Shiny Doom Forum

[Trool]

this is pretty nifty and the price point they r going for is rather cheap, though i don't think i trust the battery life they r quoting. This is pretty much a palm sized fully functional pc, tiny keyboard, but 20gig 1ghz and 256RAM, that's rather impressive for the size, enjoy the video:

http://news.com.com/1606-2-5222650.html
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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, isn't 'Eureka!' but rather 'hmm....that's funny.'

--Isaac Asimov

[rklee]

Was chatting with my friend about this before. Although this is new and interesting it's more just bringing together long (or semilong) existing technologies.
The Crusoe chip is definately not new. That company tried to compete with Intel and VIA in the ultra portable ultra long battery life notebook competition several years ago. Crusoe claims to be at 800 or 1ghz but in reality it is quite slow in many tests. It is however very low power drain and very low heat. Which is why in the article they claim to have 'solved' those problems... they were mostly solved when the crusoe first came out several years ago. They were slaughtered by Centrino... maybe they'll fare better this time.
Micro harddrives have also been around for quite a while... a 20gb might be kinda new to the market (months???) but still it's not revolutionary anymore.
I don't know what memory this thing uses but sodimm memory could fit in a palm sized computer.
Personally I don't believe this will do very well unless their prices (including the desktop like docking port) comes down even more. I think it will stir the industry up which is really good but not make too many sales. Seems like Chibi Tablet PC .

I think advances in Human Computer interaction needs to be made. The screen is so small on these things... Non Standard sized keyboards are cumbersome and even touchpads aren't always that great, especially on a small screen. Imagine trying to edit a photo or play a game. Even something as simple as trying to do a word document would be difficult in my opinion... nothing like a regular desktop where u get high resolution and don't have to be 4" from the screen to see stuff.
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"My Heart Is In the Work" - Andrew Carnegie

[Trool]

interestingly enough slashdot was carrying an article about the sony competitor, i didn't know there were that many in the game...

http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/notebooks/sony_vaio_U50.htm

this one seems very similar with similar specs, but it can come with a celeron or centrino. But i agree these r a tad bit pricy, i think if one was around 1500-2000 it would probably do pretty well. One thing i'm surpriced is that no one is using the tabletPC XP, but just the normal kind for these devices, not sure why. From what i gleened from the article the sony one is an import for 2600, wonder if it does come over here how much it would be....

I think eventualy the lure of really having all ur data with you no matter what is appealing enough to some ppl to get the little things.
_________________
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, isn't 'Eureka!' but rather 'hmm....that's funny.'

--Isaac Asimov