Varadarajan Narayanan has a vision, a x86-based SoC netbook that is affortable, efficient and easy to repair. This innovative netbook is aimed for the develping countries. Though it is still in a very early phase of development it already shows much promise.
Netbook Unboxed
Netbook running Gnome desktop (now runs with more lightweight window managers)
Builtin AC Adapter, Just plugin in the cable
Powered by AA sized batteries
Under the hood: Motherboard SOC
What's inside: CPU Module
SODIMM CPU Connector
I thank Varadarajan for allowing me to share the pictures and content on this blog. Please do get in touch with him if you are interested in working on this netbook project.
I find it great that it's powered with AA Batteries! Just one of those things that shows how easily amused I am.
ReplyDeleteI really like the concept of netbooks though; though they weren't necessarily made to be a primary computer, I think that they really open the Internet for a much larger audience.
I use an MSI Wind with Ubuntu 9.04 netbook as my primary computer. It's just the thing.
ReplyDeleterechargeable batteries might be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteWhy just "Netbook For Developing Countries"?
ReplyDeleteI too would like a mythical 199$ netbook or even those ARM based Chinese ones that we saw a while back for 120$.
I love the ease access and the batteries idea, rechargeable batteries
being probably better.
And please god, enough with the Gnome browncaca look of Ubuntu.
I know 5 people who bought Dell Mini 9 and asked me to make it look 'less craptastic' and 'like a bad Win95 clone'.
Im not gonna push people on E17 which is my desktop of choice but when given the choice of Gnome's Mac centric looks with top/bottom bar, text on top and GTK look and KDE's Windows-like paradigm, KDE wins by a landslide because people like something thats familiar.
Besides on a small screen where there is little vertical space, I prefer the concept of Moblin Clutter where you use the side space for your icons/taskbar/dock.
But in terms of dealing with a Windows centric world we are trying to get to use free software, familiarity is a big plus.