A few days ago, I wrote:
I still remember the Oregonian piece, about 8 years ago, with a photo of a red-framed Internet tablet, about the same size/shape as the old Etch-A-Sketch of days of yore.
I still want my cheap ($300 or less), lightweight, long-lasting, droppable, broadband Net surfer, that can sit in my lap (without roasting it) in the living room, surfing while my wife reads or watches TV or whatever.
THEN the world will change.
Well, I spotted a brief blurb in Mobile magazine, and lo and behold, something much like what I want is about to hit the shelves - albeit, almost three times my desired price point. It's called the Pepper Pad, and looks pretty nifty (an Amazon reviewer pointed out a couple flaws, but nothing's perfect;-)
So maybe I don't have to buy a $750 laptop that has stuff I don't need/want, or is too darn heavy. I just may sign up for BendBroadband's new home WiFi service (about to upgrade to their 6mbps cable-modem service - wow!) - and I settle for the compromises. (One question I faced: Do I avoid Dell, or presume Jeff and others like him have had a bad experience? I can't spend $2,000 on something like this.)
I previously said: I surely hope the battery, display and broadband (WiMax, please! My brother's an Intel consultant on that very issue) matters get solved in the next few years. I want my window to the world, cheap, in my lap - capable of reading any book or magazine I own or subscribe to, bright, sharp, clear, etc. Maybe not even always connected, but more cell-like, as I ride in a car or such. Oh boy!
Then again, another way to possibly get there from here, without spending over $400 or so, is the Cybook, which again has tradeoffs (slow processor, not a lot of RAM) but is at the right pricepoint if one is willing to download eBooks into a bright, color screen and not needing to be connected to the Net at all times.
So there's options, and hopefully more on the way. Hey, a guy can dream - and maybe dreams can come true, slowly but surely?;-)
3 comments:
Sounds a lot like what I'm looking for too (which is how I stumbled on your blog).
It might be the Pepper pad, but I think that's closer to $750 than you think.
Or it might be the Nokia 770, which is $350 (or will be when it comes out, expected "in 3Q"). It has an 800 pixel wide screen, with 225 pixel-per-inch resolution. That's great. But that works out to less than 4 inches wide, which may be not so great.
Anyway, suggest you check it out (nokia.com/770).
Roger Sperberg
Thanks, Roger - I read a review of that one too recently. Yep, it's all a balance in terms of screen size, etc.
May a thousand choices bloom! (For less than a thousand simoleans;-)
and it runs under Linux a plus for sure...
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