Those semiconductor semi-gossipers at
DigiTimes want you to know that Nokia's not stopping with the
Booklet 3G and in fact has an ARM-based smartbook set for mass consumption in the middle of 2010. According to its sources, Espoo's in the process of settling with ODMs now, and the speculation is that it'll go to either
Compal or
Foxconn (a.k.a. Hon Hai Precision Industry). If all of this sounds familiar, that's because it is: we've heard multiple reports this year that suggested a
smartbook / MID with either a multicore
ARM Cortex A9 Sparrow chip or
Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. We're not discounting it, especially considering that netbook bit panned out, but mid-2010 is quite a ways off -- no telling when we'll be hearing anything else on the matter.
posted Aug 26th 2009 1:31AM
And what, charge 900 for it?
wtf, nokia. wtf.
the price of the Nokia Booklet 3G is around 550USD , definitely not $800
@Satz
Obviously someone missed the post about the pricing...
@Patriks7
Eldar from Mobile Review (a very reliable, *named* source) says the Booklet 3G will cost 399€.
I believe him over Engadget's unnamed source. Engadget are just spreading FUD about Nokia again.
"Eldar from Mobile Review (a very reliable, *named* source) says the Booklet 3G will cost 399€."
That's probably with a contract. The 800 without is far more believable. I mean the iPhone is like 650 without and 190 with, and similar with phones from Nokia like the N97.
Nokia prices are as a rule without contract.
99% of Nokia products can be bought contract free so Nokia gives prices without contract.
/fistbump
I really hope this happens.
Nokia already helped out with porting Ubuntu to ARM.
An ARM processor would mean week-long battery life.
And the A9 is out of order, and in this rumored incarnation multicore. I'm intrigued by the potential performance.
Yes, the reason why you won't see "smartbooks" yet is because the requisite chipsets aren't ready. A current-gen single-core Cortex-A8 or Snapdragon won't cut it in a netbook. All the manufacturers are probably waiting for the next-generation 45nm chipsets that have multi-core ARM Cortex-A9 architectures or Qualcomm's multi-core snapdragon to be ready. TI's OMAP4 series -- using dual 1.0+Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 cores, and multi-core PowerVR SGX graphics ---- should be ready sometime next year. Similarly, Qualcomm's next-gen 45nm, dual-core Snapdragon should be available around that time as well. Snapdragon actually uses custom Cortex/ARMv7 compatible cores that are faster and more power efficient than Cortex-A8/A9.
I'm building a case that the term netbook should be reapplied to computers/tablets with ARM processors and screens no bigger than 10". And no HDD, just flash. Keep the price under $300.
Basically, a smartphone with big screen and expandability, with a lightweight linux OS or reworked smartphone OS.
nah, i don't agree. they need to be able to run Windows XP at the barest minimum, or they'd never sell. Smartbooks can serve niche markets (like those who can get by with ARM), but the majority of users (business, students, road warriors) will need a machine that can run Windows/Ubuntu and works well with Firefox/Office2k7/Open Office, and maybe some light Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Flash. My Dell Mini 9 can do all these things (and is Hackintoshable, not that I care) and runs my STATA/SPSS stuff fine and cost me $250. No smartbook can match that.
Ubuntu runs on ARM already (sort of) including Firefox, OpenOffice, Gimp, Inkscape etc. Once netbook-class ARM chips (Cortex A9) are available, I'm sure these basic applications will be made easily available and reliable [if they aren't already - I don't have a direct interest in this now so I don't know about recent improvements if any].
It's just a different processor architecture, no big problem. Aside from the big commercial apps mentioned (which most people don't use anyway), all classes of app will be available. By the time 'smartbooks' are available and achieve a certain level of popularity, I don't think there'll be any significant difference for most users between Ubuntu on ARM and Ubuntu on Intel Atom. Certainly pretty much every major program I ever use at home - and no I don't currently run Linux - should run on Arm/Ubuntu by then except, um... Lightroom... and... yeah, that's it.
Of course the difference between Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions) and *Windows* will remain, so I'm not saying there isn't a problem in terms of potential users. These things will probably mainly be sold with cut-down operating systems that only run specific applications or something, like the 'quick start' stuff that's already available; ChromeOS etc. In Nokia's case, I guess it'd be running Maemo.
You know, there's an actual Nokia netbook you could use a picture of now.
You have too high expectations for Engadget...
Fistbump
the price is higher than netbook? plus large screen MID doesnt seem to save much power using ARM as screen is most the power goes?
If they come up with any more names for a Netbook I'm going to order my AARP membership and just call them all "whosamawhutsits."
When are you guys going to write an open letter to Nokia? Maybe they'll drop this booklet and come out with something fresh like Palm did.