Someone pass the salt, please, because all we’ve got to go on here is the word of a web site called Shanzhai — which generally covers news of cheap Chinese knockoffs of netbooks and other computers. But Shanzhai.com is reporting that both Lenovo and Acer could launch new netbooks based ont he NVIDIA Tegra platform and running the Google Chrome Operating System as early as this month.
The word comes from a source that the web site describes as “reliable,” but I’d still recommend keeping that salt shaker handy.
If true, it would mean a few things. First, it would indicate that the Google Chrome Operating System is much further along in development than Google implied when the company announced the OS in July. At the time, Google said a pre-release build could be available this fall, but that actual products running Chrome OS wouldn’t hit the streets until next year.
Second, it would mean that two of the world’s biggest computer makers were getting ready to back NVIDIA’s Tegra platform, which combines a low power ARM processor with a high performance NVIDIA graphics chip. NVIDIA has been pushing the new platform pretty hard, but so far we’ve only seen prototype devices from lesser known companies like Mobinnova.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lenovo, Acer, and other PC makers dip their toes in the Tegra/Chrome waters, perhaps to sell standalone devices, or perhaps to offer low power 3G-enabled netbooks through wireless carriers. But I seriously doubt we’ll be seeing any of these devices hit the market in the next month or two. Still, I’d love to be proven wrong.
Wondering if that’s true? Then again, the ODM’s in Taiwan are known for being leaky sieves of information
Zobeid Zuma Sir. Unfortunately I think your cynicism is well founded. I look at it like this……
Asus actually got to the point where they launched a Snapdragon-based smartbook at a Qualcomm press conference during Computex 2009. All fanfare and confetti. Except, the very next day, it had suddenly been pulled, shelved and forgotten like it had never happened. Widely reported? No. Like a fart in spacesuit, the story reached very few noses.
The sheer power of Intel and Microsoft is such that it’s unlikely that anyone with access to a solid distribution and sales channel will ever be allowed to offer consumers something that directly challenges the current duopoly. Companies like Mobinnova simply serve to stave off anti-trust suits.
Still. One can always hope. And if you ask me the Shanzhai are our best hope in the long term. Kinda like Jedi Knights against an evil empire……..
<And if you ask me the Shanzhai are our best hope in the long term.
Here's to the Shanzhai! I hope they will hurry up and open up some pipelines to the US.
Tegra & ChromeOS seem like a killer combination. I have two things concerning ChromeOS: i) we desperately need more google usernames, and ii) Google has to come up with a media player–perhaps a port of VLC. But the problem is that VLC and other projects do not support tegra’s advanced capabilities.
We should be reaching extremely low pricepoints, like $99, for these netbooks, in something like 18-24 months.
I can see where this could make sense as part of a larger plan. . .
1. Slap together a crude Tegra-based machine with an incomplete and bug-riddled OS and push it out the door with little support or promotion.
2. Sell very few units.
3. Cancel the product while announcing loudly that “consumers have rejected ARM-based computers and the Chrome OS”.
4. Get sweetheart deals from Microsoft and Intel.
Oops. . . Is my cynicism showing?