[Arm-netbook] ARM summit at Plumbers 2011

[Gordan Bobic]

On 08/30/2011 09:28 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
> <luke.leighton at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 3:29 PM, Mark Constable<markc at renta.net>  wrote:
>
>> so... whilst this may sound strange, i do have to say it: if you'd
>> like to spearhead a project that recommends to people that they buy
>> expensive ARM-based equipment that retails for far more than
>> equivalent x86 hardware, or if you'd like to spearhead a project that
>> recommends to people that they buy low-cost equipment that doesn't
>> actually fulfil their needs, please feel free to do so, but please,
>> with respect, please keep _this_ list free from such recommendations
>> at this critical stage of the project.  we have been over these kinds
>> of products (in both undesirable categories), a number of times
>> already, over the past 18 months since this list was started.
>
>   ok - mark: you may have noticed that i was finding it somewhat
> challenging to ensure that irritation at what you'd written did not
> get transmitted through.  perhaps instead i should be listening to
> you, and, when the factory i'm engaged with manage to create a product
> with a BOM of say $100, i _should_, just like apple and all other
> large corporations, make sure that it retails for $300 and above! :)
>
>   just to make sure that people actually value it properly.
>
> i dunno... what do you think? :)

The problem is that on one extreme you have people who will by any odd 
crap and on the other you have people who will pay any price for 
something with a trendy brand name on it.

Inbetween you have people who will look for a good product for a 
reasonable price. The problem is that the products available are too 
corner-cut to compete with x86 offerings effectively. The only two 
contenders are the Genesi Efika and the Toshiba AC100. Both fail to be a 
better alternative (better being the operative word) on the two points I 
mentioned before - RAM size and screen resolution. IMO this is where the 
gap in the market is at the moment. This is a unique opportunity for 
somebody to compete with a slightly cheaper (undercut the opposition by 
$10, just to get people's attention) yet much better product.

One thing I somewhat disagree with you on is the screen size - I'm not 
sure that 11-12in is a good size. 11" may be OK at a push if you keep 
the laptop the same and get all of that extra 1" out of the bezel. The 
real problem is the screen res, and there are very few screen 
resolutions available between 1280x720 and 1920x1080 nowdays, with the 
former generally being popular on 10" screens and the latter on 15.6in 
screens, and not much inbetween, apart from a handful of 1280x800 and 
1366x768 products that are few and far between.

This is something that Apple are, IMO, doing right with the iPad 3 
(2048x1536 screen). Sure, it's going to be eyewateringly expensive but 
the most important thing is to make a product that people actually want 
because it's good, not a product that people will buy just because it's 
cheap.

Anyway, I'll stop re-iterating this point now. I just felt it needed to 
be stressed after the recent comments on this thread.

Gordan