199USD solid state Laptop

[TimothyC]

Link

Asustek venturing into budget laptops
INTEL CONNECTION: Plans to launch five new low-priced notebook PC models this year would help Asustek move into a new segment and expand its economies of scale
By Jason Tan
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Apr 17, 2007, Page 12

Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the world's largest motherboard maker, is tapping into the market for budget notebook PCs with a slew of products scheduled for launch in the second half of the year.

"Tech giants such as Intel Corp don't want to miss out on the potential of the budget PC segment, and we are working with [Intel] to tap into the market," confirmed an Asustek official, who requested anonymity, in a telephone interview yesterday.

He was responding to a report that came out yesterday in the Chinese-language Commercial Times, which said Asustek would introduce a series of low-priced PCs based on Intel's Classmate PC platform in the second half of the year.

Joining hands with Intel offers Asustek the chance to move into a new segment, while beefing up its economies of scale in computer production, the official said.

Details of these budget laptops, including channels and distribution, still need to be ironed out, but they would not be Asustek's main product line, he added.

According to the Commercial Times report, the five budget laptop models would be priced from US$199 to US$549.

They will employ Intel's Solid State Disk with flash memory from 1 gigabyte to 40 gigabytes, instead of the standard mechanical hard drive, the report said.

The 7-inch panels for the notebook computers will be sourced from AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), it added.

"Although profit margins for these low-end PCs will not be as good as its other notebook computer series, Asustek will immediately benefit from the scale," Daniel Chang (張博淇), an analyst with Macquarie Research Equities, said in a research note yesterday.

Asustek's component costs could also drop as its sourcing expands with the additional volume from these budget laptops, he said.

"Asustek's technology strength will help it penetrate various PC segments ... Its global notebook market share will continue to rise at a fast rate," Chang said.

Asustek will be competing against Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world's biggest notebook computer contract maker, in the budget PC arena.

Quanta is the sole manufacturer of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a project initiated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to distribute computers to children in developing countries.

Using the Linux operating system and low-cost materials, these notebook computers, priced at US$150 a unit, will come onstream later this year.

Quanta has said it aims to deliver more than 10 million OLPCs within the first 12 months.

However, Merrill Lynch cautioned last month that while the OLPC business model might be viable in its initial stage, users would face problems when they need maintenance help, software debugging, updates or help in handling viruses.

This might be not my next PC, but the one after it (not long after it though).

[Covenant]

Awesome--an ultra budget laptop! This is the sort of efficent, utilitarian design I absolutely adore. No frills, all business. Completely guiltless, 100% utilization for your dollar. I'm pretty interested in this, as my workweek would be a lot more productive with a transportable computer. Failing to get a decent tablet like I want, a cheapass 150 dollar laptop sounds like a great way to do it.

What do people think of this? I think it sounds pretty good for those of us who want a full-sized laptop, but don't want to pay for a ton of extras.

[Resinence]

The more expensive model sounds more interesting actually.
40gb of SOLID STATE HD space = no more fucking broken laptop hard drives , plus the whole thing would probably be fucking tough, solid state stuff is hard to break. Really though, just sounds like a scaled up PDA

[Uraniun235]

A 7 inch screen? Eww.

All solid-state sounds pretty cool, and it'll be awesome for certain applications, but at the same time it sounds really spartan.

[RThurmont]

There is nothing "spartan" about solid state. It's a more durable and rugged alternative to HDs. Additionally, solid state memory systems offer interesting opportunities in terms of systems that can be turned on and off without rebooting the OS. Palm PDAs, at present, are like that: the system can be turned on and off at will, and thanks to the non-volatile flash memory, when the system does come back online, everything is as you left it (pretty much). You only have to reset the OS when it crashes (which happens more than I would prefer, but still...)

I don't know how solid state memory compares to HDs in terms of power consumption, but imagine the potential savings if a datacenter full of servers that could be turned on and off according to demand, without anything having to be rebooted.

[Uraniun235]

There is nothing "spartan" about solid state.

Except capacity. That $199 pricetag is only going to come with a 1 GB hard drive. Yeah, I know that solid state offers definite advantages - that's why I also said it was 'cool'. There is admittedly something really neat about a computer which runs totally silently.

I was talking more about the system as a whole, though - 7" screen, 1GB hard drive... at $199, it's definitely going to be very trim compared to more 'conventional' feature-laden laptops.

[RThurmont]

IMO most computers come with far more storage than is actually neccessary for business and productivity use (which is what such a laptop would doubtless be best suited for). What takes up memory on so many modern systems are OS files (think bloated OSes like Vista, and contrast with such ultralight systems as the 50mb DSL Linux distro), graphics, and multimedia files. Graphics can be minimized on a pure business/productivity system, an OS with an acceptable range of features can probably be shoehorned into about 250 mb, and on such a system as this the need for multimedia would probably be dubious, given the pervasiveness of iPods, thus, you have an acceptable system.

[Resinence]

Meh, no reason at all a sub250mb system couldn't have FULL multimedia support (multiple codecs and standards). Not needed for this laptop as it's clearly for students/business use, but it's easily possible.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

IMO most computers come with far more storage than is actually neccessary for business and productivity use (which is what such a laptop would doubtless be best suited for). What takes up memory on so many modern systems are OS files (think bloated OSes like Vista, and contrast with such ultralight systems as the 50mb DSL Linux distro), graphics, and multimedia files. Graphics can be minimized on a pure business/productivity system, an OS with an acceptable range of features can probably be shoehorned into about 250 mb, and on such a system as this the need for multimedia would probably be dubious, given the pervasiveness of iPods, thus, you have an acceptable system.

I think once you install software like Matlab, Mathematica and a host of other things, I think you would run into a fair degree of trouble. Of course one might argue that such software ought to be installed on a desktop system.

[Covenant]

You also gotta remember, it depends on the business. Not everyone needs whatever those programs were, and it would be effective enough at 10 gb of storage for a lot of things. I'm not sure who'll need the 1gig drive, but 150 for the smallest and perhaps 250 for a 10 gig? Sounds good to me!

[Drooling Iguana]

It sounds like someone was actually listening to all the people begging to have the XO released in developed countries at a marked-up price.

And 1GB of storage seems find for a device like this. My Zaurus only had 64MB of storage and even that was enough to cover the basics. This won't be a complete deskto-replacement, but I've already got a desktop for that. A cheap, sturdy machine that I can throw into my backpack and that can handle basic tasks could be very useful.

[Drooling Iguana]

They should put a TV-out port on these things and have some way of getting the screen out of the way so that you can use its keyboard when it's hooked up to a TV. Then it would be perfect.

[Uraniun235]

IMO most computers come with far more storage than is actually neccessary for business and productivity use (which is what such a laptop would doubtless be best suited for). What takes up memory on so many modern systems are OS files (think bloated OSes like Vista, and contrast with such ultralight systems as the 50mb DSL Linux distro), graphics, and multimedia files. Graphics can be minimized on a pure business/productivity system, an OS with an acceptable range of features can probably be shoehorned into about 250 mb, and on such a system as this the need for multimedia would probably be dubious, given the pervasiveness of iPods, thus, you have an acceptable system.

Out of curiosity, what would you consider "spartan", if not a system which was basically only really good for doing office applications?

[Hotfoot]

This looks like something that would work out great for scholastic applications. Just enough computer to do what needs to be done, nothing more.

It would also be a great computer for kids, I think. Again, just enough to do what needs to be done, nothing more. Like those cell phones with just five buttons.