Lenovo delays ARM-based netbook? Lenovo may have delayed its eagerly anticipated ARM-based netbook, the Skylight, it has been claimed. Originally scheduled to appear on US shop shelves this month, the mini notebook will not now debut until July, transatlantic title Laptop Magazine has alleged, citing moles from within Lenovo. Lenovo_skylight_03 Lenovo's …
MSFT is giving them problems? If Android laptops get off, and more crucially people start putting Linux on them to convert to full mobile experience Windows will land in very unfavourable position.
Same with Atom. What's the point of Atom + Win7 with 4h of battery life when you can get ARM + Linux (or Android) with 12h battery life half-price? Doing essentially the same. Too many vested interests to allow this, especially from such a high level manufacturer like Lenovo.
"Pricing will start at $499 at full retail price"
From the press release: http://news.lenovo.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1297
For reading recipies, browsing the news or Digg / Reddit etc. iPad is a better choice.
For creating content this looks like an excellent netbook
Not sure how a Snapdragon ARM compares to an Intel ATOM
most Android apps are optimized for phone-sized screens and will look and feel rather lost on a huge screen. They will consist of lots of empty space with a toolbar in a corner. There won't be much support for keyboard shortcuts either.
I think Android is a good choice for not too large tablets with a touchscreen, but for netbooks and such it's a stretch.
it suggests that the general public do not really 'get' netbooks. I can only assume they've been sold them as cheap laptops, instead of 'companions'.
I've got a EEEPC 701 - it has a 4Gb HD so even if I installed Windows (instead of Ubuntu Netbook Remix) I would'nt have much space for apps...
BUT as it is it runs OpenOffice, VLC, Picasa and Firefox. Any docs I need are in the cloud or on an SD card (along with vids etc). What on earth else are you going to want to run on a tiny screen and a tiny keyboard?
It'll fit (just) into a coat pocket, it starts near-instantly, as it Linux its not bogged down with AV/Spyware stuff. It does'nt hold any docs unless Im working on them (which is rare) so I dont bother with a firewall either and its small enought to fit on a seat tray of your average train.
While I'm sorry to see yet another delay, I would rather see a mature product in July than an unfinished product in May.
But I really expected products like this a year ago -- a lot of working concept designs were shown in January last year and apparently only needed brand-name partners before production would start. But it took over a year for this to happen. Some have hinted that Intel put pressure on brand-name producers to delay smartbook releases to allow next-generation Atom-based netbooks to be out first (see for example http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semiconductor-blog/2009/10/where-is-the-arm-based-netbook.html).
While I'm all for ARM hardware (for Slackwareing) this thing looks kind of like crap. I can almost see the keyboard flexing just sitting there in a still image, and honestly for $500 the specs are pretty minimal, especially since the Snapdragon is supposed to make for cheaper systems than the Atom.
Also: why is it round?
I'm not happy about the state of the Wintel market, but I do want the hundreds-> thousands of dollars worth of software (licenses) I own to run on anything I tote around regardless of whether it has modern performance or merely performance that still makes a 10 year old computer look like a dinosaur.
It's not about "can I find some alternate way to get the same things done", it's about maximum compatibility, no software retrain time.
I'm always a bit amazed when people act as though Netbooks can't be used for anything but light websurfing and email, isn't there ANYONE else out there who actually managed to be productive back when CPUs were a fraction of this performance level and monitors little if any higher resolution?
I for one, didn't wait until we had uber-GHz, gigs of memory, and 1 million pixels to learn how to get work done. Besides, on the typical high end laptop it's idle 95% of the time so that's mostly money down the drain.
How '90s to have a display area where a lot of it isn't the display! Remember those clunky laptops with VGA screens and huge borders around them?
I'm surprised something that thin weighs 900g, compared to an eeePC901 which is around 1100g. But the biggest surprise is getting 10 hours out of a charge. I guess a lot depends upon the battery capacity, however as I get 6-7 hours from my eeePC on a single charge, it doesn't seem *that* different. I expected an ARM to perform quite a bit better. [of course, the battery capacity might be half that of mine, which would shake things up a bit!]
<cliché> At the end of the day </> it will probably come down to whether or not you can use it to do the stuff you expect to do on a little computer. Is it a cute gimmick, or is it capable? That's the question.
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