‘Always-on’ is going to be a seriously important weapon in the fight for the netbook market for ARM-based ‘smart’ devices. I’m 100% sure that the first manufacturer that brings this seamless experience to customers in a fast, well-designed, well-priced device will cause waves in the netbook market. Customers that switch to the ‘always-on’ model aren’t going to go back to anything less.
Not only is always-on going to allow mail and social network polling and instant-use scenarios, it’s also going to enable a whole new range of applications. From a simple alarm clock to video and voice calling, these applications just won’t be possible on Intel-based netbooks with the current platform.
I spent a long time with the Airlife 100 today. It’s a 100% ARM (Snapdragon 1Ghz) ‘smart’ device being offered by Telefonica in Spain. Pricing and availability is not known at the moment but we’re estimating that this one will be free on a 24-month contract.
The 10-minute video below shows the user interface, applications and a look round the design of the device.
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It’s interesting … but resistive screen in an upright form that won’t swing around to be a tablet? And also therefore the screen will not go to portrait? It’d be interesting if it came out here in the US for $399.00 w/o a contract and, like the iPad, I could do Pay As You Go for monthly 3G. Anything other than that would be a FAIL for me personally. And, I still want to see the rumored Archos 7 because that can’t do DiVX/XViD AVI. No crap conversions to MP4/3GP.
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Mike Cane Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 02:53
Whoops. Typo snuck in there. “can’t” = CAN do AVI for the Archos 7.
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Looks really nice. Does it have apps for voice and video chat?
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Very nice! But without the Google Experience apps and Market would be a major Con from my point of view..
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