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Wow, Intel smacks what they call "gadgets" a bit - they think the $100 laptop effort is more of a gadget than a "grown up PC...not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power." It will be a fascinating to see what happens in the next couple years. I think it's not just one solution, but many...The $100 laptop seems to be using, or will use an AMD processor, not Intel, I wonder if that's why they're down on it? Link. See our less than $100 version made from an Apple eMate here.
Intel vs the $100 laptop...
Wow, Intel smacks what they call "gadgets" a bit - they think the $100 laptop effort is more of a gadget than a "grown up PC...not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power." It will be a fascinating to see what happens in the next couple years. I think it's not just one solution, but many...The $100 laptop seems to be using, or will use an AMD processor, not Intel, I wonder if that's why they're down on it? Link. See our less than $100 version made from an Apple eMate here.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 9, 2005 08:13 AM
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I posted about this tonight. Basically, I think Barret doesn't really know what consumers anywhere want as evidenced by 1) Intel's flat stock price, 2) The declining average selling price of both PCs and CPUs 3) The fact that the most demanding customers in the mass market have shifted money away from the CPU and to the Video card in their new machines.
As for the $100 Laptop, the specs (500MHz processor, 1Mpixel screen) don't look too different than the PC I was using for e-mail and web browsing a 3 years ago. RAM + Storage appears limited to 1GB, but that is still about 10x the combined RAM+Disk space of the computer I used to get on the net from 93 to about 98.
As it is today, a huge number of computer users in the developed world spend most of their time using "servers in the sky." I'm using one right now to post this. Earlier, I was checking my e-mail using a webmail service. I don't have to use a crank to keep my laptop juiced up, but then I have electicial power thats on most of the time. I'd think the crank would come in very handy in other parts of the world.
I think a 500MHz laptop can easily run a reasonably modern web browser, capable of at least some level of Flash and Ajax. It can run an IM client and a basic educational and productivity applications.
There are plenty of challenges to making a $100 laptop useful in the developing world, wide-area connectivity for example, but they aren't insurmountable
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