The next generation of netbooks with more power efficient chipsets should easily double battery life. No question.
Except it won’t. The status quo is 2.5 to 3 hours of battery life, instead they will put lighter batterys in order to reduce the weight and price.
I’m still on the fence regarding the Netbook craze. On one hand, I know getting one would be perfect for what I would need it for - sitting on the couch and browsing the web while playing my Xbox, for example. OTOH, I’ve heard horror stories about things like the MacBook Air not being able to handle more intense applications without severe issues. Especially with the current make everything as flashy as possible phase the Internet is going through, I don’t want to end up with a $300 e-mail machine.
Just my $0.02.
I have a few friends who work at Apple. Originally, the MacBook Air was conceived to be a Tablet PC – a sort of iPhone/Mac combination. However, after a few mock ups, the tablet concept was dropped for that of an ultra-light full service PC. The mock-ups proved to be too big and clumsy to be an iPhone and too hard to use to be a PC.
A few other form factors were tried such as a smaller Netbook sized object, but the keyboard was simply not comfortable and the screen real estate wasn’t judged to be big enough. The project was enlarged with a full sized keyboard and a full sized screen. The final goal was something that could be stuffed in a standard sized messenger bag and it would be so light and thin that you wouldn’t know if it was in there or not.
The closest thing to a Dynabook is the XO (OLPC) laptop. It fills in all the requirements – not only in hardware and costs, but in software and abilities. Too bad it isn’t for sale to the public. I’d gladly pay $300 for that.
I wonder if Atoms are the processor family for the X-terminal of the future, also … I’m using the desktop version of the MSI Wind as such w/several development machines as well as the usual browsing/email/streaming audio things, and it’s more than adequate.
(the power draw is around 30 watts w/a 3.5 HD and 2 gig of RAM, incidentally)
I think the ability for elementary students to easily write working rocket model programs is not yet remotely feasible with current technology, the size of the notebook (or netbook, whatever) not withstanding.
Right now the limiting problem is the software and usability. The fact that we have hardware that could run such software is great, but we are still missing viable software to make the Dynabook ideas a reality.
So. Maybe you should get the stackoverflow legions to fix that problem.
I’d like to know how the Transmeta cpus compare to that. Saving power was one of the main concepts they had back when they started.
Right now i’m not even sure the company is still producing cpus though…
Only notebooks or mininotebooks are not the answer, one worthy mention is the amazon kindle as well.
The status quo is 2.5 to 3 hours of battery life, instead they will put lighter batterys in order to reduce the weight and price.
Yes - the first EeePc (700) lasts around 2.5 to 3 hours (AFAIK using some Pentium Mobile CPU). Then came Atom with its much lower power draw - and the resulting machines lasted around 2.5 to 3 hours. Seeing how Asus silently switched to weaker batteries for the later EeePc700 models already (4400mAh instead of 5200mAh), they were probably glad that the Atom allowed further similar changes without loosing battery life.
I’m not sure the kill-a-watt is that accurate for what you are trying to do. If you are measuring drain from the wallwart, I’m not sure that’s an accurate reflection of the power usage of the system
I would almost say that something like the forthcoming Plastic Logic reader
would/could be closer to the DynaBook than any of the existing netbooks on the market. Current netbooks are still in the notebook form factor, where as some of the newer eReaders are really leveraging Organic User Interface ideas. Interesting post though…especially since I was just at a seminar on Monday where the DynaBook was mentioned as motivation for current research in the OUI field.
toshiba already makes dynabooks
Posting snide comments … makes you look as bad as the trolls.
We trolls get no respect – no respect! pulls at tie
You should totally demand a refund!
Seeing as you are making money from the blog it actually goes the other way. Posting snide comments like that is in no way productive and just makes you look as bad as the trolls.
I thought it was pretty funny. I think I’ve seen Jeff handle trolls and disgruntledites pretty well on his blog. He never gets into wars with them, just happily accepts them and moves on.
It didn’t make Jeff look as bad as the trolls to me. So there. 
Way back when Alan Kay was an Apple Fellow I had a neat little machine called the TRS-80-Model-100. A full scale keyboard plus a 8 by 40 LCD screen. Battery life 30 days. No hard drive or backlighting. It came with scheduling, contacts, an ASCII editor, a terminal emulator, and a version of MS BASIC. It was the BASIC that made it powerful. It became my PDA and my desk top terminal.
You tended to see or hear people using one in airports and conferences. We would share ideas and spare batteries.
At one conference 4 people went to talk to Alan Kay after his key note. We all had a M100 on us somewhere, you could tell that we really wanted was a Dynabook.
cudn’t help comparing it to Amazon Kindle either
You should totally demand a refund!
Seeing as you are making money from the blog it actually goes the other way. Posting snide comments like that is in no way productive and just makes you look as bad as the trolls.
The closest thing to a Dynabook is the XO (OLPC) laptop. It fills in all the requirements – not only in hardware and costs, but in software and abilities. Too bad it isn’t for sale to the public. I’d gladly pay $300 for that.
You will be able to buy one from nov. 17th (if you donate one to a child as well).
I always thought the screen was the biggest power consumer of a laptop computer, with Wi-Fi as close second.
Also, I do not share your opinion. If you look at the dynabook design it’s really nice: you have a nice big screen, and good full keyboard below it. However with those stupid Netbooks, they tried to make them look like modern laptop computers but scaled everything down. The result is a keyboard on which you can not type normally.
they tried to make them look like modern laptop computers but scaled everything down. The result is a keyboard on which you can not type normally.
Unless you are Apple you can’t runaway from industry standards.