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In the last 2 years we have seen many ARM netbooks prototypes showing better battery performance and cheaper price than Intel netbooks. But I still can't buy an

In the last 2 years we have seen many ARM netbooks prototypes showing better battery performance and cheaper price than Intel netbooks. But I still can't buy an ARM netbook. Where are they? What is holding them back?

msbarnett 16y ago
Lack of an operating system with mass-market appeal in the netbook space, as far as I can tell.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  I assume the Windows OEM prices have been tuned so that it's more expensive to develop and manufacture ARM-based netbooks that run Linux than it is to stick with x86 for the current generation. Also, the processor is not responsible for a huge part of the power consumed on a netbook. Disk, screen and memory seem to be a big part. If you make a netbook that can run Gnome and Firefox decently, it will have a hard-drive (or SSD) and a couple gigabytes of memory. The LCD is the same.
  - morgo 16y ago
    I think it is very workload dependent how big of a power consumer the hard-drive is. When I only do word processing or browsing simple web pages, I never have to read data (everything is cached). Laptop-mode also delays writing data back.
  - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
    If you sell an ARM powered netbook that means no windows. So you can wave goodbye to being able to use OEM copies of windows on any other products that you make. So anyone like Asus or Acer that have a PC business and launch a non-windows netbook soon learn the error of their ways.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      They can sell one line of Windows-proof highly capable, futuristic computers while keeping and developing their legacy-ish, kludgy, virus-infested, Windows-bundled, 8080-descendant-based inefficient lines. Of course, Microsoft will probably find a way to increase their OEM pricing, specially if the Windows-proof line ends up making a dent on the Windows-bundled lines. And they don't even need to increase, say, Asus's licensing prices. All they have to do is to lower Acer's.
      - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
        MSFT tend not to increase pricing they tend to say - ship even one computer without Windows and you wont be buying OEM Windows for any of your other machines.
        wtallis 16y ago
        They've gotten in rather a lot of trouble for doing that in the past. Do you have any evidence that they have been doing it since the emergence of the netbook market?
        rbanffy 16y ago
        > Do you have any evidence that they have been doing it since the emergence of the netbook market? The Windows-based netbook market?
graphene 16y ago
heh, just got mine delivered today, and fired it up just to post this reply :-) It's a Toshiba AC 100 with an ARM-based Nvidia Tegra processor and Android operating system in a standard netbook form factor. I don't believe it's available in the US though, if that's where you are. First impressions: it's very light, to the point of wobbling around when I type with it on my lap. Many of the peripheral keys are very small for my Western fingers, although I feel I'm getting used to them already. It's fanless, and has only flash storage, so it's eerily silent and apparently gets up to 8 hours of battery life. The trackpad doesn't have enough vertical space to be comfortable, and there are neither function keys nor a delete key, although there are a whole row of special keys which presumably can be xmodmappped. The online reviews mention that Android provides a less than elegant interface with the lack of a touchscreen, and I agree; I was planning to install a Linux or BSD OS on it all along. As I understand it, that's pretty tricky; should make for a nice weekend project :-) As for why there aren't more of them around already, my best guess is that OEMs don't want to piss off Wintel by selling what is effectively a PC which doesn't use their platform, for fear of losing the discounts and rebates they get when they do. I hope I'm just cynical and there's a better reason; for casual use the system resources definitely seem adequate. Acutally, as soon as I get a proper OS and WM installed on this thing, I can easily see it taking up half of my computer time, and it will be brilliant for having a quick hack on the go... [edit] After the first half hour or so of usage, it's clear that the Android as currently installed is definitely not a good fit for a non-touchscreen, full-keyboard device: After 5 seconds of idleness, the screen dims, then blacks out completely, just like a phone would; navigating through screenfulls of icons using keyboard or mouse becomes tedious very quickly, and to top it off I've run into a few bugs as well.. This thing is begging for a linux/bsd makeover, hopefully I will uncover a real beauty...
GHFigs 16y ago
Netbook makers are getting too good a deal on Windows to switch back to shipping flavors of Linux, at least for the US market. There is far more demand for "cheap Windows laptop" than just "cheapest laptop", if that makes sense. That said, the rumor is that Chrome OS is only going to ship on ARM, and will do so Real Soon Now. I'm not convinced that Chrome OS is going to be a hit, but I can see more people being willing to give up Windows for it than for a typical netbook Linux distro.

msbarnett 16y ago

Lack of an operating system with mass-market appeal in the netbook space, as far as I can tell.

rbanffy 16y ago
I assume the Windows OEM prices have been tuned so that it's more expensive to develop and manufacture ARM-based netbooks that run Linux than it is to stick with x86 for the current generation. Also, the processor is not responsible for a huge part of the power consumed on a netbook. Disk, screen and memory seem to be a big part. If you make a netbook that can run Gnome and Firefox decently, it will have a hard-drive (or SSD) and a couple gigabytes of memory. The LCD is the same.
- morgo 16y ago
  I think it is very workload dependent how big of a power consumer the hard-drive is. When I only do word processing or browsing simple web pages, I never have to read data (everything is cached). Laptop-mode also delays writing data back.
- dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
  If you sell an ARM powered netbook that means no windows. So you can wave goodbye to being able to use OEM copies of windows on any other products that you make. So anyone like Asus or Acer that have a PC business and launch a non-windows netbook soon learn the error of their ways.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    They can sell one line of Windows-proof highly capable, futuristic computers while keeping and developing their legacy-ish, kludgy, virus-infested, Windows-bundled, 8080-descendant-based inefficient lines. Of course, Microsoft will probably find a way to increase their OEM pricing, specially if the Windows-proof line ends up making a dent on the Windows-bundled lines. And they don't even need to increase, say, Asus's licensing prices. All they have to do is to lower Acer's.
    - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
      MSFT tend not to increase pricing they tend to say - ship even one computer without Windows and you wont be buying OEM Windows for any of your other machines.
      - wtallis 16y ago
        They've gotten in rather a lot of trouble for doing that in the past. Do you have any evidence that they have been doing it since the emergence of the netbook market?
        rbanffy 16y ago
        > Do you have any evidence that they have been doing it since the emergence of the netbook market? The Windows-based netbook market?

graphene 16y ago

heh, just got mine delivered today, and fired it up just to post this reply :-) It's a Toshiba AC 100 with an ARM-based Nvidia Tegra processor and Android operating system in a standard netbook form factor. I don't believe it's available in the US though, if that's where you are. First impressions: it's very light, to the point of wobbling around when I type with it on my lap. Many of the peripheral keys are very small for my Western fingers, although I feel I'm getting used to them already. It's fanless, and has only flash storage, so it's eerily silent and apparently gets up to 8 hours of battery life. The trackpad doesn't have enough vertical space to be comfortable, and there are neither function keys nor a delete key, although there are a whole row of special keys which presumably can be xmodmappped. The online reviews mention that Android provides a less than elegant interface with the lack of a touchscreen, and I agree; I was planning to install a Linux or BSD OS on it all along. As I understand it, that's pretty tricky; should make for a nice weekend project :-) As for why there aren't more of them around already, my best guess is that OEMs don't want to piss off Wintel by selling what is effectively a PC which doesn't use their platform, for fear of losing the discounts and rebates they get when they do. I hope I'm just cynical and there's a better reason; for casual use the system resources definitely seem adequate. Acutally, as soon as I get a proper OS and WM installed on this thing, I can easily see it taking up half of my computer time, and it will be brilliant for having a quick hack on the go... [edit] After the first half hour or so of usage, it's clear that the Android as currently installed is definitely not a good fit for a non-touchscreen, full-keyboard device: After 5 seconds of idleness, the screen dims, then blacks out completely, just like a phone would; navigating through screenfulls of icons using keyboard or mouse becomes tedious very quickly, and to top it off I've run into a few bugs as well.. This thing is begging for a linux/bsd makeover, hopefully I will uncover a real beauty...

GHFigs 16y ago

Netbook makers are getting too good a deal on Windows to switch back to shipping flavors of Linux, at least for the US market. There is far more demand for "cheap Windows laptop" than just "cheapest laptop", if that makes sense. That said, the rumor is that Chrome OS is only going to ship on ARM, and will do so Real Soon Now. I'm not convinced that Chrome OS is going to be a hit, but I can see more people being willing to give up Windows for it than for a typical netbook Linux distro.