ASUS' Android-based 'secret weapon' smartbook launching in Q1
By Thomas Ricker 
posted October 30th 2009 2:48AM
posted October 30th 2009 2:48AM
We got our first glimpse at a computing future filled with low-cost, ARM-based ASUS smartbooks running Android on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor all the way back on June 1st. Since then, however, the pencil-spinning boys in Taiwan have been poo-pooing plans to launch such a device due to what ASUS called an uncertain market opportunity -- or was it pressure from Wintel, we never can tell? Then yesterday, ASUS' Jerry Shen pulled an about-face at an investor meeting in Taipei with talk of launching a $180 smartbook in Q1 of 2010. Bristling with confidence, Shen goes so far as to call it a "secret weapon" in a category offering potential for huge, Eee PC-like growth. Well, with the first big-name smartbooks just starting to ship, even a dozen or so sales could be considered statistically significant.
[Via Shanzai]
[Via Shanzai]
The advantage with a "smart book" will be battery life. Xfce is very functional and light weight, using little space and memory.
I received the ASUS EEE PC Seashell 1005HA-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook two days ago. My initial impression is that this is a great computer. Below are more specific comments. Great !! ASUS Netbook.
@ganhisfist
OpenOffice is mostly written in C, only some smaller components are written in Java. So it cannot inherit any slowness from Java (not that Java is slow nowadays). OO is released for all major OSs like Windows, Linux, Mac OS.
Yes, OpenOffice will not easily be ported to Android since it doesn't have the X-server which is needed by the Linux port of OO.
I don't think that Android is any good for the smartbook category. This category requires a "decent" OS like Ubuntu UNR (or the full Ubuntu Desktop Edition) not Windows CE, Android or other phone oriented OSs.
Windows XP or 7 would be successful in this category, only they don't have an ARM/snapdragon port while Ubuntu does.
Smartbook??? More like dumb book. Eh?
Oh hey! H/PCs!