Techvideoblog has a video review of the Menq Easypc E760, an $80 ARM-based laptop that runs Android. From the looks of it, I don’t think this is a very good gadget, because it’s slow (less powerful than an iPhone 3GS, but of course also a lot cheaper), but I agree with the Techvideo guy: the Easypc is important because it’s the vanguard of a likely wave of cheap, ARM-based devices that will very soon have the necessary power for a pleasant and productive web browsing experience. Once that happens, a sizable portion of the current laptop and netbook userbase will move downmarket, and some of the constituents that the OLPC program was trying to serve (young students and the lower economic stratum) will have a network communication device available to them that’s more accessible.I’ve been hearing a lot about how revolutionary basic mobile phone infrastructure has been to the developing world. First, it has proven much easier to build wireless towers in developing areas than it would have been to build a wired infrastructure, so these areas are “leapfrogging” the wired buildup and going straight to mobile. Also, even in areas where people are very poor, entrepreneurs provide mobile phone-based calling services, like a pay-phone, and telegram-like text message delivery services, which make it much easier for people to keep in touch with distant relatives and business contacts. In places without good electrical infrastructure, you can pay for a mobile phone charging service, and drop your phone off to be charged while you’re in the village selling your cassava or whatnot.
The big surprise has been how transformative it is for people at this economic level to have access to instantaneous electronic communication, but of course, it’s only surprising if you’ve never considered how annoying it would be to have to walk half a day just to tell someone something that could have been said in a text message. And so, while $80 mini-laptops might be a fun curiosity for people like me, they could prove to be a major economic boost for a large number of people who are currently getting by with a low-end mobile phone as their primary digital communication device. If you’re trying to set up business with a distributor in a distant city, enroll your child in a university, or arrange for your husband who’s sending remittances from Dubai to see photographs of his children, an upgrade to a 7″ laptop might make all the difference, and even if $80 is still too much for you, it’s not too much for the local telecommunications mogul who can make a living charging you by the minute or the message.
And it’s not just about the price that makes these ARM minis appealing. It’s also their power-sipping nature, with the ability to run 7-10 hours on a small, cheap battery. That’s good both for well-heeled road warriors and village users who charge it with a hand crank or a solar panel.
People complain that these low-end laptops just don’t stand up to the capabilities of a full-grown laptop, and that’s obviously true. But that’s not really the question. What’s essential is whether these devices offer enough functionality to be useful to the large group of people who will find their price, size, or power consumption useful. For people like me who might want something just a little bigger than the iPhone that I can carry around the house to check my email and browse the web on, or for people like the basket weaver or cassava seller who just want it to be better than three lines of text on an old Nokia, or the student that gets to have one laptop per class instead of one per school, or none at all.
We reported today that Chrome OS is expected to be released this week. Now Chrome OS is made to run on x86 chips, mainly netbooks, but the whole idea, as I see it, is to make Linux more accessible by tailoring the front-end toward web browsing and web apps, in other words, precisely what the average netbook user is doing. Whether people will choose Chrome OS over Windows 7, we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m very interested to see whether the work that Google’s doing on Chrome OS and the work on Android will eventually intersect to arrive at a top-notch UI for these sub-$100 micro notebooks. With the upcoming ARM Cortex A8 processor, which will be a lot faster than the ARM9 that’s in the Easypc, combined with the work that Google, the OLPC team, and others are doing on the software front, it’s quite likely that within a few years, the sub-$100 laptop market will be the new hotness.
Give me a 15″ tablet, and make it cheap. The laptop at my house just gets used as a secondary computer anyway, and surprise, 90% of what it gets used for is web.
I would much rather have a couple of Android tablets for that usage than I would a single laptop. It can go anywhere in the house much more easily than a laptop, and we’re all so used to using smartphones and touchpads I don’t mind the interface at all. Just the thing to check Woot when you’re watching a movie with the wife!
15″ inch Android 2.0 tablet you say? Do you want Tegra with that?
http://www.pmptoday.com/2009/11/13/icd-vega-nvidia-tegra-android-20…
Not a tablet PC, rather a PMP but at that res and size I guess it could be a little of both:
http://www.pmptoday.com/2009/11/14/ramos-w7-mid-running-android/
At least that is what Google said so far.
It will be on ARM.
Quote from ChromeOS announcement:
“Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chip”
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os…
Thanks for clarifying that. For me, the real question will be how well Chrome OS runs on lightweight, small-screened ARM-based laptops, and whether Google will make that a priority, and whether Google will work on making Android suitable for them, or whether they’ll meet in the middle.
Is this thing a prototype? They aren’t making it easy to buy if it’s not.
I dislike buying Chinese made products.
Do you whittle everything you own out of old sticks? Do you use a computer? Or do you mean you dislike buying Chinese-made products that are inelegantly marketed by Chinese companies, rather than Chinese-made products that are slickly-marketed by American companies?
_dislike_ not don’t.
I tried to find where one would purchase one of these and couldn’t find anything. (I don’t live in the US if that makes a difference.) [edit to add this line]
Edited 2009-11-14 17:36 UTC
I suppose you like those products labelled “Made in America” using slave labour? They’re not necessarily made in any country since the label isn’t specific.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I have several products that were made in China, but if you buy from a reputable brand, they generally are fine. I generally avoid food from mainland China and so do Chinese people I know who live in Malaysia and Singapore.
Considering how little the majority of people do with a computer, isn’t US$80 enough? Solitaire really doesn’t work any better on a US$3000 computer, does it?
Getting a computer into the hands of people in any country who can’t afford technology would be great.
Here’s the dirt about China.
Those people working for those wages are better off now than they were before China became such a producer. Standard of living has increased dramatically in China–even for those workers. Yes, its likely over time that wages will increase and stabilize. That’s natural for societies that begin with having nothing…the people initially demand less because they just don’t know any better. That changes once modern conveniences become more mainstream. Also note its not just the factory workers being employed, but a brand new middle class coming from people being promoted to managerial positions and all the associaed management, clerical and support personnel.
The opposite is in the US where you have the “union wage” which drives business away and sadly ends up being a vehicle for funelling money primarily to one of the political parties in the US with all its associated corruption.
My wife worked for more than a few of these outsource companies in china as a corporate accountant, managing money, securing financing and short term operating loans, performing tax audits.
Edited 2009-11-14 04:03 UTC
Unionization in US is one of the lowest of all developed/industrialized countries. So, please don’t throw your corporatist dirt on a dying movement.
You live in a fantasy world! In China workers are exploited by a tiny tiny upper class. There are over a billion people in China. That “growing middle class” you speak of is a tiny tiny fraction thereof. The overwhelming majority of the Chinese people have seen no gains from China’s “economic reform”. Instead it serves to preserve the power of an elitist, racist, sexist government that constantly violates basic human rights in its effort to control its people and censor all dissidents. And we turn a blind eye to it all because they make cheap stuff. Please. Don’t try to justify the irresponsible action of western governments in this regard.
Sorry your class warfare rhetoric doesn’t work very well. The gains in China are real and tangible. They have to start *somewhere*. There’s no magical poof and everyone has prosperity. I will agree the government there has serious problems. Christians live in fear of being thrown in jail still. But I guarantee you that the communist party in china is not a popular party. They’re only tolerated at best and honestly don’t have that much support.
Funny, the christians didn’t give two craps several hundred years ago about the people of every other religion they locked up or worse. What goes around comes around, and it doesn’t feel to good to go from jailer to jailed I suppose.
darknexus trolled…
Are these the same Christians whose laws included freedom of religion in the United States Constitution in its first amendment?
While it is true the implementation has not always been what it should, I’d like to think the actions of those Christians involved in America’s founding at least demonstrates a willingness to learn and the beginnings of tolerance. In that vein, could you please point me to any other religious society whose laws guaranteed freedom of religion from that far back ago? Seriously, I’d like to know what standard you’re using for comparison…
–bornagainpenguin
The Maurya Empire of ancient India had freedom of religion and freedom of religion was also declared in the Constitution of Medina by Muhammad. I’m pretty sure Netherlands had it long before the U.S too.
There’s a pretty long list, really
Wow, that’s almost like, I dunno, every country?
Of course they have. That’s not saying they’re doing particularly well but “better” is relative.
“Made in America”… I’m not American. American’s design over the top, large, wasteful, “look at me” objects (e.g. Hummer).
I’d prefer made in New Zealand, Australia or Europe.
I agree.
Most devices are made in China. It’s not the manufacturing part but the design and QA.
For example, I have a Mac and I used to have a local brand (read: no-brand) laptop. They both are assembled in the same country but the quality and aesthetics are like night and day. I even wouldn’t compare a HP pro laptop I used to work with Apple’s consumer line.
But in general, I tend to agree (put the pure assembly aside). I have two similar gadgets, one is Japanese and one from Taiwanese manufactures. The latter is horrendous in terms of usability and looks.
A friend of mine had an Asian knockoff of some Nokia smartphone, it had lots of nice features but under the hood nothing worked properly and the industrial design was nonexistant. So, if possible, prefer products from leading industrial designers even if they cost more or are technically (somewhat) inferior.
A professor of mine once (like 10 y ago) said “the pace of science and technology is six months”. Of course this originates from several decades back but is valid even today: if you have the tool to get the things done in an acceptable manner, you don’t need a new one, you can’t keep the pace. Obviously applies only to tools, not toys
Yes yes, internet browsing is all well and good, but here’s the real question: Can it run Nethack?
of course it can!
I wouldn’t mind having one of these to play around with, it would be even better though if they release the hardware info so we could create our own firmware images for it.
Mate, name one thing that isn’t made in China/Taiwan/<insert Asian country here>?
China is the work house of the world – get used to it.
Edited 2009-11-14 00:54 UTC
So you quoted the parent, but you responded to the wrong post.
I’d try to fix it up but thanks to the stupid policy of osnews.com of not allowing a person to fix their posts, I’m screwed.
…and that is precisely the problem.
F**k China.
That is a bit too much here.
We are here to discuss technology and how to improve people’s standard of living through technology.
I provided IT consultancy to people regardless of their skin color and believe.
Do you really need to use the F word? If you do, say it loud and clear, so that we can hear. Spell the word in full. Is there any reason you did not spell the word in full?
If you are an American citizen. You owe the Chinese money. It is the same you owe the bank money. You don’t f–k the bank manager. Do you?
I live in New Zealand. Recently, the native New Zealand Maori call us White Mother f–kers. I don’t like at all.
The guy is too annoying
He writes fairly well, but he is not exactly eloquent in speech.
He’s kind of funny too.
I loved it! He was trying to be funny.
“The Queen of England”.
“Download Divx..Totally legally…but you must ask permission from the guy..”
Edited 2009-11-14 00:40 UTC
I’d have to agree. While I did like the ARM device, I couldn’t go through the entire video because he just annoyed me to no end. Almost like Borat, but less funny.
Borat was funny?
I thought that was my point on how annoying the reviewer was. :-p
It would be a nice little tool for younger students.
Durability would be a primary shopping consideration then. I’ve never seen one of these in real life, but based on the photos it doesn’t appear to be as durable as a OLPC or EeePC.
Soon all laptops will cost $80 or less…
There is no one-size-fits-all laptop. This thing is a POS. I wouldn’t use if it you gave it to me.
Then it’s not meant for you, but that hardly makes it crap. From some of the posts here, it looks as though it’s garnered some interest.
No, what makes it crap are its crappy components.
Edited 2009-11-14 01:03 UTC
I would have to agree with tomcat that the machine is a POS. I would imagine having extremely limited use out of the thing after the first few hours of fun wears off.
On the other hand, if it had a halfway decent amount of internal storage (40-80GB hard drive or sold state drive) a decent amount of memory (384-512MB), and a faster/more modern ARM processor, then I’d be sold.
The extra battery life and quieter performance (no fans required) of ARM CPUs combined with the ability to run Debian, Ubuntu, ARMedslack, the BSDs, etc. would be nice, and if such hardware became more popular even more distros/OSes would port to them. The complete inability to run Windows XP/Vista/7 and their x86-native programs (ie. virtually every Windows program out there) would be just another plus the way I see it.
Try telling that to people that want to run itunes, which make up a lot of people that would buy an internet device.
It browses the web, plays audio & videos, and does word processing all without a hiccup (and IMHO surprisingly fluidly in all cases). Most people don’t do a whole lot more with their PCs.
I think the biggest revelation is that without the overhead of a full-blown Windows OS, this thing is really snappy! Even though the hardware specs are wimp-tastic compared to even netbooks. Just goes to show how much money & energy we can spare just by sacrificing a little less “bling”.
and yet web browsing on it is not even close to being as fast as XP with a P3 700.
Did you even watch the video??? If you had, you would see that web page load time is actually quite snappy. In fact from the looks of it, it’s more limited by bandwidth than by processor speed–so your point is moot. Not to mention its battery holds out for longer.
Edited 2009-11-15 08:19 UTC
I think ChromeOS is pretty much DOA before it’s even anything, but Android could be a market disruptor.
Android is getting hot in the phone market, and now if if this sub-netbook market takes off, we could see big growth for Android in the “mobile” market….which I’ll include this sub-netbook in.
And I don’t think this its really Microsoft that should be worried. It’s Apple.
Edited 2009-11-14 01:54 UTC
I actually kinda liked the Windows CE interface on a device of that size. Kinda reminded me of Windows 95
… Ah, those were the good old days….
(EDIT: After thinking about it, the good old days were filled with IE crashes, driver hell, and wide-open security holes… But it’s always nice reminiscing over the computing past with colored glasses on.)
Edited 2009-11-14 21:12 UTC
You really think Google built two entirely different OSes for down-power devices? ChromeOS will be some form of Android repacked and optimized for larger displays.
I seem to recall the original 7″ EeePC was supposed to be a $200 device… which has now been pushed up toward real laptop sizes and prices, thanks to market pressure for more power. Now the ARM revolution may be starting with smaller cheaper devices like this. Obviously it’s not the first, but for now it’s the price to beat.
Yeah, it’s funny how that worked out. I paid $400CDN for the original Eee when it came out. I was thrilled with what you got for the price.
While the average netbook price now seems to be higher than the original EeePC price, no one would argue that you don’t get more for the money. No more 630MHz under-clocked CPUs with cramped keyboards and no BlueTooth.
The last netbook that I bought was a refurbished HP 1116NR. It had a 16GB SSD, a 9″ screen, great keyboard and was $189CDN from Future Shop. Given that, performance-wise, all of the original netbooks are essentially the same as the new ones, there are certainly deals out there now, if you know where to look.
I wonder how microsoft will try to convince people to spend $700 to put their software on an $80 machine?
700 dollars? Where did you buy it? Did you buy a copy of Windows Server? I don’t think it was meant for a device like this.
Windows 7 Ultimate costs $200 where I live, I can’t imagine it costing 700 bucks
Windows + Office + whatever
Maybe that’s what the poster meant?
Yes, exactly. Although this machine won’t be suitable for a primary box in a developed country, it may actually be good enough to be able to access and use government websites for services related stuff, also perhaps even for basic communications use (skype maybe?).
I believe that providing the above features is minimally sufficient to allow any government to move wholesale to an internet type environment for modernization (and cost savings) purposes. snail mail is expensive and it sucks.
I’m not sure how I was supposed to know that, especially beacuse there are plenty alternatives to MS Office.
This is the biggest problem. I tired my eee 901 with Ubuntu, windows7, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, XP and the result: the atom processor is too slow to normal web browsing. The only way to make it useable the ad-blocker to kill the flash based AD-s. IMHO any slower processor is unuseable for web browsing.
That seems odd. Up until two weeks ago when I got my 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook, I thought my 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 PowerBook was just fine.
Most of the flash drives in netbooks have lousy burst rates.
You actually need a good ssd to have performance comparable to a 5400rpm drive.
The really good ssds cost more than netbooks.
I’ve got better solution: just didn’t install any flash-plugin.
You have to also consider battery life.
noscript + flashblock is a necessity.
There must be something REALLY wrong with your EEE then, or you’re screwing up the install… bousozoku mentioned a 1.33 G4, I’ve still got a 1ghz P3 that’s more than up to the job of browsing I use in my garage!
My MSI Wind U123 blows that P3 out of the water and for browsing is just FINE… Well, unless I do something retarded and try to use that fat bloated pig known as firefox – which I won’t even run on my Q6600 based workstation except for testing purposes… But then I’ve always had horrible results trying to use gecko based browsers.
XCoder trolled…
That’s funny, I do most of my browsing on my eeepc 901 these days because of how convenient it is and how well it works for me. If you hate your eeepc so much I’ll take it off your hands for the cost of shipping, PM me and we’ll talk details. Or maybe you could admit that you’re having issues because you aren’t configuring it properly…
–bornagainpenguin
What the people thinking ARM is going to break the price barrier in the market are forgetting is that what makes netbooks popular is being able to run a REAL desktop OS on them. These goofy ‘for handheld’ linux flavors and 500mhz ARM processors relegate them to being upsized PDA’s and not downsized laptops.
We’re unlikely to see any of these cheap ARM netbooks with anything approaching the speed of the ATOM for a lower price than the Atom (what’s that faster than 1ghz A – which is why you see them dicking around with these stupid little 400 and 533mhz processors and amounts of RAM and Flash that make your average chinese OMAP850 powered look handhelds look robust. (… and how they intend to actually get these below the street price of those is beyond me – probably why you don’t see any links to actually buying one!)
Seriously, what’s the price of a snapdragon based phone as a standalone without a service plan? About that of a Atom powered netbook? So what’s it going to cost with a full size screen, full size keyboard and something more than 2 gigs of flash?
On top of which, it’s a x86 world, and people want x86 apps. ARM would have to do something truly spectacular to get people to change, and these half-assed mini linux distributions aren’t it.
File these under hundred dollar OMAP850 powered iPhone knockoffs, AMD Geode powered thin clients, BeIA, 3Com’s Audrey, Pocket Mail, the OQO model 1, and the Palm Foleo. Products that were for all intents and purposes stillborn, and the people DUMB ENOUGH to buy them in the first place typically have them gathering dust in the back of their sock drawer.
Edited 2009-11-14 15:10 UTC
deathshadow posted…
Thankfully with Linux I am able to do exactly this. Windows is not able to run well on ARM and even were it to be ported most Windows apps depend on X86 code, and no one is able to force them to release ARM versions of their software. With Linux the distro packers have already done this work for you!
deathshadow posted…
So why are you installing a half-assed “mini” Linnux distribution? The apps are there for Linux users, install a distro that has what you want and get to work! Unfortunately I’ve yet to see it is possible to install anything on the Menq Easypc E760…
–bornagainpenguin
Methinks you missed what I was saying…
Linux – A desktop OS? Bwahaahaaa… Oh lord, yer killin me! You hear that Elizabeth, I’m coming to join you…
Sorry, but the desktop experience, for me at least, of every linsux distro of the past decade, has fallen somewhere between buggy slow mess and useless toy. It really makes me wonder just what the **** is in the Linux kool-aid, and why I seem to be immune to it.
Edited 2009-11-15 13:48 UTC
deathshadow trolled…
Ahh, I see where you’re confused. No, not Linux the desktop OS; Linux the mobile OS. Linux the laptop OS. Is this clearer for you?
Linux, the OS where I can jigger my fonts to get a consistent and readable display on my eeepc 901.
Linux, the OS that is able to fit the Gnome desktop, with OpenOffice.org 3.x, several simple desktop games, plus the few ren’py games I currently playing through, Firefox, Miro, XBMC, Banshee music player and podcast catcher (think iTunes but better), my Bible program, a PDF reader, a Comix viewer, an extractor for everything fro arj to zoo, an offline blogging client, several eBook readers, etc all in under 4GB.
Linux, the OS I don’t have to cripple with anti virus software, worry about drive-by spyware, and can thus get full performance under…
THAT Linux is what I’m running.
deathshadow trolled…
Have you considered perhaps you’re doing it wrong?
Repeat after me: Linux is not Windows and will not behave like Windows. Linux is a *nix inspired OS and ca be expected to conform to that culture and workflow. A hammer is for nails; a screwdriver for screws. PEBKAC.
Keep saying those until a light bulb goes off, you’ll get it eventually.
–bornagainpenuin
Nope, since it’s still a buggy slow tinkertoy that doesn’t do anything special in that environment, at least not compared to what even a netbook is capable of.
Wow, holding linux up as an example of good font rendering, now there’s a laugh. Even with enabling the bits of freetype that results in better glyphs the kerning is complete trash and it can’t even manage to render the same character the same way twice in a row. You’d be better off with raster fonts than how freetype manages stuff.
Slow, buggy, unresponsive – hell you can even see tearing if compositing is unavailable – like on a netbook.
Which calc is ok, but for word processing is like a trip in the wayback machine to Windows 3.1, and thanks to reliance on freetype for glyphs and it’s own character kerning is a fugly eyesore you can’t use for serious text work.
Emphasis on simple
Because when on a lean resource machine, a gecko based browser is going to be your first choice.
Hey look, four different media players none of which approach the functionality of media player classic (video) and winamp (audio)
Which is why 90% of netbooks these days are shipping with 160 gig hard drives since flash is proving to be a early-burn out joke. (which is sad when solid state is turning out less reliable than moving parts) and even if you buy flash, in new manufacture 16 gigs is the low end. There are what, currently ten models of new netbooks between all manufacturers to even ship with flash now vs some 150+ hard drive equipped models? Flash on the netbook much like linux on the netbook is another of those abortive little geek details that wasn’t what Joe sixpack wanted.
You’re using the wrong AV then.
USing the wrong browser or resorting to warez.
If by full performance you mean half your devices only running at half their rated capabilities, or a desktop interface that’s so slow it makes windows 3.1 look good. (X11 implementations are the dead albatross around linsux’s neck)
Have you considered you don’t use your computer to it’s full capacity and only have tinkertoy user status? That’s what it sounds like from here. I’ve come to expect a hell of a lot more
Which is why it is GREAT for servers, and blows chunks when you try to do anything else – and 90% of that blame has nothing to do with linux itself and EVERYTHING to do with whatever X11 implementation is being run.
Linux is for servers, Windows is for everything else.
My original point was that the reason netbooks really took off is the ability to run a real desktop OS on them WITHOUT dumbing it down. If you have to dumb it down to a ‘mobile’ OS, you have removed much of the appeal!
Edited 2009-11-16 16:39 UTC
deathshadow Continued to troll…
You keep saying those precise words, ‘buggy slow tinkertoy’ are they perhaps the new talking points from Microsoft?
deathshadow Continued to troll…
Nevertheless it’s still true. I can jigger my fonts to a consistent, sane, readable resolution in Gnome. I can read what is displayed on my screen in Linux. In Windows XP I cannot keep my fonts displayed in a consistent manner, there is always some part of an application that insists on hard coding the font making it nearly unreadable. I’m not exactly new to the Windows OS and have used nLite to optimize it for battery life and slipstream updates and registry hacks, removed stuff like system restore… If there was a way to force the system to use consistent font display I”ve yet to find it, so in this case, yes–Linux is superior.
deathshadow Continued to troll…
Funnily enough compositing is available on my eeepc, which is a netbook. Oh and it seems quite responsive to me, considering I have Firefox open to type this, Banshee is playing a podcast, and I have a bit of other writing open in OpenOffice.org all in their own virtual desktops. Speaking of OpenOffice.org…
deathshadow Continued to troll…
Seems nice enough to me. It’s certainly no Office 2007, but then again I’m not much of a Ribbon fan anyway… What I really like is the backwards compatibility OO.o offers, I know if I get a document that Office 2007 won’t open, I can always count on OO.o to save the day. Funny isn’t it how the program creators can’t manage to make Office open older file formats properly and yet OpenOffice.org manages to do it somehow…
deathshadow mocked…
Well what do you want on a netbook? I enjoy running OpenSonic, Frozen Bubbles, some emulated SEGA and SNES games here and there, heck for awhile I was even running through an old RPG “A Thousnad Arms” using PSX emulation until I kept getting frustrated by trying to use the keyboard for the minigames. This idea you have to give up gaming to use Linux is so last century. We don’t get every game, but we definitely get more than you’re trying to suggest.
And again, netbook=portable computer, not necessarily “game system” goes back to horses for courses, you know? Now if someone would manage to build in a gamepad to the netbook itself, maybe I’d game more but when I’m on the go or stuck waiting somewhere I can get by quite well with the games on my eeepc.
deathshadow Continued to mock…
Actually, yes it is. I can use the many many Firefox extensions to reduce my footprint via adblock, noscript, greasemonkey and so on to make it much more functional. I suppose your preferred solution is to use IE? Remind me again, exactly how much extending can be done there? What is the performance penalty? Yeah, I thought so.
deathshadow Continued to mock…
It goes back to having the right tools for the job. I use Miro to grab my videos, Banshee to grab my audio, and XBMC to play them both if I’m somewhere and expect to be there awhile needing entertainment. I mostly keep gnome-mplayer around for its Firefox integration more than anything else these days. It’s still handy though to do a quick preview of videos before adding them to XBMC, so I keep it around.
Also I prefer Banshee’s method of organizing my music files–if I wanted to do things the Winamp way I’d install xmms or beep. Also, Gnome-mplayer is very much like mediaplayer classic, but these days I prefer the environment of XBMC instead and so am defaulting to it.
deathshadow Continued to trolled…
And those hard drives are a big part of the reason why those netbooks have only three hours battery life even with larger batteries…
deathshadow Continued to declared…
No, I’m not using any Anti-Virus software. In Linux it is unnecessary.
deathshadow Continued to troll…
I suspect a PEBCAK situation, since I have none of those issues.
deathshadow Continued to troll…
I don’t understand what you mean. How is my netbook not being used to its full capacity?
deathshadow Continued to troll…
That’s the whole point Im trying to get at YOU! With Linux nothing is dumbed down unless I choose it to be. I can run the netbook remix or I can keep my familiar Gnome desktop. All my apps are the same as the ones I use on my desktop. Linux on ARM is a real possibility, since it allows all the same applications to be used as on X86, something that is not possible with Windows.
Even if Microsoft ports over to ARM, all those old applications still need to be ported. Linux just needs a recompile and it’s in the package manager.
–bornagainpenguin
First of all this is hardly new gear–if you do a google you’ll quickly discover the laptop was released a year ago this time. And at that time there were announcements that the device would soon be available with Android. There has been absolutely no movement on that since then that I’ve been able to see.
Secondly, the thing runs Windows CE 5.0 not Android. So it will be difficult, if not impossible to add software to this, since most applications are targeted at Windows Mobile, not Windows CE.
Third, the guy admits in the video the only reason he put the Android wallpaper on and used Android in the title was to get viewers. So you know right then and there he doesn’t have much to say because he is intentionally being misleading.
Fourth that price is nigh impossible to get for the average consumer who might appreciate such a device. Even the Delstar DS700 being sold by kmart for “Black Friday” goes for $119.99 USD normally retails at $199.99 USD at the Heartland America site [see: http://tinyurl.com/yj3dgtr ] so where do people get the idea they’ll be able to get the Menq Easypc E760 for a mere $80.00 USD?
Fifth and finally I have been searching and so far have discovered absolutely no evidence it is possible to hack this device, either to put a version of Linux on it or to upgrade the thing to Windows Mobile. This plus (as mentioned above) it comes with Windows CE 5.0 and will be difficult to add applications makes the device more or less unusable for the average person, let alone the average geek! I don’t care who you are everyone has a preferred web browser, a couple of games they must have, a preferred media player…
So I repeat this is a joke, right?
–bornagainpenguin
I haven’t been this excited about laptops since the original Eee PC was announced. You read it here first (or rather, in that guys’ review): This thing will herald in a new era of cheap PCs. $80 is the new ideal price for netbooks; all other devices will need to follow suit. I predict the netbook cutoff price going down to $300, “real” powerful laptop prices hovering around $500, and 15″ MacBook Pros going for around $1000, all inside of 2 years.
But the best part, I think (hope), will be the competition this creates with the smartphone market. No longer will mobile networks be able to charge $200 for a subsidized device–it would look embarassing considering a full-fledged, unlocked netbook can be had for the same price. So the subsidies will have to reduce to the price of “free” most of the time, and the unlocked prices for smartphones will finally become reasonable, finally reflecting the actual manufacturing cost a bit more–maybe around $200. At that point, the market will be hotter than ever, and the mobile networks will have an ever-harder time convincing people to sign up for multi-year contract. Result: mobile broadband finally becomes a ubiquitous, utility-like resource, with a plethora of cheap, relatively capable devices that use it as such.
Mobile devices (smartphones) are perceived as very different devices. These won’t impact those prices, its a different market altogether.
The best part of your comment relates to netbook costs. They started out promising inexpensive portability, now they’re pushing into being windows7 based bloated machines that cost 2x as much as originally advertised. This pollution of the netbook industry, due to traditional laptop manufacturers wanting to recover their profits and microsoft leveraging their influence with manufacturers, IMHO needs a correction. This type of machine trying to push sub $100 is a good start.
Having recently been in china and having done research on their prolific handheld PMPs and phone knockoffs, the one thing the chinese don’t understand yet is the necessity of good software/firmware to run on their stuff. You’ve got nice promising sytems like the jxd1000 (Psp clone) with a nice chipset (sunplus 8000) and good features for very cheap, but they provide a craptastic firmware with dicey emulators which kills the appeal of this system.
The dingoo a320 is maybe a beginning to changing all this. A programming sdk is provided for the native OS. Additionally the injenics processor is fully documented, which allowed for a linux port. And now the linux firmware, advancing because of a dedicated community, is actually quite good. And *poof, the dingoo a320 is well on its way to becoming a huge success.
So these small netbook guys should do what they can to leverage this available energy if possible…that may be ChromeOS (when its released).
Edited 2009-11-15 09:52 UTC
Typical an ARM based can run Windows ( yes even windows 7 ) if they have a rdp client and a thin client server
http://www.rdesktop.org
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm
doesn’t work on the go.