It was bound to happen. I’m actually suprised it took this long to get Android on an X86 PC as it was always said in the early days that Android would be processor agnostic.
The question now is, can the developers get a productivity suite up and running in a short timeframe? Online apps are good but there’s still a big need for offline apps. If it can be achieved then why not a thin, 1.5lb, 10-hour Android-based netbook at $299? In order for ARM to make netbook sales progress in the Western World I really think they will need a big brand and a big dev community and application channel. Android is well positioned.
Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010 » VentureBeat.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
smartphones and netbooks OS will never converge. besides maybe for a very small fanboy market. keep dreaming
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Definate agree, android has tons of potential. Android is well built for mobile use and personal optimization. With android prices will definately get lower and plus it could allow for an android mesh between your mobile computer, smartphone, in car gps unit and w/e else possible to sync with android. android netbooks could become the new mobile personal computers of tommarow.
Vyas Chady Reply:
June 21st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I would really like Android to come up with a Tablet/ Netbook/ Mobile OS that does not require too much processing power. At the moment Vista is already too much on my Kohjinsha SH8, atom 800mhz, 2gb ram. I reslly wanted to upgrade to win 7, but not sure if it will support. So, i’m thinking since netbook and mobile are not like Full PC’s we also need to see versions of either window 7, Android or even ubuntu for Netbook that’s much lighter.
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:36 am
lol ;P u never know.. actually you should google “android clould” and “android mesh”.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
ARM don’t make X86 CPU’s. What do you mean?
bob vansteel Reply:
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:51 pm
the whole point is to make efficient cheap netbooks that run on ARM processors instead of X86 cpu’s.
I for one think a snapdragon+android combo would make for an awesome MID.(now lets see if we get a Mozilla Fenec port for android, then we’re set)
John Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 9:49 am
There’s already an ARM based MID that can run Android:
The Nokia N810
January 4th, 2009 at 1:06 am
As I pointed out on the iPod Plus thread, I have some problems with Android right now. I’ve been replying to this idea (Android Netbooks) in other places, as it seems everyone is talking about it today
There are certain things I have to “not do” on Android right now, that cause me to switch over to my desktop or my Samsung Q1 Ultra. These are all things I find annoying when I can’t do them on my phone, but that I would find to be absolutely necessary on a netbook (or desktop). These are:
1) Google Reader – add/edit tags for an article, add subscriptions, change subscription settings. Also, there are some “UI shortcomings” on the Android version: lack of shortcuts, lack of “total article count” at the top of the article list.
2) Gmail – add/edit filters and labels, “filter messages like this”, “send as” one of my other registered email addresses.
3) Google Docs – last I checked, Android doesn’t support full read/write of Google Docs. I’m also not sure if it will fully display PDFs, Word, and Excel documents. What I would want is all of that, plus some ability to sync the various Android notes and tasks/to-do lists into some level of Google App (there’s a new tasks/todo feature in Gmail or Google Calendar, so that’s one option, and then just adding plain text and rich text support to Google Docs would probably handle the rest, along with a sync utility for the Android notepad and todo apps).
4) I haven’t been able to get VNC Viewer and SSH (connectbot) to work together. This would be a “novelty” on my phone, but a necessity on a netbook or tablet. Further, on a netbook, I’m going to want to export my display some how (manipulate the netbook from my desktop) — I do this on my Samsung, for example. But I mainly run the VNC server on my samsung because the software for mirroring the display out to the external VGA port is kind of broken (as I’ve mentioned elsewhere).
5) The built-in IM client doesn’t allow you to use non-Google Jabber accounts, nor IRC. I would want both of those handled. And I’m not sure the UI is ideal for managing multiple conversations. Further, I would want to be able to log conversations to plain text files on an SD card or something.
6) SyncML client for Calendar data. Funambol gives you SyncML client for contacts, but that doesn’t help me with my work calendar server
If those things got handled, I’d be interested in an Android netbook. And that’s not a huge/insurmountable list.
Ideally, if they were to put it on a convertible/tablet netbook (like the Fujitsu U820), 7″-8.9″ screen (has to fit in my Maxpedition Colossus gear bag), at least an 800×480 resolution, at least one SDHC card slot, at least 1 USB Host port (external keyboard/mouse, hopefully OTG support), with an supported internal 3G option (such as a usable PCI-Express Mini card slot, with available antenna), and obviously wifi, I’d buy it. Bonus if it can charge and share its data via a USB client port.