TechCrunch Tablet - CrunchPad
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
For a little over the last two months, TechCrunch has been slowing releasing details of their prototype for a tablet and while the initially visuals looked great, it remained to be seen if they could actually make it. Already there's photos leaked and now posted by TechCrunch of the newest release and it looks amazing (shown above).
Through their videos they released more specifications and it sounds to me like they have the hardware to support a great product. A bit later they added the updated prototype images.
It's a 12" screen with an Intel Atom processor and from the earlier prototype, 4GB of flash memory for its storage. It remains to be seen how much of that space is taken up by the operating system (Ubuntu Linux), browser (Firefox) and what else it may have on board. Hopefully it'll become equipped for adding more flash memory (SD/SDHC) which could be used for the device doubling as a multimedia platform (music and videos).
In addition, it has a camera which can be seen in the initial picture on the right side as well as a accelerometer to switch views from landscape to vertical viewing. If you hadn't noticed, there's no keyboard and in the demo, shows the virtual keyboard that it uses.
Off the bat, the immediate concern is if that 12" LCD touch screen can last a reasonable amount of time on battery life especially in something that thin. The Asus Eee's 10" inch screen lasts 9.5 hours so it's possible, but that computer isn't even close to being that thin with the monitor included. In the initial demo, it said it had been running for a few hours, but hadn't been tested to its limit.
The pad ran smoothly Hulu and YouTube streams so it looks like those components are in place and done well. It is purely running off of a wi-fi card which is nice and all, but keeping in mind the Amazon Kindle has a Sprint network card which allows it to have much better connectivity than having to find a free open hotspot when on the go. That feature could be a Kindle killer if it ends up being in there.
Lastly comes the price point. TechCrunch initially stated that they wanted to get the price to $200, but would most likely end up being priced closer to $300. Comparing that to what is currently on the market with the Kindle priced at $300 (6" black and white display) and the current netbooks that are out there, the most popular being the Asus Eee at between $300 and $400 (10" display).
Now there's more to compare than just the display size especially when there are other features each one has that the others don't.
Asus Eee addition features: 160GB HD, bluetooth, full keyboard
Amazon Kindle: Sprint card with free internet access to Wikipedia, electric paper display
So depending on your style, it can vary what you want, but overall (so far) the size and portability of the CrunchPad seems very favorable over those two. I'm a big fan of Amazon's network card in the Kindle and that could very well be a factor for me to buy the CrunchPad.
With the rumors of Apple getting into the netbook market (and already having the iPhone tap a bit of that market) and how Asus Eee's selling very well, it's definitely a clear sign that the computer market is moving to the netbook arena and look out to see more of these pop up.
Here's the images of the latest prototype.
Personally, I'm really looking forward to seeing the CrunchPad in action and if the price does stay under $300, I'm all ears.
Labels: asus, crunch, crunchpad, free crunchpad, ipod, kindle, tablet, tech, techcrunch
posted by Anthony @ 8:55 PM,
0 Comments:
Post a Comment