- Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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A girl I know wrote gullible on the ceiling of her school. She kept telling people that the word was written on the ceiling - Charlie Demerjian
ARM based smartbooks to hit the shops
SMARTBOOKS WITH ARM-based Snapdragon and Tegra processors will hit the shops in time for the holidays, according to DigiTimes.
The magazine rang up the major Taiwanese suppliers including Acer, Foxconn, Pegatron, Compal and Inventec and found out that they're all planning smartbook releases in the fourth quarter.
Acer is believed to have developed both ARM and Android based smartbooks that it will likely unveil in the next few months.
Asustek thinks that demand for ARM-based smartbooks is still not strong enough, so it will not launch products until November or December at the earliest.
Mobinnova will begin volume shipments of its 8.9-inch ARM-based Tegra smartbooks at the end of the year as it has landed orders from telecom carriers in the US and Europe.
Amongst its plans are an ultra-thin 8.9-inch smartbook and a 10.1-inch model in the first half of 2010.
Inventec wants to release a Tegra 10-inch Rainbow smartbook at the end of the year and is chatting to carriers for joint marketing of the devices.
Others might show up as well, but their makers just haven't yet tipped their hands to Digitimes. µ
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Now if these devices run Linux, and I don't mean a seriously locked down installation, but allow the freedom to tinker and install your own distro (such as Debian, Ubuntu etc) then I'll get one.
If however they are locked down so much that you can't do bugger all with them apart from basic web browsing I'll probably avoid them like the plague.
Why not just install the OS that you like? (pretty much one of the BSD's or Debian considering it's on ARM arch)
Where's the software going to come from? Unless you're a nerd who has the slightest, vaguest clue about downloading C++ source code and compiling your own execitables, how are you going to find software for an ARM netbook you bought on the highstreet?
And what about the vast array of closed source programs that people love so much?
Debian has an ARM distro. And Android is also available for ARM, neither has to be compiled.
Release decent hardware and the software will follow. Remember that a lot of Mobile apps are compiled for ARM arch. I think if the battery life claims are anywhere near as good as people are claiming then these will fly off the shelves.
A company called Always Innovating just started shipping their ARM based smartbook. Its going to preorder customers right now, and the first batch will probably not even cover all of them. Its worth noting though that this is real product getting to users hands right now.
Hopefully, the smartbooks running Android will include typical smartphone hardware (accelerometer, GPS, compass, etc.), so that they can be used to make cell phone calls, send SMS/MMS, in addition to running all of the other cool Android apps.
I suspect the mobile operators would love these things, because of the additional revenue opportunities over and above basic data contracts.
"A company called Always Innovating just started shipping their ARM based smartbook". yeah but they have yet to reveal a price for it. i don't wanna pay an arm and a leg for a first gen just to have it.
gotta check out http://www.smartbook.asia its got a lot of news, it lead me here, just incase you wanna follow the news like me