NVIDIA has been showing off a mini-laptop with an 8.9 inch display called the Mobinnova élan since this summer. The Mobinnova computer is one of the first laptops to use NVIDIA’s Tegra platform, which bundles an ARM-based processor with high performance graphics. The net result is a mini-laptop with excellent battery life that can run for 5 to 10 hours while playing HD video or up to 24 hours when playing audio.
But up until now there’s been no word on a price or launch date. Now Laptop Magazine is reporting that the little laptop has a new name and something resembling US launch details. The computer will be renamed the Mobinnova Beam in the US. As expected it, will run Windows CE, which is a low power OS that can run on ARM processors (unlike Windows 7).
The Mobinnova Beam will support 720p video playback. And once Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is released, it will be able to handle HD video streams from the web since the software update will add support for NVIDIA GPU acceleration.
Laptop Magazine reports that the Mobinnova Beam will be available at a subsidized price in the US when bundled with a 3G data plan from a wireless broadband provider. There’s still no final word on the pricing, release date, or who that wireless carrier will be, but Mobinnova is expected to have a few announcements at CES in January.
You can find more images of the Beam at Laptop Magazine.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why they didn’t put Linux on this thing. Between the total lack of applications for WinCE and the fact that most of the OSS Linux applications have already been ported to the ARM architecture you’d figure it’d be a no-brainer. Also WinCE incurs a, albeit small, licensing fee.
I just don’t get it, what do they gain from using WinCE apart from brownnose points from Microsoft who’ve already stated they’re not interested in the smartbook market.
It looks really nice. I hope one can get it – at a reasonable price – without a contract. It would be neat to try. I look forward to it coming to the USA.
The thing looks slick, but with Windows CE I’m not sure how interesting it would be to people. I would say it might work well in a office, warehouse, or store setting where the whole company is using it for a reason. Even a school or a museum might benefit for using these…maybe.
But as I said it looks slick.
1) will it be available without a 3G contract?
2) will it eventually be offered with a real OS?
3) the picture shows no ports. where are they?
1) I bloody hope so (in UK without contract please)
2) funny, CE is a real OS and has a lot of benefits for this sort of device (esspecially if Nvidea/Company selling it actually sort/include usefull software like office and image viewing and editing). Tegra comes with CE but expect we will start to see other tegra devices with linux (inc google chrome). However, if you want linux maybe some of the other ARM cores (snapdragon etc.) will provide your linux fix first.
3) The ports are hidden behind the battery and become accessable when the batter is in it’s extended tilt position
Oh that is really a great news that now netbook is come with NVIDIA Tegra graphics.. I definitely goto buy this if i like this but after read this i hope i definitely like this netbook because i am a game addicted so this one is very useful to me..
think you mean ion as this is an ARM cpu with GPU and running windows CE so will not likely play the games you are talking about 🙂