By If you’re not only a frequent Phandroid reader but also regularly peruse the comments then you may be familiar with the name Charbax. Not only does he drop knowledge on Phandroid articles but this past week he attended CES and caught some great Android related footage on his blog – ArmDevices.net.
A quick note – Charbax seems MUCH more bullish on Android netbooks/laptops/MIDs than I do at this point. I think the concept is great, but I saw a lot of half-baked solutions at CES in that regard. Take for example the Marvell Tablet and MSI Netbook I showed you on video. In any case, it’s good to see the enthusiasm he has for Android.
First comes Android laptops from Hi-Vision which Charbax guesses could cost around $149:
The event had its fair share of Android smartphones like the LG GT540, Lenovo LePhone, Motorola XT800 and Motorola MT710 seen in order below:
And now lets jump back to Android Tablets. This one is powered by the Marvell Armada 610 processor:
And here is an Android laptop built by Quanta:
This is where I think the commentary is a bit overboard. Charbax seems to think that because ThinkFree allows you to edit Microsoft Office documents like PowerPoint, Word and Excel that you don’t really even have a purpose in a Windows device. But as you can see by the video, the user experience is FAR from complete and incredibly simplified. Anyone buying a device like this with the idea they’ll be doing full blown document editing will be sadly mistaken. At least right now.
A much more complete solution will have to be developed before I agree but in terms of editing documents directly from your mobile phone? Sure… ThinkFree does a great job with that. Here is ThinkFree running on the Acer A1:
The one implementation I DO like thus far? By HP…
Great job on the Android coverage buddy!
I’m interested in that snap dragon laptop man…its shweeet! thanks for the coverage.
I do like that HP netbook..
The HP Android laptop is beautiful, Quanta’s too. I have the Hivision 7″ Android Laptop right here and am testing it at the Las Vegas airport, it’s really fast at browsing the web which I think is amazing considering the processor is only ARM9 type. Imagine how much better 8.9″ screen with ARM Cortex processors can be.
Sure, Google and others need to customize the Android user interfaces for Laptop and Tablet use with high resolution screens. I think that is being taken care of with Android 2.1 and the next few Android versions. Also, I think a full Google Chrome browser in Android would be nicest for Laptop and large screen Tablet use.
Notice how Motorola MT710 and XT800 and Lenovo LePhone are just about similar in specs to Nexus One, with one difference in terms of price, all may be sold below $300 but in China only for now. I think Nexus One sounds great, but $530 unlocked is ridiculously expensive considering that those phones cost $150 to manufactue. With more competition, I would like to see a phone like Nexus One below $200 unlocked sooner rather than later.
That SNAPDRAGON HP NETBOOK at the end is really NICE LOOKING!!! I’d buy one!!!
I really like the look of the HP Netbook, time to start saving….
curious what the price would be for the netbook. Also was there a webcam on it?
I’ll take the Snapdragon processor on an HP Slate with Android Thank You!
Good job Charbax keep up the good work :)
That hp android netbook is going to be expensive for the sole reason of it being touchscreen
Wonder if the HP Android Netbook browser will support Flash?
I love the infectious bass groove in all the videos.
The HP laptop is definitely the best use of Android here. I would love to see it as a Slate. The rest of the laptops looked pretty lame.
The Motorola XT800 has really impressive specs. Dual SIM card (CDMA/GSM). Fast processor.
$150 android laptop tethered to my droid would be amazing!