TechCrunch started a big buzz with their call for a $200 web tablet that they started as a real project to get built. Things quickly got awfully quiet for a while and speculation grew that it was just another hopeful idea that wouldn’t see the light of day. Today Michael Arrington laid that speculation to rest with an update and photo of the first prototype of the as-yet unnamed tablet (I suggest the Cloud). He is still insistent that it can be built (or sold) for $200 and there are a few more details describing where this tablet is headed. They are looking at a 10 – 12 inch screen (prototype has a 12) and no OS at all. They are shooting for the tablet to only run a browser making it a true cloud computer and thus my suggested name. They rightly are planning for a minimum horizontal resolution of 1024 but hopefully they can use a higher resolution for such a large screen. With a browser only device it sure better be uber-thin and extremely light which I think is going to be very important for a web-only tablet. I hope they plan to make the screen rotate to portrait orientation as my experience with handheld computers this large finds that to be the most comfortable way to use one.
Thanks to Dave Zatz for the tip.
If they can keep the price down and come up with an effective way to “type”, a 10-12″ screen is much more readable than say the screen of a Nokia N800/N810. I assume no OS means Linux ;) we need something to produce and manage the WiFi driver for example.
I’d buy this… For $200 – fantastic pricing.
Hopefully such a device would introduce lots more people to how remarkable tablet based computing can be.
I wonder what internal specs it will have. Don’t care so much about processor – but i’m interested in space and sockets. SD + USB and something to run an external display would be nice.
I’m pretty excited about this :)
Yeah, this “no OS” feature is really misleading. Is the browser directly writing the pixels into the memory buffer of the graphics chip? Is it writing any information it needs to store (think cookies, cached pages, browser extensions) directly as bits into the flash memory, without the help of a file system? Is the browser going to implement memory management?
I guess what they mean is that they don’t expose the operating system to the user through CLIs, file browsers, … And they are presumably minimizing the operating system for fast loading, cost, and reliability purposes.
Wouldn’t this thing be obsolete since the $200 Ipod Touch is purportedly coming soon? I mean the iPhone/iPod Touch is more portable yet not all that compromising and it can do a lot more than web browsing.
I think a better idea would be to make a linux slate for $3-400. It could run on an atom processor and do a lot more than web browsing.
Well we’ve got a device called the Wind, might as well have one called the Cloud.
The terminal as a low cost solution is alive and well.
The Redfly is dropping it’s price (and will likely continue to do so until it finds a sweet spot or folds) and now this.
Carry and marry this device to any server of any platform via WiFi/Bluetooth/USB and you’re all set.
For everyone who wants to power these types of devices up, a very real price point exists that is coupled with processing components.
Continuing to unrealistically call for more processing at the cost of a terminal reminds me that many totally discount touch cost.
Even if the entire process is totally automated, at some point, the people who touch the device should make a reasonable return.
What would that return be for you? Now put that onto the people doing the touching.
What does that cost look like?
Would you touch the device for what the people currently doing so are doing it for?