This week however has been an especially difficult one as far as that task goes. Two very major events are going on in fields I'm especially interested in: Computex, and E3. A lot of interesting gadgets and games have been revealed as a result of these two shindigs, but one device that I keep coming back to is this little thing.
I've always been a big fan of netbooks, even when they used to be called "subnotebooks". When I finally got a job last year, the second thing I saved up for after building my new desktop was an Asus EEE PC 1000HE (used to type this blog post). It was my second computer, and my second laptop, after the first one I won from a school auction back in junior high. The thing was ancient, even then, but technically that old laptop was my first computer. My dad and I even attempted to use the internet with it, but the 16MB of RAM and flakey onboard dial-up modem proved problematic. I knew later on that my first modern laptop would have to be a simple affair, to not try to eclispe my main desktop. I needed something ultra portable that I could IM with and browse the web, and if I needed anything performance-demanding, that's why I had the desktop. Netbooks turned out to be the perfect solution.
The 1000HE is an awesome netbook, undoubtedly one of the most popular ones out right now, because it's a good $50 cheaper than its competition, has a great keyboard, and excellent battery life. But I knew it wouldn't be my last netbook, because there were still basic tasks it struggled with, such as complex flash animation and video. If that were not the case, I might not be so interested in keeping up with new netbook releases. That's usually how it goes.
The NVIDIA Tegra netbook (I'm not even going to try to type the particular model's name) I found out about from Engadget intrigues me because it's extremely low power, but has a whole bunch of dedicated acceleration hardware inside that it makes most tasks doable despite the low performance. It can play HD videos (the 1000HE can only do 720p, and that's only on certain players, and still not all the time), it accelerates Flash (at least the video part), and it even has a half-decent 3D component to it. Only question is the Windows CE part. I'm not up on application compatibility for that OS, so I have no idea if I could get AIM or Firefox on there (might have to look that up), but it has an interesting interface (video here), and it's a new alternative to the Linuxes, Moblin, Android, and XP/7 OSes we keep seeing on such devices. I just wish Tegra integrated a more robust and modern ARM CPU, but oh well.
I had made a blog post on IGN pointing out the fact that Intel likes to pretend they can dictate where netbooks are going to go, probably because they feel it's just a smaller laptop. Microsoft is like that too, forcing strict XP restrictions and working with Intel to do the same for the cheapest version of Windows 7, which is so parred down it makes XP look like a breath of fresh air. But they keep underestimating the market. At such an entry level category, the performance and functionality necessary is leaving the market open for all kinds of newcomers, and before Intel (and Microsoft) know it, their antics are going to come back to bite them in the ass. In my original blog post I said this:
A huge storm cloud is brewing over the netbook hardware realm and Intel has chained themselves right underneath it. By this time next year the sameness we see with netbook specifications will all but vanish as at least two other major competitors step into the ring in a big way.And wouldn't you know it? As we've been seeing this week, that's all coming true much sooner than I thought.
EDIT: A new video is out now showing Firefox running on the Windows CE OS, and Flash (not just Flash video) running smooth. So this thing is looking even more sweet by the minute.
