

The $199 tablet . . .  - aresant
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10423606-64.html

======
TomOfTTB
I think it's important to remember this is a reference design not an actual
product. So when they say $199 they're presenting a low ball figure to attract
companies to manufacture the actual devices. I sincerely doubt they're
factoring stuff like marketing and administrative costs into that estimate.

CES is full of stories where some no-name manufacturer shows off a reference
design promising the world only to have it never materialize as an actual
product.

I spent a good size chunk of my young life waiting for this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaze3D>

~~~
sireat
It should be mentioned that Freescale is not a no-name. :)

Doubtless, there will be $300 and $400 devices built upon this design, but
also there will be $200 devices.

That said, the keyboard dock looks like a Speak and Spell..

------
cwan
I wonder if this qualifies as "looking like a toy" -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1029069>. This'll be sweet if true and if
it hits the price points as described - I think TechCrunch was right about
needing to hit the price point to get acceptance though it'll be interesting
to see where Apple ends up pricing them (especially if it's true that they're
targeting sales of 10M units).

Definitely not good for the JooJoo - since effectively this will probably mean
they are competing against Apple's marketing/design while being squeezed out
of the lower end of the market.

Add - a few more details here
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357588,00.asp>

------
dnewcome
Conceptually I think that this is right on. I realized that what I want most
is an adjunct to my normal computing environment such as an LCD graphics
tablet for scribbling on. These tablets (say, by Wacom) are north of 1000USD,
and they aren't even computers, just graphics tablets with an LCD screen.
Maybe Apple will blow the status quo completely apart with their tablet, but
it will have to be just mind-blowing in order to justify the Apple price. It's
going to have to be more than a way to browse the net on the couch. I can do
that well enough with my phone. It's going to have to change the way I think
about tablet computing and maybe even touch computing altogether. In the
200USD price bracket though, all bets are off. A `good enough' way for me to
hack little diagrams together makes it money well spent.

------
daeken
I hope this sees daylight at this price point, but I'm not going to hold my
breath. On the other hand, there are ARM tablets out there already, e.g.
<http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/> . I've been keeping an eye on
them for a while, and the device seems to be pretty cool, but sadly I can't
justify the cost yet. (I'm looking at it for ARM kernel development, and I can
build a nice little ARM desktop for the same price, which will be easier to
work with)

~~~
torpor
I have a Touchbook (I do embedded systems development for a living) and I got
it to co-exist with my Beagleboard, which has really become one of my
favourite computers in the house.

The Touchbook, however, still needs a lot of work .. both in the hardware
design itself, and in the software - the good news is that the OS is going
through many iterations and updates and is probably going to be quite slick
within a few months.

That said, I look forward to the Pandora gaming console, more .. its really a
much better design, in my opinion.

------
neurotech1
This device uses very similar processor cores (Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX)as the
iPhone 3GS & Motorola Droid does.

Considering an iPod Touch 3rd Gen starts at ~$189.00 - The market for tablets
in the $200-300 range will be hot.

Android or any other linux distro could be easily ported to the MX515 based
device.

------
shard
Since it's a reference design, it's not clear to me whether the $199 price tag
is the BOM cost or the consumer cost. I would not be surprised if it's just
BOM cost.

------
rbanffy
Make the RAM expandable and build it with a hard disk.

If it runs a Debian-like Linux (or BSD, let's not be picky) and emacs, that's
more or less all I need. ;-)

------
Brushfire
3G + Flash + Android + Camera + Accelerometer

All for under $200.

I'm very excited to check this out at CES.

------
elblanco
If this supports flash and has a nice, compliant and fast browser....sold!

