Arm Netbook Anyone?


Polossatik

Polossatik

I reject your reality and substitute my own
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10130690...ag=2547-1_3-0-5

"Freescale has been working with Pegatron, a wholly owned Asus subsidiary, to develop a reference design that features the 1GHz ARM Cortex A8-based i.MX51 processor, Canonical's Ubuntu operating system, Adobe's Flash Player software, a new power management chip, and the SGTL5000 ultra low-power audio codec."

freescale-netbook-specifications.jpg


edit: ok.. "netbook" not laptop...
 
Hmmm ... it's been muted before in other posts that we would see Arm Netbooks. This one could be classed as big brother to the Pandora, but alot will depend on the graphics, memory, screen and dare I say overall build quality of the darn thing.

One thing for sure it wont have the Gaming controls of the Pandora, on the other hand it will have a bigger screen and keyboard, but the battery life is less than the Pandora as it will used to power screen.

It will remain to see just how many features the Freescale chip has over the TI Cortex chip - I doubt it will have as many as they are aiming for a $199 price point, alot will be done on main board as opposed to the TI Cortex chip itself, it's intresting none the less ;)

I'll stick with the Pandora, mailnly coz I love it, secondly its smaller, more compact and I can do a shed load of things on it that this netbook will need a community like ours to evolve before it gets going.

PANDORA TILL I DIE!!

=========
gp32_console + :gp2x and Soon in FEB 2009 a :pandora1:

http://gp2xwizandpandora.blogspot.com/
 
ARM laptops would be nice to see, especially if they get below the £200 mark (though it's either than or the Sony Vaio P, personally). I would very much like to see dual-core ARM processors - I'm guessing that because of the very low price of a single core A8 (suppose) then a dual-core would still be competitive in terms of price. Another interesting thing is what Asus showed at CES recently - a Tegra-based second computer within the main laptop (link http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/asus-fe...computer-oh-my/ ).

Btw what does everyone think of the Palm pre? I know it's not a laptop by any means, but it's OMAP-based and in a similar market as the Pandora... :rolleyes:
 
the nice things for me are: flash for the cortex a8 and ubuntu. will hopefully boost the pandora software pool a lot if it is successfull.

edit:typo
 
ARM driven (mini)Laptops indeed sounds interesting. :) It will be even more interesting when comparisons start between the power consumption of x86 compatible Laptops (Intel Atom etc.) and ARM Laptops...:)
 
This looks very tempting :)
I hope there will be some 'killer' netbooks which help to push ARM forward. This reference design could be the first step. Pandora will profit in the long run. It will raise acceptance to go for ARM/Linux instead of x86/Windows and it will attract developers to port their software to ARM :)
 
I would very much like a 15.4" laptop as my main computer. Almost nothing I do requires a x86 cpu and the things that do can be done on servers and consoles.
 
This is exactly what several hardware vendors have been talking about for several months. This is why Canonical is working on an ARM version of Ubuntu for netbooks. The only really intertesting thing mentioned in that article is the fact that Adobe is working to get Flash on the device. If it's running under Ubuntu for ARM, it should run as-is on the Pandora as well.
 
Chip said:
This is exactly what several hardware vendors have been talking about for several months. This is why Canonical is working on an ARM version of Ubuntu for netbooks. The only really intertesting thing mentioned in that article is the fact that Adobe is working to get Flash on the device. If it's running under Ubuntu for ARM, it should run as-is on the Pandora as well.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that caught my eye too.
 
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mali said:
We should find out, which GPU is used.
Click to expand...
Basing on this PDF and fact that USE engine (sometimes incorrectly called 'pipe') is able to store 1 pixel/clock I'd guess that's either:
  • SGX 53x (two dual-issue USE engines) with clock 333MHz (with memory interface 333MHz)
  • SGX 545/555 (four dual-issue USE engines) with clock 166Mhz (with memory interface 166MHz)
I'm betting the latter (are there POP memory modules with 333Mhz ?). B)
 
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If 8h battery life is true and it really comes out in a few months for that price and screen resolution is at least 1024 width, chances are high that I'll buy one as an always on computer for my workshop :) I've never been a big fan of netbooks, but ARM just changed my mind :lol: Its compatibility with Pandora makes it even more tempting :)
 
Actually I think that was a good idea, why waste the space and make the keyboard or touchpad smaller? I don't understand, why those touchpads have two buttons, anyway. An additional left mouseclick isn't necessary IMO
 
mali said:
Actually I think that was a good idea, why waste the space and make the keyboard or touchpad smaller? I don't understand, why those touchpads have two buttons, anyway. An additional left mouseclick isn't necessary IMO
Click to expand...
Both my EEEs have an adequate touchpad for their size despite having the buttons on the bottom, and my EEE 1000HA has a good size keyboard to boot. Buttons on either side just makes things awkward, especially for "middle-clicking" since they only ever have two buttons anyway. Other netbooks have been able to make good touchpads despite the buttons being at the bottom, why can't these guys?

And having the left mouse button in addition to tapping the touchpad is nice for drag-and-drop. I can lift my finger from the pad if I need to drag something further than the pad allows without dropping it halfway to where I want it to go.
 
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Ravnos said:
And having the left mouse button in addition to tapping the touchpad is nice for drag-and-drop. I can lift my finger from the pad if I need to drag something further than the pad allows without dropping it halfway to where I want it to go.
Click to expand...
Fair enough :)
I'm just thinking of an 8,9" ARM Tablet, that would be extremely thin and great for surfing...
I don't know if it was mentioned here already, ARM thinks about hybrid devices with x86 plus ARM. The x86 part will be switched off for light tasks like surfing to conserve battery life and turned on if more horsepower is needed.
 
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