One of the only Nvidia Tegra2-based devices I really got to see in detail this week was the Mobinnova smartbook. Using the same design as the earlier Tegra device it looks solid and well-built and it weighs significantly less than most netbooks. The UI demo that you’ll see in the video below was slick and smooth and clearly there’s a fun photo and music experience in there but when the Windows CE-based Internet Explorer pops up you get the impression that there’s only a limited depth to the software. This is going to be the biggest issue for smartbooks buyer confidence. Will the user trust the software to do what they think they need? Android is one of the only ways out of this issue.
In the video you’ll see the Mobinnova UI but you’ll also hear Bob Morris, Director of Mobile Computing at ARM, talk about the smart devices segment. It was a very interesting conversation. I also recorded a seperate interview with Bob and i’ll post that in the coming days.
given that people do not know what os their computer is running (as long as its not a mac), i am unsure if the consumer is that interested in the os used on smartbooks or similar.
still, this depends on where its being sold, and how its being sold. If its shelved right next to laptops and similar in a store, people will make mental connections between existing computer experiences and these new products. And from that they most likely will expect to be able to install their existing stack of software and games (bought or copied).
so basically, unless these things are clearly marketed as something other then a pc, just like apple is heavily doing, even tho its clearly a x86 under the hood, people will think pc and expect to use existing tools and interfaces, tho unaware if they are using windows, linux or something else.
hell, i read stories about sysadmins that install firefox on office computers, and get complaints that they have taken away “the internet”, as the IE icon is no longer there. Their solution? change the firefox icon to the IE icon and the complaints evaporates.
the problem will be marketing, basically. If clueless store zombies start selling these as just another small laptop, they will bomb, badly!
great music ;)
I hope this is not the omly good thing in this device.
Good share, great article, very usefull for us¡Âthanks.