Foleo, UMPC and OLPC all killed off in one week

The Nanobook reference design is under two pounds. So is Foleo. Nanobook includes up to 1 GB of RAM, 30 or 60 GB hard drive, a 4-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth, 802.11g, and Ethernet. Foleo, well, who knows how much RAM it will have, but it won't have a hard drive and doesn't have an Ethernet port. Nanobook also has two USB ports to Foleo's one, it looks like, plus microphone and speakers. Both will run for around 5 hours on battery. Nanobox gives up a bit in the screen department to Foleo (7 vs 10 inches), but maybe some OEMs will add some weight for a bigger screen and a slightly larger keyboard. Both Nanobook and Foleo are anticipated to cost $599.

However, Nanobook will run Windows XP and Vista - or Linux (duh). How long will it take before someone figures out the software glue to make a Nanobook (or any other PC for that matter) to do the same dog-and-pony tricks Foleo is supposed to do with smart phones? Not very, is my guess. I guess Jeff Hawkins will have to find something newer and more revolutionary to bid his time.

Open question if Nanobook can handle video better than Foleo, but since Hawkins admitted that video sucks on his baby - a fatal flaw in a world of TV-on-your-bloody-phone - Nanobook likely does a passable or better job.

While hot-rod ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPC) likely have better performance than the Nanobook's 1.2GHz C7 chip, they also cost lots more, starting at $800 and quickly climbing to $1500 for something that has a keyboard a bit wider than a Treo. Some flavors of UMPC seem to be more rugged than others, so here's to hoping that Via's reference design can be translated in to a ruggedized version to make the vertical markets that need it happy.

Speaking of ruggedized, those folks at OLPC must be ready to spit blood. Intel and Asutek are expected to show off a notebook this week for “emerging markets” (i.e. Developing nations unable to pay $150 a copy for Windows Vista) that will cost under $200 bucks. It will come in multiple flavors (GASP! Not one, like the OLPC people?) with options for 7 to 10 inch displaces and a choice of flash or a traditional hard drive.

One might suspect that Intel won't be trying to shake down, er, secure a minimum order of 3 million OLPC units to start the line, with individual countries on the hook for 250,000 units at a price of nearly $200.

If Negroponte was smart, he'd declare victory and turn his little ego machine, ah, humanitarian development effort into a software project, but I'm not sure how that will go over with his sugar daddy/production partner Quanta Computers. License the dual-display technology to as many companies as possible and go home happy.

Probably not, but it's likely that Intel and Asutek will be the first people in the ULCL (Ultra-low-cost-laptop) market and get joined by Via and others down the road. Leaving the OLPC in the dustbin of history like the Lisa, IBM PCjr, and “Convergence.”