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.

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~

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

In fact why don’t you ask the opposite question? Windows7 for smartphones on platforms such as the future Atom platform is not science fiction anymore. The challenge is running with a small user interface, and I am even willing to bet that Win-Phone is going to be replaced down the road with this idea eventually.

Netbooks don’t eat into ultraportable sales mostly because they’re dirt cheap, not because they’re crippled.

As for Microsoft and screen restrictions, that was to stave off Linux inroads while at the same time trying to curb too many other XP licenses. MS will be begging for Win 7 to be put on anything (hence Starter). Besides, at the $650 price point these things can afford a full license just like a cheap laptop can. There would be zero reason for MS not to want this.

Actually, the DV2 is still too big. It starts at nearly 4 pounds, and “depending on configuration” will exceed that. It’s also somewhat powerful, hence only 3-4 hours battery. Better to call it a smaller (inferior) MacBook than a larger netbook.

But the DV2 brings up another way I can express the point I’m trying to make:

I don’t want a PC maker to take a laptop (any laptop) and think it DOWN. Rather, I want them to take a netbook and think it UP. Still low power, still quite small, still long battery life, just a little bit “roomier”.

Would you call HP’s DV2 a netbook? Most people would say no even though it has a low $700 starting price and it’s small at 12″(They could have easily made it 11″ for arguments sake).

“There are already a number of $650 notebooks available today, you don’t have to wait. ”

But those are just cheap laptops. I’m not talking about one of those.

The machine I described is like today’s netbook, but with an 11″ screen (1280 x 800), full keyboard, and presumably slightly larger trackpad as well. Still no optical drive, still likely an Atom processor, etc. But it would be more expensive due to the much better screen/keyboard. Why would such a machine not be a netbook? It’s certainly not a cheap laptop, which are big, bulky, and heavy.

I’m waiting for someone (and it ought to be ASUS, in my opinion) to re-think the netbook and improve it. Stop all the cookie-cutter stuff everyone else is doing. Take it up a notch, as it were.