Mobinnova Debuts NVIDIA Tegra-based Elan Netbook
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I keep toying with the idea of buying a netbook, especially when I see things like Moblin‘s swanky user interface. But a “real” notebook computer can do so much more, which is one of the reasons (the other being Moblin seems to be nowhere near ready for primetime) that I’ve put it off.
So things like Mobinnova’s new Elan netbook are exciting, because they’re one more nail in the coffin of me (and plenty of other people) not buying into the netbook craze.
Based on NVIDIA’s “computer on a chip” Tegra platform, the Elan will let you watch 5-10 hours of HD (720p) video on a single charge, or 24 days of audio on a single charge (so long as you don’t turn on the display). It also boasts instant-on, hardware-accelerated Flash playback (including Flash HD video) and low enough power consumption that it requires no fan to run, making it pretty much silent. Except for you yelling at the screen while watching movies.
The 8.9″ netbook, which weighs less than 2 lbs. and will feature a custom “3D” Linux OS, doesn’t have a price or release date set yet.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:42 am
Over the past few weeks, i’ve been researching netbooks. I bought my wife an HP mini a few months ago because i highjacked her macbook to play WoW and now i’m intrigued by the wonderful portability of them and what they have to offer. And at the prices right now, they’re a steal.
Ultimately, i’d love to find one that allows me to play some games on them as i tend to get motion sick these days playing shooters on any decently sized screen. But they’re really not made for that. And anything that is, tends to be larger in size and price.
Mobinova’s specs are pretty generic right now, so it’s hard to tell if it’d be worthwhile. How large is the keyboard? 5-10 hours of video playback usually equates to less time on any netbook. 8.9 inch screen is somewhat small compared to the 10.1, 10.2 standards these days. How many megapixels is the camera? Ability to “view” MS docs – does that mean they’ve put Open Office on it or some generic word processing package on it? What about ports or card readers and no HDD size?
Lots of unanswered questions there.
So far, the winner in my book is the Asus eee PC 1000HE. Lifehacker agrees, but i haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
And speaking of highjacking, I’ll leave this thread now. 😉
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 am
Haha, no problem.
See for me, the appeal of a netbook is the small form factor, so long as the keyboard is usable. Asus’ Seashell line seems to be pretty cool when it comes to that. And this one from Mobinnova looks nice, at least on paper.
I don’t want to be able to play games on it, though, so my needs are different from yours. What I’m really looking for is small form factor + realistic usability, good battery life, and probably 3G access, too.
My primary use for it will be to access e-mail and the web when I’m on the road so that I can manage some remotely-accessible services for my business (checking on servers, e-mail stuff, etc.).
I sent Mobinnova some questions yesterday so we’ll see about some of these things if / when they get back to me.
Which Mini did you get for your wife? The 1000 series are pretty tempting.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
I got her the 1000. It’s a great little notebook, but the battery life is pretty poor. Hard use only gets it 3-4 hours.
The other thing i’ve considered is that in the liklihood that gaming won’t be an option, there’s really no reason why I’d have to stick with XP and am considering on with Linux instead. I’ve not really played with console since the OS2 days and my wife is a linux coder and is constantly hounding me to learn it. Most linux packages have gotten pretty user friendly with “windows” looking interfaces/guis, so it might be a reason to try. Heck, if i had my way, i’d figure out how to get it to dual boot with Win 7 and Linux.
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I’ll bet you could find some good resources online to dual-boot a netbook between the two. This guy talks about dual booting XP and Ubuntu on a Mini 1000.
I know HP has their own version of Linux that you can get with the Mini 1000, but my understanding is that if you use the installer it wipes out the HD. Maybe you could install that first, then install XP into a dual-boot (if you wanted HP’s version of it).