What’s Under Three Pounds, Under $500 and Underpowered?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 4, 2008 at 11:51 AM PT
Add Lenovo to the ever-lengthening list of PC makers turning their attention to the ultra-mobile PC market, that new category of extraneous mobile computing devices the electronics industry seems so determined to create. Announced today, the Lenovo Ideapad S10 features a 10-inch screen, a 1.6GHz Atom processor, a keyboard at 85 percent of full size and a three-hour battery. Like the ASUS Eee PC 1000 and MSI Wind, the S10 runs Windows XP. And like the Eee PC and the Wind, it too is designed for simple computing tasks. Surfing the Web, checking email, listening to music–the same sorts of things you’re probably already doing on your phone.
So why is it we need one of these things again?
No one seems to be sure, really — not even the PC vendors making them.
“At this point, you can expect all the major players to get into this market,” IDC analyst Richard Shim told eWeek. “The question is what is there level of commitment and what is their target audience and how much do they expect it to grow. A lot of the companies I talk to say, ‘We’re doing this as a defensive measure and we’re concerned about the success of some of the more aggressive players that have entered this market.’”
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Comments
It’s sort of like saying “We’ve invented a new SUV. Its target market: people who want to use less gas. Our claim: this vehicle gets 3 miles per gallon on the highway.”
The problem with these things isn’t the target market (of which I am a part) but how far they fall short of meeting it.
Almost ANY laptop will run for 3 hours on a charge. Given smaller everything, solid state disks drive, and a processor from Intel specifically aimed at low energy use (maybe there is your problem right there) this thing should be shooting for 3 DAYS not 3 hours.
Of course running Windows, which likes to busy itself with all sorts of things in the background even when the computer is sitting “idle” doesn’t help.
The word “boot” has gotten a dirty name where users are concerned. We want a machine we can turn on, use, turn off and that can go at least all day on a charge (charging overnight, but no more frequently than that is a minimum requirement for such a device).
I think one or more variations on Linux will be the right OS for this thing which only needs a capable web browser and simple word/text processing. Approximately 12 people out of 10 that I know need nothing more than this and are in fact baffled by the complexity of what our industry has been able to produce so far. I’ll be so glad to finally no longer be asked to help people with their machines that “worked just fine yesterday, I don’t know what happened since then”.
I’ll be giving these as present by the dozens if they can finally get their heads out of Microsoft’s behind and produce a computing APPLIANCE that just works.
BRING THEM ON!
Posted by Mac Beach at August 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm