Even though CES hasn’t even officially started yet, the gadget news is already coming in at a very steady stream. We can’t report on all of them, obviously, but we can make a selection of the most interesting ones we’ve seen so far.
Yes, it seems as if the Asus Eee keyboard thing has now been given an official launch date and price, after many, many delays. The specifications are mostly bog-standard netbook territory, with the Intel Atom N270 (1.6Ghz), 1GB of RAM (not easily upgradable), 16GB SSD, and a battery that lasts for four hours. It comes with a standard set of ports, and a wireless HDMI connection. The additional mini-display supports multitouch, can act as a trackpad, and can run widgets (mobile applications, more or less). On sale from February for USD 499 and USD 599.
At CES, ARM showed off a development board containing a Cortex-A9 dual-core processor running at 500Mhz. They showed it running side-by-side with an Atom netbook, while doing some browsing. Performance was comparable, which is all the more impressive considering the Atom runs at 1.6Ghz (compared to 500Mhz), and considering the ARM board didn’t have a graphics accelerator (while the netbook does).
Speaking of ARM, a few companies showed off some ARM-powered netbooks (smartbooks) at CES. Lenovo brought its Skylight along (hands-on), a rather odd-looking smartbook which it will start shipping in April for 499 USD. It uses a Snapdragon 1Ghz ARM processor, has a 10.1″ 1280×720 display, and sports 10 hours of battery life. It runs a customised version of Linux.
Related to the Skylight is Lenovo’s IdeaPad U1, a Snapdragon-powered tablet which you can dock in a laptop-like clamshell. The actual tablet has more or less the same specifications as the Skylight, but the clamshell sports a regular x86 CULV processor. When “docked”, it runs Windows 7, and when you undock the tablet from the clamshell, it switches automatically to a customised Linux install which runs on the tablet itself. No information yet on availability.
Marvell also introduced a smartbook, one so thin you could cut yourself with it. With a price tag of only 200USD, and running Ubuntu Linux and capable of doing 720p video, this is a pretty slick machine. Sadly, they’re not selling it directly, but rather they are looking for someone else to brand and ship it. Design-wise, they definitely drew inspiration from Dell’s Adamo (good!).
The last gadget (if you can call it that) I’d like to highlight is a laptop Asus co-designed with Bang & Olufsen, which is probably one of the most beautiful (and ridiculous) laptops I have ever seen. The Asus NX90Jq has a rather odd design, with two touchpads located left and right of the keyboard. Sadly, they’re not multitouch, so you can only use one at a time. It’s ridiculously powerful, too: Core i7 processor, NVIDIA GeForce GT 334M graphics chip, up to 1280GB of storage (dual drives), a slot-in Blu-ray drive, and USB 3.0. It will set you back a hefty 2500 USD.
For the rest, CES is packed with netbooks in all shapes and sizes, some regular laptops and desktops, and a number of pocket projectors. You can head over to your favourite gadget blog to follow the news.
Tonight (PST, sadly, so I’ll be fast asleep) Steve Ballmer will hold his CES keynote speech, and it is rumoured that he will unveil a Microsoft tablet (made together with HP), perhaps an evolution of the Courier concept “leaked” from the company (video). If it indeed is anything like the Courier (and not yet another butt-ugly convertible tablet with Windows-regular), then they might actually make an impact. Stay tuned.
Ah! A breath of fresh air, after seeing Intel and AMD roadmaps.
I still do hate that there’s no reasonable form factor ARM machine in the works (13″+, proper keyboard).
Hopefully they will come eventually, but I think it’s smart that ARM is actually competing in an area where they actually have a chance (low-power machines). If they release a full-fledged ARM laptop, it’ll be compared to all those high-power Intel/AMD laptops… and they won’t even get past the starting line. People will automatically expect lots of power/speed, which they just won’t get. Look at how the differences in specs and size with netbooks are blurring with laptops. If ARM can get its processor to take off by pitting it up against the Atom, I think eventually the same kind of blurring will happen.
*sigh* I know, but I actually use the arrow keys and the ins->pgdn section above them, which netbooks all don’t have (needs more width), get driven nuts by not having vsync (that’s why I run Windows on my SuperSavage), and hate really small displays.
Yet, performance-wise, a P3 1.13 is fast enough for 99% of what I do–it’s not too shabby for compiling, even (I wouldn’t compile Qt on it again, but it’s fine for smallish apps, my own stuff, custom kernels, etc.). Given that, such a device w/ one of those ARMs would be a heaven-sent gadget for me.
Edited 2010-01-06 19:30 UTC
Yeah, and it really kills productivity when small keyboards like this require the use the Fn key to access home/end/pg-up/pg-down, which is on the opposite side of the keyboard. Makes one-handed use pretty much impossible.
Would be nice if Fn was on the other side of the keyboard, near the majority of the Fn-enabled keys.
A dual-core Atom with an Ion chipset, in a 12″ formfactor would be pretty nice. Or a dual-core ARM with some graphics accelerator in the same formfactor.
12″ in pretty much perfect, as the keyboard isn’t tiny, but the bulk is still small enough to be very portable. My first laptop is a 12″ 800×600 P1-166MMx. Other than the 8 lbs weight and almost 3″ thickness when closed, it was the perfect size (screen+keyboard).
I think I might wait for the 2Ghz part to become available in a netbook/smartbook class machine:
http://www.arm.com/news/25922.html
That part (when it is made) should look fairly impressive up against the same device running at only 0.5 Ghz.
It should also be a no-contest winner when compared with any Intel Atom part.
You should probably also check that it is a cortex-a9 based design as they will be much faster than cortex-a8 or anything older than that for instance I think some of those wall warts are clocked at 1.2Ghz but a 600Mhz cortex should be faster than ARM9
A8 is dual issue in order
A9 is dual issue out of order which makes it less lick an intel atom which is in order leading to a few more pipeline stalls.
I realize you know this but it might be harder to tell once the are in store what exactly the hardware is.
Edited 2010-01-06 19:36 UTC
Quite from [read more]
On sale from February for USD 499 and USD 599.
I really don’t understand who in their right mind would pay that much for so little.
I’ve a couple of eeeBox’s and IMHO, they are much more useful.
http://www.cybernetman.com/
It’s not a new concept, and has never been cheap.
The computer in the keyboard is definitely not a new concept, but it has been done cheaply:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64“>The
The Marvell one got me drooling. I need like 5 of those for me and my relatives. The best part is that there’s no way to run windows (unless you virtualize it, of course) so my dear brother and sister would have to suck up! 🙂
No you can’t have 5, I need them all for me!!!
One day, when I’ll replace my eeepc 1000 which is being used a lot, I’ll try an ARM. Can’t wait for the competition to come by!
I wonder what happened to the ARM netbooks shown during last year at shows? We had one by Pegatron, and I forget the other one. It seems we keep getting promises of these ARM devices, but have yet to see any actual go in to production and on market (with the exception of the Skylight, which at $500 I’m wondering if we’ll ever actually see price to performance competitive offerings on ARM).
All I want to know, is when I can get my hands on a reasonably priced ARM netbook 🙂
Yeah, I haven’t heard anything since either. And damn it… I want one. No fans allowing complete silence (and less power drain), more efficient CPU draining less battery power, and no ridiculous limitations of Windows 7 Starter Edition (not allowed to change your wallpaper for one)… it’s really sounding good right now. Not to mention, Intel and Microsoft trying to restrict what goes in netbooks… Intel apparently doesn’t want anyone putting higher-end CPUs in their low-cost machines, and Microsoft requires 1GB to be the max memory.
With all this crap, ARM really is looking better than ever. If only they’d hurry up and get to market…
If 10% of readers who show expectation had bought one, the situation now would be another. “I do not want one, but I am happy that it exist”
I’m not sure what you mean. I would gladly buy one, and/or would have bought one- if one was on market. As of now, they’re seemingly turning in to hopes, and maybe later, a “could’ve been”.
I remember a friend speaking about Linux “I don’t use Linux, but a like that Linux exist”. And after your comment I thought why many people expect a alternative to x86, but all of they when buy a new computer get another x86. Practical reasons I suppose. So “I don’t use ARM, but a like that ARM netbooks exist”.
Just a reflection, not accusing you.
Oh no problem, I knew you weren’t accusing, I was just genuinely confused 🙂 As you can see by name, it happens quite often. I think it’s hard to market alternatives, so I can understand the reluctant push to market. To me it’s just if you’re going to go through the R&D, prototypes, and promotion, you might as well try your luck on the market
Okay, so why would someone pay $499 for the Lenovo Skylight smartbook when you can have Intel/AMD Netbook for about the same price (or less)? I mean, at least I can still run Windows…
The Marvell one is much better at $200, I wish someone could build that one.
OK show me any Intel/AMD Netbook that weights < 1kg with more than 10h battery life and is as thin as this and fanless. People pay quite a bit more than $500 for an iphone and that has a lot less power, a smaller display etc.
…so now we’re waiting for “regular” one, ATX-sized mobo equipped with such processor (and maybe on-board graphic adaptor in addition).
Just seen the HP slate.
What a joke. It’s just a PC that runs Windows 7.
Microsoft have no imagination at all. This is no further on than the failed XP tablets.
There is no use for this product. Without a keyboard it won’t fully replace any other computer, and it’ll be too expensive to serve as an inbetween machine.
Microsoft promise so much, and deliver so little. They show you Courier, and then deliver a new way to sell you Windows 7.
Some very interesting machines (especially the ARM stuff) on display. But also on display was the user, the room lighting and anything in a 5-metre radius.
I wish manufacturers would quit already with the maximum glossy/reflective screens and surfaces. The Lenovo Skylight especially. Who wants to pay US$500 for a bloody mirror?
marvel machine is amazing but it’s too big,
i would prefer a 9″ machine, max 10″
i hope marvel will sell machine at different size
same thing for the Skylight, also too expensive