. Even with a better battery, buying an oversized smartphone at a lower unsubsidized price (maybe) doesn't really make a lot of sense to me; it can't even make calls! Even if it could, you're not going to be holding this thing up to your ear, are you? You could use a headset, but then you might as well Skype on a normal netbook.
Manufacturers are wasting resources by pushing forward new products when there's plenty of scope for improvement in the netbook sector.
Ubuntu does make a version of its OS for ARM devices. It could be possible to put it on Tegra smartbook. Some Snapdragon smartbooks will also come with other Linux OS's as well. So they could be very useful.
Hehe, anyone remember that movie Snapdragon? I remember it was quite popular with the high school boys back in my teenage years ;-)