Nokia, one of the major cell-phone manufacturers, is planning to enter the Android arena. This may not sound amusing. But the interesting part is that, it is planning to launch an Android netbook, and not an Android powered cell-phone. If this news is to be believed, this would be one of the first netbooks to be launched by the manufacturer.
Lazard Capital Markets analyst, Mr.Daniel Amir said “In our conversations with ODMs, we have confirmed that Nokia is planning to enter the netbook market with a Google Android, ARM-based netbook that would be sold at carriers. Considering this market is dominated by the PC players, we believe Nokia could face an uphill battle to succeed in this market.”
This is a really big move by the mobile phone biggie. The main reason could be the availability of the open source OS for free, whereas Microsoft charges a fortune for its Windows OS. Also, Android will prove to be a great fast-boot netbook.
Kinpo is in the process of making a 7-inch Tablet PC, powered with, surprisingly, Android OS. The video clearly demonstrates, how beautifully Android can be ported into netbooks and Tablet PCs.
If the real product really comes out to be as good as our expectations, Android OS would very well be able to blow out every other netbook OS in the market (read it as Windows).
Acer has decided to make first few models of its netbooks dual boot, with the other OS being Windows, as opposed to a news somtime back, that Acer is planning to launch the first exclusive Android powered netbook.
This was supposed to be the first Android powered netbook in the market. So, Acer was worried about the acceptance of the netbook in the market. So, to play safe, Acer decided to bundle Windows along with Android.
But, this would make the price of the netbook same as that of Windows netbooks, as the customers woukd have to pay the license fee of Windows OS, whereas Android is free.
The Android can very well be used to make a fast-boot netbook, as compared to the time taken for a Windows netbook to boot. Most of us would be a bit comprehensive about buying an Android netbook at the first place. And, the main reason would be incompatibility of most of our important applications, with the Google OS. So, this is, in my opinion, a very smart move by Acer.
Soon after ASUS and Acer recently announced their plans to launch Android powered netbooks this year, ECS unveiled their Android powered netbooks at the Computex 2009 show.
The following videos shows the netbook, running Android :
Acer has announced its plans to launch Android powered netbooks in the fourth quarter of 2009. Recently, ASUS had also reported its decision to launch Android powered “smartbook”.
“Today’s netbooks are not close to perfection at all. In two years, it will all be very different,” Jim Wong, Acer’s global president for IT products, said at a news conference at Computex show, recently held in Taipei, “If we do not continue to change our mobile Internet devices, consumers may not choose then any more.”
There are no reports about the pricing or the specifications. But, probably, it will run on Atom processor.
Every other day, we get news of an Android powered netbook being launched by some company. Will this prove to be a big threat to the current netbooks OS giant, Microsoft ?
May be, its too early to predict. Android is a new OS and its success or failure will, to a large extent, depend on the kind of and the number of applications that will be able to run on it.
Imagine running Google Android on a small netbook. Feels marvelous, isn’t it ? This is going to be turned into reality, very soon. ASUS demoed its Android powered Eee PC, running on Snapdragon Chipset, by Qualcomm.
Qualcomm calls it the ultrathin netbook a “smartbook”. It consumes extremely low power. So, it requires no cooling, hence it is a fanless device. This contributes to its thin built.
Here’s the video showing the “smartbook” :
Lets just hope that this “smartbook” paves the way for many more netbooks in the Android world.
Had you ever imagined applications meant for the Android OS running on your notebook loaded with Ubuntu OS ? If not, then you can and you should imagine it now. Because, developers at Cannonical successfully ported some Android apps onto Ubuntu. This was unveiled at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Barcelona on Tuesday.
Here’s a pic of a desktop PC running some Android apps :
Google’s Android is based on Linux platform. But, its built on Google’s custom Java runtime. So, that makes it more convenient for use in mobile phones and tablet PCs and not in desktops.
But, this development would surely pave the way for future development of Android to make it more user-friendly and to be used in deskptop PCs. Even in the past, we have had news about Android notebooks and netbooks in the making (by companies like Skytone, HP and T-Mobile).
So, lets hope that Android soon makes its way into the notebook arena and we get a taste of the Open-Source environment in our notebooks.
We have got news of HEWLETT-PACKARD Co. (aka HP), “studying” the Google Android OS and the market, probably to be used in their netbooks.
Marlene Somsak, spokeswoman for Palo Alto, California-based HP, was heard saying “We are interested in understanding all the various operating system (OS) choices in the marketplace that could be used by our competitors. With respect to Google Android, we’re studying the OS in general and looking at its computing and communications capabilities.”
However, Hewlett-Packard refused to comment on any Android product in the making.
We can definitely see a surge in the growth of netbooks sale in the past couple of years. This growth has mainly been due to the low pricing of the devices, as compared to the notebooks, and also its compact size.
If Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s report is to be believed, the sales of netbooks is expected to double this year, whereas, the notebooks industry is expected to grow by just 1.2%.
Everyday, we are experiencing something new happening in the Android market. Till date, the PC, notebook and the netbook OS market was dominated by companies like Windows, Apple and Linux. But, the rate of growth of the Android market forces me to believe that this market is going to be dominated by Android very soon. The main reason for this would be the fact that Android comes for free. So, this would reduce the prices of the devices to a large extent. Also, it is an open source initiative. So, this gives the developer a larger horizon to explore.
