HP Unveils Small Commercial Linux Laptop

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."

Re:for $500 i could get...

[fyleow]

Right but it will also weigh at least twice as much as the 3 lb HP and even with a 15.6 inch screen the resolution will be similar to that of the 8.9 inch HP. The point of these cheap ultra portables like the EEE is to have a tiny footprint and light weight without having to pay $1000+ which was what you expect to pay for anything 12 inch or less before the EEE came.

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 the Via though, initial reviews say it's very slow...They might be prepping to use the VIA Isaiah which is pin compatible though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Isaiah [wikipedia.org]

Re:1.6GHz?

[Sockatume]

The reviews seem to suggest that although the 1.6GHz CPU can run Vista Business perfectly soundly, it keeps the temps high and the fan running and only gets a scant 2 hours out of the basic battery. So it probably shouldn't be on Vista.

writer's laptop

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

The Mini-Note was called the HP 2133 in the advanced press and has been expected for a while. I've had high hopes for it as a notebook for word processing, because the advance press has always talked about it having a 95% full keyboard (unlike the tiny Eee).

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.

Remember the eMate?

[Eponymous Coward]

Remember Apple's eMate [wikipedia.org]? I always thought it was a terrible shame that this device wasn't allowed to live through a couple more versions. The OLPC arguably is better, but if the eMate were still around, I believe it could actually fulfill the promise of a $100 machine and that would be very cool.

Re:500 bucks?

[snl2587]

I'm aware of that. I originally wrote it using gasoline for the sake of showing the mathematics, then, realizing that all anyone would do is argue all of the factors concerning the price of gasoline while ignoring the point, I switched the word to water without actually intending to reflect real values. Really, I could have just said "X", where "X" is a reference only.

And the whole point was just to show that I hadn't made a mistake in the math when I made the joke...