NPX-9000 UMPC is inexpensive but underpowered
Submitted by srlinuxx on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 19:01.
The wave of cheap netbooks, mini laptops, or ultra-mobile PCs has crested with the cheapest yet, the NPX-9000 from Carapelli. Though it was announced in July with great fanfare at a price of £65 (or $110), it has yet to appear on the vendor's Web site. But we got our hands on one of the first units to escape from the factory and put it through its paces. We found that you get what you pay for -- if that.
The low price for the NPX-9000 is a bit of a tease. That's actually the price for each of 100 units delivered to a plane or ship in China. If you buy it from an importer you'll see the added effect of shipping costs, import duties, and, in the EU, value-added tax (VAT), so the retail price might be almost double what was announced last summer. However, Carapelli says no one in Europe or North America is currently selling the NPX-9000; retailers are waiting for the Windows XP-equipped TNX-9500, at which time they'll sell both, Carapelli says.
Larger Cellphones, work in progress ? Looks good with 3G ?
3G modem will help these netbooks. Many USB devices will plug in as accessories to enable manufacturers to make profit on hardware plug-ins. TI-99 computer system with all the plug-in costed over $1,500. It was not considered slow in those days of 16 bit cpus. Data General use Ti-99 cpu to build a business computer for $15,000 with a printer included.
So, two manufacturers pioneering the big cellphone; they can certainly go mini netbooks with their present formula of success.
Changing DDR to sram on USB bus will speed up their architecture quite a bit? Next concern is the price difference of 480i or 720i displays, when price is determined by 7 inch glass size not pixel density???