First introduced at Computex earlier this month, the Mobinnova élan is a mini-laptop powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra platform which bundles an ARM CPU with NVIDIA Graphics to enable HD and 3D video performance on an extremely low power machine. This particular model is running Windows CE, but you’d almost never know it because the device has a custom 3D user interface that rests on top of Windows CE. It can also run a full version of Firefox and has full featured audio and video players.
The folks at Netbook News shot a video overview of the UI, which lets you play movies, view photos, and perform other tasks without using the default Windows CE tools. The UI takes advantage of the NVIDIA GPU and includes high quality 3D animations. The computer can handle playback of 1080p video and has an HDMI output for pumping HD video to an external display. I’m not 100% sure, but I think you might be limited to 720p video output. It should be able to handle 6 hours of video playback on battery power.
Mobinnova calls this little laptop a “viewbook” because of its entertainment focus. So you can add that to your list of jargon alongside netbook and smartbook.
You can check out the video of the Mobinnova élan after the break.
Well, it is nice to see Tegra being used from something and it certainly will keep ARM smartbooks in the ‘arms race’ of small portable computing. Without a doubt a ‘web browsing machine’ needs to handle Hulu and other video services better then they do now, so Tegra and ION are going to need to become ubiquitous.
If there is going to be one theme for late 2009 into 2010 it will be netbooks/smartbooks handling video as they should not skippy & stuttering.
Can I just have an edge to edge keyboard and a better touchpad? I do like the UI and the unorthodox port access.
I would rather they got rid of the touch pad altogether and took away the wasted space where it is. A touch screen would be a much better way to control the device.
John
I wasn’t initially convinced about the unorthodox port arrangement, but I’m warming to the idea (though no VGA port is a shame – though that multi-function socket on the backplane might include it I guess?). It will also serve as a keyboard rake adjustment, and that will be most relevant when using it on a desk, which is (not coincidentally) when you would be most likely to want to plug stuff in. Nice and sleek the rest of the time!
Was looking into this earlier, and certainly a nice concept, though a shame NVidia are so championing Win CE rather than a Linux. Also, hopefully one of their marketeers will notice that the lady with the camera was more visible than the screen content throughout the clip, and order removal of the gloss forthwith.
I’ll let them off their rather generous description of the video playback as not being jerky, because really who’s watching 1080p stuff on a netbook?
To me it doesn’t matter a jot if it is CE if nvidia bring along more software like firefox.
At least ce boots quickly, a few seconds, (if a full power off or re-set of unit). It offers better stanby (instant on/off) support and is a very light in terms of resources.
Looking forward to them still. However I am really dissapointed, so far, we have not seen somthing that is Sigmarion 3 sized with a 6 or 7″ screen.
https://www.mikenchell.com/handheldpcs/
(if you wonder std machine has a 5″ 800×480 screen) and with that bezel would easilly support a 6 or 7″ screen with similar aspect ratio).
Yep, you’re basically right about CE. The whole point is that the OS really doesn’t matter on these things so long as you can run a half decent browser. The only “but” in this particular regard would be that I’ve rather gone off Firefox in recent months, because it’s bloated and slow even on a full-spec desktop, and although I congratulate the effort in getting a proper browser working on CE, I would rather have a more lightweight (but equally compatible) choice.
nvidia demonstrated firefox 3.5 working nicely which looked faster than the browser in this video (which claim it is firefox 3.1). From what I have read firefox 3.5 is faster and less resource hungry. Fingers Crossed 🙂
But if they sell and can run desktop firefox maybe other desktop browsers will arrive.