[Arm-netbook] 12in laptop story

[Mark Constable]

On 01/02/11, Forum Blogarm.net wrote:
> Did you heard about Nufront ? They seems to work on ARM based
> notebook and use their own ARM Chip. As this society seems
> young and open, it may be easier to work with them.
> 
> http://armdevices.net/2011/01/07/nufront-arm-powered-laptops/

Can't get to nufrontsoft.com atm, I presume that is their main
website. No DNS record although there were some google hits. I
suspect it'll be a boutique product, and expensive, and unless
they show some kind of willingness towards open source then there
is not much point aside from watching what they produce.

On 2011-01-31 luke.leighton at gmail.com wrote:
> oh - one other reason for ruling out "stock" BBxM and pandaboards:
> 512mb RAM, POP.  insanely expensive, difficult to assemble (requires
> plasma tooling) and i don't even wanna think about the cost of a
> 1gb POP RAM chip.

That would explain why Digi-Key were not interested in re-tooling
for a 1Gb ram model Beagleboard when I inquired a couple of years
ago.

***

This is somewhat off-topic but I'll throw it out anyway. Whatever
the guts of this "notbook" becomes, consider also wrapping the
mobo and connectors in a simple case without the LCD and keyboard.
I think the idea of including the power supply within a Plug-like
computer is really dumb because of extra heat and non-easy-replacable
power supply. A plain slim "shelfbook" like casing, just like the
netbook including battery (builtin UPS), would make for a possible
new class of computer... indeed, a shelfbook!

My point being that the OS and component devel is going to a major
part of this project and once that is sorted out then "simply"
wrapping the guts of this project in a plain case should be fairly
simple. I would love to be able to buy a slim laptop-like device
without the LCD and keyboard, inc battery, for SOHO servers but
I refuse to buy another Plug-like device (inc Pogo) because of
the utter stupidity of an internally included PS.

Besides, I'd like to have a really unique product to sell.

Another gripe about Plugs with internal PS is the extra weight
when shipped. In my country, it cost almost as much to freight a
Beagleboard to me as the cost of the product itself and half the
weight was the power supply. Considering international drop-box
shipping from Hong Kong then freight would be much cheaper to have
the option of allowing the customer to source a 5v external PS in
their own country and significantly reduce the shipping cost.

(think East Timor where shipping can be double the product cost)

--markc