Comments on: What are the advantages of an Android netbook?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:47:36 +0000

I am presently waiting on buying a netbook until Android comes out on one… I have the G1 and it is much better than any Windows Mobile device that I have used. Couple that with the ability to have portability, good battery life AND google docs-and you have an awesome set up.

An Android based netbook can’t come soon enough for me-so long as it has all the capabilities of the mid range HPs (10 inch screen, flash memory, webcam and such. I will buy one the day it comes out, provided that it has these features.

By: Gary Edwards

Gary Edwards — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:55:24 +0000

Great comments with plenty to consider. Although i fully agree with those who point to the volumes of content tied to the Microsoft Office/Windows desktop environment, and the difficulty of accessing, working of otherwise transitioning outside that environment, i believe Android will succeed. And do so spectacularly.

The reason is twofold: Google and WebKit.

My vision of an Android netbook is not that of a small notebook. What i see is a larger, more powerful iPhone optimized to run Google Web applications and services.

The importance of WebKit is that it’s far more than a mobile-desktop Web browser. The WebKit layout engine includes a highly interactive and visual document and application model. The WebKit community includes: Apple (iphone, Safari); Google (Android, Chrome, webkit/Chromium, Google Apps and Services); Palm (Pre, WebOS), Nokia (S60, QT IDE), Sun (JavaFX), Adobe (AiR-Flex), and KDE (KOffice). As Opera and Mozilla Firefox move to pass the ACiD-3 test, they in effect become WebKit compatible. There are volumes of Ajax applications similarly seeking to take advantage of ACiD-3 / WebKit compatible browsers.

When cornerstone Web services providers like FaceBook, Google, and Yahoo provisions their sites to become iPhone ready, they also become ACiD-3 / WebKit compatible.

Apple did an incredible thing when they started putting transforms and animations into the WebKit document model (HTML5-CSS4-SVG/Canvas, JS, JS Libs). Normally a device/OS vendor would provide this layer as a platform specific API. Because Apple choose to open up the visually interactive interface using the WebKit document model, the open source Google Android is in excellent position to run the Open Web table.

I didn’t always think this way. Like so many others, i understand full well the difficulty of cracking open the lock Microsoft has on desktop productivity. Because of that lock, i thought Microsoft would own the transition to a Microsoft WebStack-Cloud-RiA model. Microsoft Office 11 will, i think, successfully re-purpose the venerable desktop productivity environment as a rich client integrated into the Microsoft rich Web Servers – Cloud.

That said, when Microsoft showed up empty handed at the recent Barcelona World Mobility Conference, i couldn’t help but think they have finally screwed the pooch. Big time. If it was just the iPhone that Microsoft had to catch up with, that alone would be difficult. But this is more than a battle against one company, or even a group of companies each competing to take it all with their own platform. WebKit is a community of vendors, developers and Web service providers. It’s the Open Web platform on steroids; owned by none – used by all.

A winning combination if the surging smartphone marketshare at the edge of the Web comes to dominate and direct what happens across the greater Web. Microsoft’s proprietary .NET-WPF platform is in for a fight, and i think the Google combination of Web services, applications, Android and webkit/Chromium will be a force to be reckoned with.

~ge~

By: Erik Martino Hansen

Erik Martino Hansen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:56:28 +0000

The problem with Google android is that it is a locked down architecture and so far has been carrier branded. It remains to be seen if Google is willing to drop this.

We see the limitation of the Iphone app store already, Apple is slow to approve apps and developers are not happy. The idea of an app store is good. The tight control is not.

If Google is willing to correct these mistakes, I see a bright future for android.

By: mrwed

mrwed — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:19:10 +0000

I’d like to see Android in a device like the HTC Shift. I imagine something with one of the new, more powerful ARM processors (Cortex A-8 or A-9), a Nano CPU and the Ion chipset–with HDMI out, of course! I hope HTC won’t give up on the Shift after one version: I’d love having the option of instant-on or regular Windows, and processors have improved enough to make such a device much more usable than the original Shift, which seems to have been underpowered. And hopefully the Android OS wouldn’t be crippled like the Shift’s Windows Mobile was.

By: Gordon Cahill

Gordon Cahill — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:37:19 +0000

There’s just no way I’d consider a 11 or 12″ screen a netbook. At that size they’re just crap notebooks.

It wont be long until all the 7″, 8.9″ and 10″ screens are gone in favour of larger Atom powered laptops and we’ll be right back where we started.

Gordon

By: Patrick Moorhead

Patrick Moorhead — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:40:41 +0000

Have had the TMobile G1 with Android since October.

Device aside, here is what I would like to see for Android apps on a “larger than smartphone” device:
* Optimize a few core apps, which aren’t very good today on the G1 like Facebook (unless web perf is great),a reliable video player.
* Adapt a few core apps that don’t exist on the G1 like Tweetdeck, Twhirl, OpenOffice, UpnP to stream content from home network.
* Add some “iphone-like” capabilities that make it great. “Time-to-internet” is amazing on the iphone/touch. 3 seconds from wake to internet. Amazing.
* Support more than just a few video CODECS. If just support a few at a few wimpy bit rates, it will just frustrate users and it will look very limiting.

My 2 cents. My G1 review here: http://budurl.com/87br

By: DaveInCT

DaveInCT — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:58:13 +0000

Seems like a true netbook won’t have broader appeal until it has ‘always-on’ internet connectivity. I have an XP netbook because I often have to use my apps offline. If I had dependable and reasonably priced access to gmail, google docs, evernote, delicious, etc, I’d be thrilled to see it take advantage of Android. A $200 appliance that always had access to my ‘stuff’ in the cloud would, I think, outweigh the OS familiarity issue. Remember that I’d be using the same apps on all my machines – but also with the same data!

While I’m at it, is it too much to ask for the ability to make a cellular call from my netbook using just a bluetooth headset? I think IP-tel is another hump for regular-folk-users to get over.

By: HereAndNow

HereAndNow — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:00:53 +0000

Perhaps a “netbook” running Android could be called a “smartbook”, since it is really a “smartphone” with a netbook style keyboard & display.

In reality, the current generation of “netbooks” are small, low power, low cost “notebooks”, especially if they are running a full desktop OS. Other than supporting 3G, which notebooks can also, they don’t live up to the “net” in the name. Android, which is almost completely “net”-oriented, does.

I’m sure the terminology will evolve as the new device categories mature.

Re. Windows 7 on a smartphone, I really doubt that will happen. It is big, expensive, not designed for small touchscreens, doesn’t currently support ARM, etc. It would be like trying to put an elephant in a shoebox.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:54:23 +0000

Oh, and also, considering you can’t get Abiword, OpenOffice, Gnumeric, or anything like that on Android then you’re limiting yourself even more.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that many people with netbooks have limited needs, but I think word processing, spreadsheets, and Powerpoint are in general one of those needs.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:52:03 +0000

But my point is that anything not Windows or Mac is going to be a dead-end for the average user. Like I said, we all know that there’s tons of applications available to do anything you’d need to, but most people don’t know and don’t care to learn.