Foxconn and Hon Hai Both Planning ARM Smartbooks 59
wonkavader writes "Tuesday was a good day for smartbook news. News articles from Sept. 8 tell us that both Foxconn and Hon Hai are developing ARM-based smartbooks. PC World reports that
Foxconn's devices 'use a few different Linux operating systems, including one similar to the Intel-backed Moblin OS and one developed by Foxconn. The company is currently looking into Google's Android mobile OS for possible use as well.' Reuters reports that Hon Hai is also developing them. Hon Hai makes the iPhone and the Wii."
Redundant much? (Score:5, Informative)
Foxconn == Hon Hai (Score:5, Informative)
Foxconn is actually just a trade name of Hon Hai, they're the same company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn [wikipedia.org]
Re:No "Windows Alternative" there right? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Informative)
Smartbook? What is this new shitty term?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's a small laptop, or possibly a tablet/e-reader, with a built in phone.
It sounds like it might just be a small laptop (err, "netbook") with an ARM cpu instead of x86:
And if you want an arm-based netbook now (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/index.htm [alwaysinnovating.com]
Needless to say, it's linux based. I only wish it had higher res than 1024x600... but that is par for the course in current netbooks (though some have ~1300x768 now). On the plus side, it's also a tablet as you can remove the entire bottom half in seconds.
Internal Consistency (Score:3, Informative)
Considering that Android is not at all intended for netbooks, and Moblin was Intel's distro aimed at Atom chips. Between Moblin and Maemo, they would be better off choosing one of them for all their devices and at least being internally consistent, instead of rolling yet another custom mobile Linux distro and wedging Android in places where Google never truly intended for it to be (which is what ChromeOS is for.)
Re:Foxconn == Hon Hai (Score:3, Informative)
Why point to Wikipedia when the fact is on Foxconn's own page [foxconn.com]?
Re:No "Windows Alternative" there right? (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot as timely as ever.
What about the new "Zaurus" from sharp (Score:3, Informative)
PC-Z1 [NetWalker]: http://www.sharp.co.jp/netwalker/ [sharp.co.jp]