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‘$98’ laptop: World’s cheapest? And what are the catches?
August 14, 2009 | 6:56 am
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By David Rothman
“The Lanyu eBook LY-EB01 is more like a mobile internet device featuring a 7-inch 800×480 LCD display, WiFi, Ethernet, QWERTY keyboard, trackpad, and a SD/MMC card slot. It runs WinCE 5.0 OS. As tested by shanzhaiben, the LY-EB01 is capable of 720p RMVB playback. The cheapest ‘laptop’ measures 213.5mm×141.8mm×30.8mm and weighs just 0.6kg.” – iTech News Net (via Cieginator).
Other info: Also see Cloned in China, apparently the originator of the item, and Engadget and (if you read Chinese) the related Lanyu roduct page. TeleRead covered similar cheap Chinese laptop/netbooks from HiVision about a year ago.
The TeleRead take: Did you notice that—WinCE 5.0. Another part of the Microsoft assault on Linux? Wonder what e-readers would work with it. Beyond the limits of CE and the low power, I wonder what the other catches might be, given the supposed price of just $98—666 Chinese Yung.
Technorati Tags: Lanyu eBook LY-EB01,Lanyu
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Comments:
Windows CE has been around for more than a dozen years; this “new” computer has the same OS that ran the HP Jornada and the Cassiopeia. It was MS’s PalmOS alternative from before Linux was an embedded-device threat. But it wasn’t easily adapted to phone use, and was generally replaced by what is now Windows Mobile. To me this is the equivalent of a PC maker coming out with a new model pre-loaded with Windows ME, and suggests that the CPU is slow even by current smartphone standards. At least it should have good battery life.
The only reading software of which I’m aware that could even try to run on this would be Mobipocket, and my guess is that its successful installation would be doubtful.
Actually, while WinCE has it roots in the last century, MS has been regularly updating it and version 5 is the underpinings of Windows Mobile; it is by no means the “equivalent of WinME” or anywhere near the same OS that ran the old PocketPCs.
What MS does with WinCe is that they offer it both “raw” to OEMs who want to use it for embedded systems or professional/industrial gadgets and as a “consumer-ready” cellphone product called WindowsMobile that includes communications tweaks and bundled apps. So Windows Mobile hasn’t supplanted CE but rather depends on it.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/windowsce/default.mspx
Windows CE computing products are very common in asia and it is broadly used in set-top boxes and low-end computers conceptually descended from the old Atari and Commodore 8-bit systems that used TVs as their displays.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms905511.aspx
WinCE 5.0 dates from 2004 and WinCE 6.0 from late 2007, both are broadly used in new releases depending on device needs and WinCE 6 is still under development for use in Windows Mobile 7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE_5.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_CE_6.0
Bottom line: for the intended market this is a credible product at a desirable price point; it has abundant third-party support in the region and consumers are familiar with it.
As a product for western consumers it is probably not a good fit as western application development has been targetting the Windows Mobile platform, not the underlying OS. WinMo apps *may* or not run on it but it would be more of a hobbyist/hacker effort not a consumer-grade experience.
Basically, the twain just aren’t meeting on this one.