RE:"I suspect a 10" with older LCD tech and a 400 Mhz CPU could be made to sell under $1K, however marketing depts want to keep the average price up and so they kill those.
What is needed is for a low end 'Petzaroonie' to define the market and the others will fall into line. The consumer market and the stoont market and not the corporate market is where this will be."
I've been complaining about no value in notebooks for years.
I went to a computer show last weekend and found what I've been looking for for years and even threatened to build.
The product is called "book PC" build around a micro ATX motherboard. Basically its a very small footprint PC designed as a television set top box. It uses mainly full size parts but is small enough to be carried around.
Get this...it features a Celeron 500, 32 meg ram (2 Dimm slots) expandable to 512. 8.4Gig HD, sound ob, video ob, ethernet, 56k modem, 2 USB ports, ethernet port, 1 serial, one parallel, monitor out, 1 video out TV, 1 SVideo out for TV, 52X cdrom drive, 1.44 floppy, 4 speaker-outs. windows 98 etc...
Wireless keyboard, speakers...
Very upgradable.
The whole banana in a very small package for $479.
I'll buy this instead of a notebook any day and plug it into the TV at the Hotel. Then I'll use in in front of the TV at home.
Notebooks are akin to flushing money down the toilet, IMHO...
Jim |
