Back in early November of last year, I predicted that Android would be running on Netbooks before Windows 7. Last month, it came out that Asus had Android running on one of their netbooks in a lab.
Now ComputerWorld is reporting that Guangzhou Skytone Transmission Technologies Co. Ltd, based in Communist China, will have their Alpha 680 netbook, running Android, for sale in Q309. They already have prototypes out in the wild. Here are the known specs so far.
They weigh about 1.5 pounds and measure 8.5 inches long, 6 inches wide and 1.2 inches thick. A 7-inch LCD screen at 800 x 480 pixels, 128 MB of DDR2 RAM (expandable to 256 MB, a 1 GB solid-state disk drive (expandable to 4 GB). The netbook will have a SD card reader aand two USB ports. It will also have built-in Wi-Fi, keyboard and touchpad. No mention of an Ethernet jack. Bareboned, but that will put the retail price at about $250, or less than the retail price of your average smartphone. Battery life is still an issue, with the prototypes running 2-4 hours with the WiFi active.
This is just the first shot against Windows7 bow in the Netbook market. I expect more models, more features, better battery life, and sub $250 prices in 2010.
Filed under: Android, Google, netbook, Operating Systems, tech rumors | Tagged: Android, Google, netbook | Leave a comment »
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