HP Unveils Small Commercial Linux Laptop 242
Ryan writes "HP had unveiled their version of a miniaturized laptop for school kids. The tiny device boasts speeds up to 1.6 gigahertz. They haven't yet decided on a name, but 'netbooks' is one possibility. They will be used for surfing the Internet and doing other basic tasks like word processing. The company plans to have 50 million units available in the marketplace by 2011. Optical drives have been left out to prevent kids from playing 'unauthorized games.' Weighing less than 3 pounds with a tiny 8.9 inch screen, the machines start below $500 for a Linux-based model. Prices are expected to be higher for Windows Vista models."
500 bucks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:500 bucks? (Score:5, Funny)
With inflation that will be about $4 in 2008 dollars by 2011.
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Predicting an inflation rate of 20% a year for the next 3 years is now considered "Insightful"?
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Price inflation? 'Fraid not, sir: If a gallon of water cost $0.25 in 1970 (I don't know the actual price) and it costs $1.50 in 2008, then $1.50 now is $0.25 in 1970 dollars (assuming the actual cost of water in terms of everything else did not change).
"Try Again" (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, being kids, they will require ~30 seconds (maybe less) to figure out a way around this. USB optical drive / keychain drive? Check. Daemon Tools and ISO image? Check. No-CD Patch of whatever game they want to run? Check. Web games, bittorrent, whatever else their little hearts might desire? Check.
I have a vision of 1,000s of kids sitting in school, on school-approved laptop, all endowed with MAME and console emulators... "and god looked down, and saw that it was good."
Heh.
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Re:"Try Again" (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that I've got you on record...
WoW works, out of the box, on Wine, with maybe one small tweak -- and kids tend to tweak out their WoW anyway, as it's somewhat scriptable, in a few small, deliberate ways.
It is possible, though unlikely, that a kid wouldn't be able to figure out how to install it from an ISO. Were that the case, all it takes is copying the .wine directory to wherever you need it to be, because once installed, it doesn't check for the CD -- being an MMO is much better copy protection than any CD scheme they could do.
And remember, it only takes one kid to do that, throw it on his iPod, and teach the other kids the three or so steps that it'll take to copy it to the laptop's hard drive.
If they really don't want people to play games, they should just give it a crappy video card... Oh wait, they plan to have a Vista model. Never mind.
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And in the context of kids on laptops, that's really good enough. Or if it isn't, they'll all play Warcraft III with Dota mod, or they'll find something else that does work -- Quake 3 is ported and open source, and Quake 4 is ported, and in both cases, the Linux installation instructions are along the lines of "install this thing from the Internet (or with your package manager), then copy some files off the CD" -- wh
mkay (Score:2)
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GUI tools that will already easily enable this. All they have to do is set this
up once on a "real" box and then clone it to the USB fob.
The Unix way of dealing with filesystems makes this idea pretty straightforward.
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$500 seems like a bit much for this laptop. Is it ruggedized or something (would make sense for a machine designed for kids)?
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WoW will run - admittedly in the lowest graphics mode - on a P3/Athlon 800 MHz, 512 MB RAM, and a video board with at least GeForce2-level (read: capabilities from 8 years ago) graphics ability. This laptop will do at LEAST that much - and those are s
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Hell, my Palm PDA is fast enough to run quake...
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The real question is: will it run WoW?
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Re:"Try Again" (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "Optical drives have been left out to drive down the cost, but some marketing weenie thought it would sound better if the press release said it was for the children"?
Engineering is about reality. Marketing is about perceptions.
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-fragbait
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that said, I suspect these will not do well because of the price point. The Asus eeePC is priced at just about the right point - it certainly has all the administrators that have seen it in my district drooling over the notion of a classroom set for under $10K
Re:"Try Again" (Score:5, Funny)
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Looks like this one from 2004. Sort of. (Score:2)
OK, it's a photoshop job, but that pic probably received more positive comments than any other photoshopped hardware I'd done. There's interest out there.
1.6GHz? (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't someone really think of the children for once?
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Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Funny)
My son's Toshiba laptop, purchased this last Christmas, runs Vista at about that speed. It sucks. (That's a unanimous opinion among all members of our household, geeks and non-geeks alike. Even the cats hate it.
Well they would, wouldn't they? Everybody knows cats need fast processors to run extra grammar and spelling checks. For a cat, being caught spelling something incorrectly is the height of humiliation.
Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Funny)
wut dat u sez?
I can has werd chekerz?
Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Funny)
You:
0
-|-
/ \
Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why they ship Linux
ASUS's EeePc has the bigger manufactures salivating. Their nothing thinking standard desktop/laptop replacement, they're trying to look at alternative markets.
Disposable computers, super-light-weight computers, computers for Grandma/Grandpa, and network-only computers.
These are all areas in which Vista cannot compete at a given price range, and are separate market segments from traditional computing. The only problem (for Microsoft) is that if Linux catches on in all these spaces, Linux will finally have a strong niche from which to leap into the mainstream market.
If there are 50-150 million lightweight, 1+ ghz Linux laptops out there with a GMA X3100 or equivalent graphics chip; then there's a beautiful market for software. Games included.
Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I had Vista on my last notebook, a quite capable dual-core thingie and it sucked.
The conclusion is that Vista sucks at any speed.
Something lined up (Score:3, Insightful)
They must have some massive orders lined up. Unless that number is wrong, no WAY do you talk about figures that large without clear knowledge of huge orders already in the pipeline. That'd basically be one for every schoolchild in the US by 2011.
Could they be in talks with, for example, the folks in charge of the education changes that will be coming with the changing of the guard from republican to democrat White House administrations? Or with foreign governments (in both developed and developing countries)?
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They may well be... Teachers' Union endorsements don't come cheap.
Hey check this out! (Score:5, Funny)
I just discovered a secret. Most schoolkids [wikipedia.org] don't even live in the US. Shocker!
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Time to offend just about everybody (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it too conservative to point out that you don't introduce new technology to a culture by selling it to the poorest of them, or even the "average"?
Is it too liberal to suggest that in some cases governments might invest in technology for students to improve their nation's future position in the world?
Is it anti-american to point out that $500 today isn't any more than $250 was three years ago to the rest of the world because their currency is up and ours is down? Those GDP numbers need some serious adj
The reversal of the trend (Score:3, Informative)
The reversal of the trend is one thing that makes it new. Also, it's not just price. It's also weight and watts. Those two considerations in combination with the low price transform what people are willing the do with the thing, where they're willing to take it and hence how much they're able to take it for granted. It's not "The Precious Notebook" any more. I
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In order to win those contracts you have to know the people issuing the purchase contracts very well to even get a foot in the door. I believe they've got the Gov't contacts and certainly enough OEM manufacturers willing to take the business to move the units.
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Overpriced piece of crap. I know, I know, it's somebody thinking of the children... god forbid they should get a fully functional laptop for less money when they can have this piece of junk.
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for $500 i could get... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:for $500 i could get... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Heck you can get those specs for about $300 on a desktop.
The fact is that you are paying that much because of the weight, because of how portable it is. The closest thing to your specs that weights 4 pounds is the mac book air and that starts at $1700.
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If you aren't buying these laptops for the size and weight to price ratio then there's no point really.
It's a shame that they chose to go with
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I've never understood, up to a certain point for smaller computers, why smaller was more expensive. When you get REALLY small, I can see it, but I see no point in buying a 12 inch laptop when a 14 inch laptop is less expensive. It can't really make that huge of a difference to anybody to carry around 14 instead of 12.
But then I'm just a cheap bastard.
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Oh, really? (Score:2)
Producing this video [youtube.com] must have cost a fortune in CGI then. This one too. [youtube.com] Those Linux eee geeks must have an unlimited budget to mock up fakes like this one. [youtube.com]
It's amazing how they can make that stuff look like it's happening on a puny little eee when, as you observe, that's clearly not possible.
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What impresses me.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that it can install the OS, standard apps, open office, and a whole bunch of this free stuff [ubuntu.com] in 1/10th of the minimum required for Vista, and it still looks this good.
Wait. No. It doesn't surprise me at all. Never mind.
Authorized by whom (Score:3, Insightful)
This kind of language reminds me of this great xkcd.com piece [xkcd.com].
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Block DirectX (Score:2)
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And don't forget, the graphics in this machine is probably so crappy that 90% of the (newer) games out there couldn't run. Of course, that wouldn't stop the kids from running something, like, the old versions of Doom or Quake or even UT. Those games have quite low requirements, and can easily be fit on tiny USB dongles and don't have copy protection schemes that'd make that a pita.
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What happened to the vision... (Score:4, Insightful)
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--Dave
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Just because new toys come along with technology that makes geeks go "Gee-whiz that's cool' doesn't mean the old tools suddenly become garbage.
Hell, half the time the new tools are the garbage, just takes you a little while after purchase to find out.
Optical left out because of games huh... (Score:4, Funny)
"See? See? It's a feature, not a deficiency!"
I've got a name! (Score:4, Funny)
How about 'NetBook Air'? Catchy, I think.
Re:I've got a name! (Score:5, Funny)
Correction to summary (Score:5, Informative)
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hmmm. (Score:2, Informative)
Troll? (Score:5, Informative)
Copying other sub notebooks, almost to the T, but charging nearly double is NOT innovative. They are claiming to want to sell a 500 notebook into classrooms, which is way too expensive. The classmates are about 350 and the XO are 150-180. Heck, even the Asus are 299. It is slightly greater power then these, but still can not compete against other $500 notebooks (which have diskdrives, DVDs, Ram, 14-16" monitors, 2.2G and bigger CPU, etc.
IOW, this item is either hopelessly overpriced or underpowered. That is NOT innovative and for me to call it for what it is, does not make me troll.
Unauthorized games (Score:4, Funny)
That's a good thing since games can't be distributed on USB drives, SD cards or downloaded from the internet.
Games? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, what? Every time I go to the library, all the computers are occupied by kids playing a million different Flash games online. None of them are playing games that involve CDs. And plenty of small games can be run locally by saving the
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Yeah, schools don't understand technology.
Besides, if they're running linux, all of their games are going to be installed via aptitude (or equivalent) anyway. I don't have a CD drive in my laptop, and I play plenty of games... the only tricky part was getting the initial OS installed, for which I had to borrow a friend's CD drive from his Dell (I'm so glad that drive bays are standardized between Dells...) Presumably, the kids aren't going to have to *install* the OS, so they'll probably never even need a
Better info (Score:2, Informative)
Why Linux? (Score:2)
Granted, I couldn't imagine that porting an operating system is a trivial task, but I would think it could be a bit of a minor triumph to pull it off on a small POSIX laptop...
VIA CPU... no thanks (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, for the cost of any of these small notebooks, you can buy a used IBM Thinkpad X31 or X32 and have an Intel Pentium M (Banias/Dothan) CPU, top-quality components, and Thinkpad fit and finish.
Wow... (Score:2)
I sense an attempt to sell more USB drives.
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writer's laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, after looking at some of the early reviews [google.com] you can see that the Linux model is almost the perfect machine for a writer. It's small and under 3 pounds. It has a nearly full-size keyboard so you should be able to type for hours on it with no problems. The 1280x768 screen lets you see how things look on a full page and do some editing work (which is why something like an Alphasmart doesn't fit here). It seems likely to be fairly rugged and has a solid state drive of some sort, meaning drops won't kill your work. The performance of the poky VIA processor is almost irrelevant; all you need to be able to do is type in Open Office without noticeable lag. (Or fire up a tty session with vi or emacs if you want to totally minimize distractions.) $500 isn't as nice as $400, but it won't kill you either.
The only problem I've seen is that at least one of the reviews goes on about the heat the thing generates and the accompanying fan noise. A small quiet computer is the scribbler's holy grail. There's some hope for the HP, as the reviews have all been of the $750 model running Vista off a spinning hard drive. Maybe, hopefully, the slower processor being taxed less by a lighter OS combined with a solid state drive will make the Linux model quieter. Still, if not, we've almost got a writer's computer. And hopefully someone else will come out with a perfect one soon.
what a silly excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
I think PR should have gone with the real, better excuse for not including an optical drive:
This notebook is really small, and optical drives are going the way of the floppy disk.No Thanks (Score:2)
Congratulations: not interested.
Re:No Thanks (Score:5, Funny)
Classical Mistake Number One? (Score:5, Funny)
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Sorry, obviously #4 is "Never quote from 'The Princess Bride' without checking your sources."
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It's the Software Stupid (Score:2)
Gee they're releasing a low end laptop aimed at the education market... and the software it will run will be... umm Suse Linux or Vista and whatever else you buy. Am I the only one that thinks this is a little lacking in the "innovation" department. I mean the OLPC project looked at the needs of kids for education and tried to meet them with a customized OS and software, with real innovation, and an accompanying custom server and worldwide internet service contract all at a much lower price than this.
This
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You forget that you'll actually be able to buy this one in the US. Sets it apart from the XO, which is apparently only for starving children in the developing world.
You are mistaken, or perhaps looking at this from a different perspective. They (HP) removed the optical drive as a way to make sales to educational institutes. That is who they are marketing this to. The XO laptop is for sale to schools in the US. For example, Birmingham, Alabama purchased 15,000 of them.
It is true that the XO laptops were never intended for individual sale anywhere (they are designed to work together as a mesh and with their dedicated server). Attempts to sell them within the US via th
Netbooks is lame (Score:4, Funny)
-Charlie
Remember Dell and its Linux desktop...? (Score:2)
Does it come in pink? (Score:2)
Remember the eMate? (Score:3, Interesting)
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So kids have never heard of a flash drive?
So I go to somebody else's house, download Lockjaw Tetromino Game [pineight.com] onto a Kingston flash drive, put the flash drive in my laptop, and try to run it. But all I get is the parental control alert box:
RTFA please (Score:2)
Seeing as it uses a Via CPU, I somehow doubt Intel will find it useful.