$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

Technocrat

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

wowbagger

Wed Sep 03 04:58:00 -0700 2008

About+Technocrat.net.

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On Techvideoblog is a story of the new HiVision mininote laptop, a MIPS based machine with WiFi, USB, Ethernet, SDHC, plus a fairly complete Linux install, for $98. No word on when it will be available.

This could be a real kick in the $BODYPART for the laptop industry - many people have said that once thing cross the $99 barrier and become blister-packed on a peg in the store, that the way people approach them will be changed. If HiVision can churn these out in quantity (and I have no reason to believe they cannot), you might even see them in vending machines in airports - leave your laptop at home, get one once through all the TSA BS.

There is simply NO WAY that a Windows machine could hit this price point without subsidies from Microsoft - you couldn't use a cheap non-x86 CPU, you would need more memory and storage, and the performance would still be unacceptably low.

Semi-OT: At work, I've been playing with the Beagleboard - a $150 developer board for the TI OMAP3 processor. 600MHz ARM core with a 500MHz DSP, 256M Flash, 128M RAM, simultaneous and independent S-Video and DVI outputs (DVI up to 2Kx2K), OpenGL acceleration (though, unfortunately, only through a non-Free driver), MPEG acceleration (again, only via a non-Free driver), and other goodness, at 2 watts power consumption. Already well supported by GNU and Linux, so that I won't have to waste my time screwing around just getting the thing to boot, and can spend my time doing the things that Aeroflex needs done.

These sorts of cheap and powerful systems are really changing both the face of consumer computing AND the face of embedded, and I'd like to thank all the people involved with Free Software (starting with RMS and working downward) for their contributions to the greater good of the world

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

The Baron

Wed Sep 03 06:24:28 -0700 2008
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Singularity

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

disco

Wed Sep 03 09:38:32 -0700 2008
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Is this available for purchase? I checked Amazon and Pricegrabber and it's not listed. How do we know it's $98 when it's not yet for sale?

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

wowbagger

Wed Sep 03 10:06:22 -0700 2008
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Watch the video - that is where the manufacturer states that the price for the next gen will be $98, and it will be available in October this year. The currently shipping version is $120.

Now, I am with you - until I can whip out the plastic and pick one up it's all theoretical.

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

chadg

Wed Sep 03 12:20:21 -0700 2008
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Where can I find the currently shipping version of this machine? Does anybody in the U.S sell it? A few minutes of searching finds no retail link.

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

zogger

Wed Sep 03 12:01:13 -0700 2008
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Not watching the video right now, too long on dialup, but any other specs with the thing?

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

wowbagger

Wed Sep 03 12:33:44 -0700 2008
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Not a whole lot yet - I wish the guy who shot the video had done a simple "cat /proc/memory && cat /proc/cpuinfo && xdpyinfo", but the read I got on him was that he wasn't a big Linux user.

I'd say thatthis is probably in the same class computationally as the Nokia N8*0 family, but with a bigger screen and keyboard.

thanks

zogger

Wed Sep 03 14:48:27 -0700 2008
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Thanks, I looked online first, using hivision.com then .cn with google translate, but couldn't locate the device. And there's a slew of shanghai electronics, no idea which is the real parent corporation. Anyway, that's a winner if it works and will be available, what I have been waiting for, that psychological price barrier of a hundred bucks, combined with "good enough" specs and low power requirements. The dam should burst now. The OLPC project might be moribund, but they started the revolution.

The correct URL

GuyFawkes

Thu Sep 04 05:49:28 -0700 2008
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for the companys is http://hvsco.com/cpzs.asp

They mainly do digital photo frames and a variety of small laptops based on the VIA C7-M 1.6 GHZ CPU.

Both the current C7 based laptops (300 bucks a pop) and the new MIPS (100 bucks a pop) are volume wholesale prices.

The MIPS jobbie runs an Alpha 400 V47 custom linux distro, or Windows CE.

The x86 C7 jobbies will of course run winders or x86 linux.

This thing is pink, no mistake there, this will be sold as a toy for first world kids, if it gets broken, no big deal.

-----------------------------------------------

An interesting perspective, only when you ignore copyright and intellectual property do you get a free and cheap laptop + OS.

$98 laptop from China - Industry changer?

sunil

Sat Sep 06 00:49:14 -0700 2008
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i am from kerala, a state in india .iwould like to introduce thislaptop of $100and$ 120 with linux OS . can anybody help me