At the risk of downmods I'm going to complain that the first three letters of any product's name should not be HiV. Especially since at a glance it looks like the i is capital.
Man, now I have to downmod you as a reaction against those who say they'll get downmodded so as to get upmodded, so that people no longer get away with saying such things and taking advantage of reverse psychology.
Drawbacks -- Adobe doesn't support MIPS processors, so this laptop can only run the FOSS versions of flash and .pdf. That's still more flash support than the iPhone.
Assuming it's the NB0700 from the manufacturer's page: http://hvsco.com/sp_qx.asp?id=75 It has a VIA C7-M 1.6GHz. Assuming this RISC is comparable to the 900MHz CISC intel processor of the eeePC, the eeePC is fine for (most) flash, including (some) games.
The XO has a hard time with Flash, but can sort of almost play YouTube low quality videos. It's got a 400MHz CPU. So, I'd say a 900MHz equivalent will definitely play most low-bandwidth Flash content.
And, I'm not sure I agree that not having it makes the system useless...I lived without video on the web for the first two years or so that I was on the net (using an Amiga--Real video was the format du jour back then, and they obviously did not have an Amiga player). It was still a seriously useful part of my life. While I think it'll have to have video for US buyers, since YouTube is such a core part of the online experience now, it wouldn't for folks in places where real broadband is not yet available. Without broadband video isn't useful option, anyway.
The text is a bit low on details, but on the video they say the current (pink) version is $120 and the October (black) version is $98. You can also see a spec sheet:
The game change is the in the developing, not necessarily the US/Japan/Europe market. The First World market is rapidly becoming saturated with computers. Where the potential for growth is, is in countries like India, Brazil, Mexico and China. When a person only makes $2-3000 a year, the price difference between a $500 laptop and a $100 laptop is the difference between a months salary and a little over a weeks salary.
And, while it may not seem too profitable or beneficial to have poor people from the third world visit your website, realize that there are billions of people in the third world that make purchasing decisions. If they have discretionary income to purchase a $100 laptop, they have discretionary income to make other purchases, too. That's a huge market that can be advertised to.
Time to brush up on your Punjabi, Spanish, Mandarin and Portuguese.
What game changing does a $98 laptop do? (Apart from the OLPC mission.)
Why do you need more than the OLPC mission? That's a pretty damned audacious thing. Getting network-capable computers into the hands of an entire class of people that couldn't have owned one is huge. For the folks who are choosing between a white MacBook or a black one, this changes nothing. For folks who could never afford a MacBook, this is the difference between being connected and not being connected.
For example, does anyone think that laptop price is holding back mobile phone business models for laptops (free with broadband)?
I have no idea what this question means in relation to this laptop. Given that the iPhone is a $600+ device being sold for $200 with contract, and that $600 laptops exist today and have existed for a few years, I'd say the broadband companies, in general, don't find the "give away a computer in exchange for a longterm contract" model appealing, or they would already be doing it. It was tried in the past with free desktop machines, and everybody saw that the deal was a bad one for consumers, and so those ISPs went out of business or changed to a different model. I think it has to be a business that looks more like mobile for this kind of monetization to work--people are accustomed to getting "free" phones, and they're also accustomed to long terms. Mobile is a historically abusive industry, so no one complains about the abuse. Of course, since the shake out in ISPs a few years ago, and consolidation down to just a few carriers, the level of abusive contracts and terms is getting higher...so maybe there will be a subsidized laptop deal soon, once AT&T and the cable companies have finished consolidating and shutting down the last of the real competition in the space.
Anyway, I think your question has nothing to do with what changes when a WiFi-capable laptop is available for $98. You're thinking way too much about your habits and expenditures. This device is not for you, or any of the folks you hang out with.
Why do you need more than the OLPC mission? That's a pretty damned audacious thing.
I didn't mean to imply anything about the benefits of availability in low-income countries or the OLPC mission. My question intention was more along the lines of: 'apart from the obvious.'
Naturally, affordability for the remaining (majority) of the world that cannot afford a laptop is the important consequence of decreasing costs.
What I meant was as the cost of a usable, connected laptop or laptop-like machines approaches zero, what changes (if any) can we expect in the behaviour of existing laptop users. Any new uses, products and such that might come out of this?
Text based services are going to be big for a while; small screens and keyboards and being on the go with wonky access and low bandwidth will mean that it's worthwhile to get a text version of what you're after.
Wireless bridges and bulletin board access points might be selling better (a bulletin board ap is one that has local storage and no backhaul bandwidth, it's sort of like a wiki restricted to a particular physical location).
Laptop Decor will become ever more important.
Most schools will require laptops, or just provide them.
Coworking Coffee Houses will become a distinct and recognizable place.
Legal documents on the web will be more common as the expectation will become that everyone has access.
Homeless people will hack for food. (hack in both senses of the word)
Festival registrations, solar power packs, campfire computing; Burning Man tech will go mainstream.
Field programmable gear will go big, your car, your house, your dogs collar will all expect to be told what to do over a usb port.
Chinese Engineers have done a very nice job! They design a low ressources but dynamic netbook.Now, they can go forward. First, they have to implement a mini OS displaying directly the homepage browser after a few seconds boot as Splashtop.Secondly,to allow alternative energy supplies as FreePlay(solar,dynamo,AAcells).
