p2pnet - rss feed: ‘Swap music’ with Elonex’s The One
p2pnet news | Open Source:- "Called the One, it can be used as a traditional notebook computer or, with the screen detached from the keyboard, as a portable ‘tablet’ - albeit without the planned touchscreen that Elonex had to abandon to hit its £99 ($193) price tag," says Times Online of the latest computer wonder.
And then, "Wi-fi technology lets users access the internet or swap music (and homework) files between computers wirelessly."
Swap music? Surely not.
Or has the maker, Elonex, found a way to filter out copyrighted content?
Unlikely. So will it soon have Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry) on its case for promoting file sharing?
Meanwhile, "how can Elonex make a computer for so little?" - wonders Times Online, going on, "After all, UK consumers paid an average of £477 for a new laptop in 2007, according to the retail analyst GfK."
Then, it says, the, "secret is simple: open-source software".
"InGear had an exclusive hands-on look at a preproduction One," the story sayus, adding:
" The keyboard was slow and spongy and the built-in speakers could be louder but the screen was bright and the software package impressively varied (if rather sluggish) on this prototype.
"Preloaded programs ranged from instant messaging software and a photo editor to games and an MP3 player. Moving files to and from the USB wristband was easy enough – and there’s a Bluetooth version with 2GB of memory (£120) that lets you swap files with mobile phones too.
"Elonex will be launching the computer at the Education Show at the NEC in Birmingham at the end of this month, and is targeting schools as potential buyers."
Also See:
Times Online - The £99 laptop: how can it be so cheap? February 17, 2008
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February 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
…its ugly…really ugly.
i guess you don’t have to be rich to have no taste…
February 19th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Yeah for some reason, cheap laptops are designed to be ugly…
February 19th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I don’t understand why. Good design is free. Its not like its another component you have to put in it. You have to mold the plastic and arrange the parts anyway, so why not hire an hour or so of a good designer’s time (or, at the very least, don’t let the hardware engineers design it). I get that the parts inside are bricky, and there’s no getting around that, but this could have been a piece of cool William Gibson cyberpunk art so easily.
haven’t the people that are going to be using this suffered enough?
February 20th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
actually no
good design is the one thing that cheap knockoffs can’t get
you can reverse engineer everything with IIT and UBeijing graduates, but talented artists are hard to find and cornered by the market.
That’s their way of defending their edge - why else does someone pay $500 extra for the exact same laptop from Apple that you could get from Dell?
but yes, it would have been very Neuromancer-esque - sit down, jack in, and dive.