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)
1.6GHz? (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't someone really think of the children for once?
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)?
for $500 i could get... (Score:5, Insightful)
Authorized by whom (Score:3, Insightful)
This kind of language reminds me of this great xkcd.com piece [xkcd.com].
What happened to the vision... (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:for $500 i could get... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:for $500 i could get... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
"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.
Re:500 bucks? (Score:2, Insightful)
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).
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:What happened to the vision... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:for $500 i could get... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.Re:for $500 i could get... (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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 adjustment for recent changes in global currencies.
Whatever. There are cheaper options but the more diversity in the market the better from my point of view. Just keep the watts down. I don't want the third world burning 350W of carbon per schoolkid just to join us online. The gamers with their >1HP monster gaming rigs are bad enough.
Re:"Try Again" (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Something lined up (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:500 bucks? (Score:2, Insightful)
Predicting an inflation rate of 20% a year for the next 3 years is now considered "Insightful"?
Re:1.6GHz? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:for $500 i could get... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:"Try Again" (Score:3, Insightful)
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" -- which means all they have to do now is, copy files to iPod, then to laptop, or pirate it.
I'm not arguing that Linux is a viable gaming platform, but rather, that if these kids have to use Linux with no optical drive, they'll make it work anyway. My little brother, who is in high school, did get Warcraft III running on his EEE PC, with no help from me. And anything which can run Vista is a lot more powerful than the EEE.