[Arm-netbook] 15in EOMA-68 laptop

[darton 9d]

> yes, really.  under 1kg.  a 15in laptop.  with floor space around
> 14in x 12 in and with an interchangeable upgradeable CPU Card
> making it future-proof.  and being able to take a 1920x1080 LCD.
>
> i'm kinda confused.  why isn't any other manufacturer doing this??
what are we missing??

I guess the main reason for manufacturers not looking at ARM-based laptops
is that they care about profit above all else, and the profitability of an
ARM-based laptop project is questionable. Remember, one has to spend quite
a lot on engineering to get the thing up and running, and the product
absolutely must be well-selling in order to get real benefits from
mass-production.

The bad part is that the product may not sell that well. First, it has to
compete with the existing ARM tablets. Second, it has to compete with the
low-cost low-powered segment of the traditional Intel/AMD-based laptops.
Last but not least, there's no OS that is ready to install *and* is widely
known and accepted by end-users.

Personally, I'd be happy to have a 1kg ARM *laptop* (not tablet, not
netbook) that runs Linux for several hours, allowing myself to comfortably
work with documents and maybe hack some code (provided the machine has
enough RAM to hold the environment). Unfortunately, most users either don't
need a physical keyboard (-->tablet) or cannot get rid of the curse of the
one and only proprietary office suite (-->traditional laptops). Thus, the
potential audience of an ARM laptop project is more or less limited to
geeks willing to spend time porting FOSS tools to ARM.

Oh, and making low-cost durable future-proof products may be *bad* for a
profit-oriented company.

Just my two cents.

Sincerely,
Mikhail

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 3:46 PM, luke.leighton <luke.leighton at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross
> <maillist_arm-netbook at aross.me> wrote:
> > On 28/04/13 04:03, Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross wrote:
> >> On 28/04/13 02:55, luke.leighton wrote:
> >>> with 3 batteries only 3.7mm thick.  taking up a hell of
> >>> a lot of space, mind, but hell it's empty space anyway, might as well
> >>> fill it with something.
> >>    Don't one might also want space to put ones own extras in.
> > Opps = don't = won't
>
>  :)
>
>  ok.  i've been investigating these at work, they're awesome:
>     http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006WHMKEE/
>
>  i think, to be honest, extra batteries can be external, such as
> these.   i really don't want to push the thickness beyond 6mm for the
> base, nor put in extra weight, because if you've looked at the specs
> here they're actually f*****g awesome.
>
>  a) i see no reason (other than bigger batteries) why this 15in laptop
> needs to be more than 12mm thick
>  b) i see no reason why (thanks to benson's idea) it should be more
> than 1kg in weight.
>
> yes, really.  under 1kg.  a 15in laptop.  with floor space around 14in
> x 12 in and with an interchangeable upgradeable CPU Card making it
> future-proof.  and being able to take a 1920x1080 LCD.
>
> i'm kinda confused.  why isn't any other manufacturer doing this??
> what are we missing??
>
> l.
>
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