130+ comments seems to indicate a serious amount of interest in the Raon Digital Everun Note that we’ve been talking about over the last few days. There are concerns about the battery life and the credibility of the CrystalMark tests and slight disappointment that it doesn’t have a swivel screen but on the whole, people seem to be very interested. I’m guessing a lot of orders for the SC3 just went on hold until independent info becomes available and its probably because of the thought that there might be a ultra mobile PC on the horizon that satisfies even the most demanding of road warriors. (more after the pic…)
The thing that interests me the most is not that the Everun Note is powerful, its this idea of a flexible CPU. As long as any potential heat build-up doesn’t risk damaging the device (or the owner!) there’s no reason why this multi-core setup won’t work perfectly for both mobile and desktop scenarios. When mobile, one can use a single core dialed down to 30-60% of the normal clockrate. The performance will be fine for online work. When the user is at a desk they can then plug in the mains or the external battery pack and work as if the device was a notebook with 2 cores humming away.
The 7" design is probably a bit too small for most people to use as a desktop but what if it docked? What if you could dock into a PCI-Express enabled station with external GPU where your 22" monitor and keyboard were already connected? I’m a huge huge fan of this dock-and-go setup and with CPU’s that allow for a wide range of performance steps, this is more possible than ever. It might not please the desktop and notebook manufacturers though so don’t expect Dell to be doing it. Someone like Raon Digital though, who have no netbook sales to hurt, could make this possible.
If you don’t like the modular approach, how about an 8.9" version of the Everun Note? No, I’m not scoping for Raon I’m just thinking aloud. An 8.9" 1280×768, dual-battery device with slick design and quality keyboard. This could be a new category of do-it-all devices and with designs like we’re seeing in the netbook sector, I think it could be the only device that most people will ever need. Prices wont hit the levels of the netbooks and sales numbers may not be as high but this could be a really hot niche. (No pun intended!)
What do you think? Would an 8.9" Everun Note with a 5-hour battery suit you? Or do you prefer the 7" variant for more mobility?
I am willing to preorder immediately if they come up with a 8.9″ swivel screen.
Without a swivel screen it is larger for half of its usages (of non typing scenarios) than a 8.9″ in a tablet mode.
Tal
Small is beautiful.I won`t put an umpc on external display!Its not fair!
The only thing i modify on everun note is the display:to rotate 270 degrees straight to the back of device and you get an easy to use touchscreen!!sort of tablet pc.
And of course fast SSD no HDD!They are obsolete!
The batery is an failure on this device like in sharp willcom or even worse!But we gona live with it.
I want an 8.9″ device because it allows Raons near-miss to become a smash-hit.
dual-core and the 690G chipset is an interesting proof of concept, but doesn’t really serve much purpose next to a dual-core Atom as the VGA isn’t significantly better.
if raon were to take the new PUMA platform with its DX10 powerhouse graphics and Turion Ultra CPU, and stick it in a chassis large enough to house a decent battery (8.9″) then you would have a product wildy different from the usual aneamic netbooks.
Yes the 690G chipset uses only 8-13.5 Watts, but it is also produced on the old .8u fab process rather than the state-of-the-art .55u process used by PUMA.
Surely a little under-clocking/volting will make good the difference?
I will buy one anyway!you could say i`m RAON FAN! :)
nope, just make it a swivel screen without making the device bigger. infact , get rid of some of that horse power to make it slimmer.
i think what makes this device attractive to me is that has an optical mouse rather than the mouse pad.
remember this is all supposed o be about umpc’s. which means ULTRA MOBILE. pair ultra mobile with as much funcyionality as possible.
as much as I want it 8.9″ – I agree that the swivel part is far more important. I will take it as a 7″ swivel just for its power and large (8.9″ comparable)keyboard + optical mouse.
but the whole innovation of this is the use of aa desktop cpu and chipset.
only problem is that the cpu is going to be innovative for about six weeks until the dual-core Atoms arrive, and the chipset/vga really isn’t a great deal better than the terrible 945 in the Diamondville platform.
underclock/undervolt the PUMA platform and stick it in the smallest chassis possible.
I’d be fine with 7″ and 5 hours,could even abandon the touchscreen to make it cheaper.May get one if its cheap enough and comes to Europe,if not I’ll stick to the Wind with 6 cell.
There are definitely not enough 8.9″ 1280×768 systems available. The Fujitsu P1620 is nice but expensive and lacks a touchpad. The Gigabyte M912 lacks the LED backlight and the keyboard’s tiny right shift key is basically just like the 7″ Eee.
Making a 7″ and an 8.9″ would be the way to go. Kohjinsha figured that out, but I can’t stand the right-side of their SX3 keyboard with the tiny shift key, tall enter key and some other ones scrunched in odd places in that general area.
The Acer Aspire One keyboard layout looks almost ideal. If companies could just shrink the keys a bit to fit the smaller form factors, that would be fine. Compromising key size is ok, but compromising layout is the most frustrating thing.
I don’t think a 7″ device can share too many design concepts with a 8.9″ one. They are going to be totally diferent devices just because one is going to be a UMPC and the other is not. Keep it 7″, make it swivell and put some kind of external fan in the docking station (that was the basic idea of the desing I did for the frustrated design contest) and it’s going to be almost perfect.
Totally agree. No need for a larger screen, just give us a serious dock option, preferably with HDMI. And add a swivel to the screen!
The best thing about the seven inch…is that it is pocketable, a glorified UMPC. The battery life might be an issue but I am willing to pay for a larger one. Yes, a 8.9 netbook like this would definatly be one of the best in it’s class. For me however, I am looking for a quality UMPC/netbook that is pocketable, yet still under US $1000. And it looks like the raon digital everun is perfect for me :)
lets wait for the actual product to come out and be tested before one start making up wishes for variants…
My Problem with the OLPC XO was, not enough SSD, not enough RAM, for me to do commercial apps. Loved the screen, loved the battery. If the “Note” does this, with the small size then I am aboard. I can’t understand why no one has taken the feature set of the OLPC XO (including the Mesh Networking) and run with it in the commercial space in a more mobile UMPC, like the “Note” is? OLPC sold a large number of these units in a month or so with the buy-1-donate-1 program (that should have told the commercial folks something. And it was waterproof, had $10 user replaceable battery, 20 hr e-book reader mode, and that screen that could be used outside in direct sunlight. I am still looking for this beefed up and more powerful OLPC XO feature set in a netbook design.
But I do like your docking station concept as you pointed out in the “Note” idea. A larger 8.9″ would fly off the shelves. And companies could even use it in low power mode in the office as a desktop (one that uses less power and is more GREEN), and reduce the electric bill too.
If I had my choice, I’d like to see this put into a convertible tabletPC style form with 8.9″ display with touch of course….
;-)
I love it just the way it is, as a form factor. I was a big fan of the Libretto, way back when, so this is a return to what I always wanted, a REAL computer that was tiny ad still very useable in every situation. Hot swappable batteries would be nice, a la Panasonic, but this is great. No Vista, though… XP, please!
I think this NEEDS a convertible touch or WACOM screen. I know if it did, this would be my UMPC or choice and it seems a lot of people share that sentiment. I’m looking at the Fujistu U2010 right now, but if this had a convertible screen I would spring for it in an instant.
Even if the battery is that fantastic when it is running on both cores I would at least be able to play Majora’s Mask at a constant framerate, if only for 20 minutes. XD
Another nice thing about it would be if it ran a more watered down operating system when it was running on a single core OR the ability to downvolt and underclock it on the fly, and vice versa, within Windows.
Until I see a convertible screen (or a hacked on one) the U2010 is going to be a more appealing device to me with its much better battery life, similar form-factor and convertible screen. I can deal with less power and smaller screen for more mobility.
a hacked one? I didn’t know it was possible (Except for JKK perhaps).
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. Touch screens have been added to UMPCs and WACOM screens have been added. Couldn’t you just move the wires around, put a hinge on there and rotate the screen 180? It doesn’t seem that impossible. The only hitch would be if the wires weren’t long enough, in which case you buy longer ones and solder them on. It probably won’t happen, but I can dream. ^_^
+1 for a dockable 8.9″ 1200×800 with convertable tablet inkable goodness…
If the price is sub 1000, then it may be the UMPC I’ve been looking for (have yet to ever buy one). In fact, I love the thought of docking it, maybe even with an external GPU, and using it as my main computer as well (in an effort to save electricity). I’m not too in tune with the masses, but I tend to think that there should be a 7″ and a 10″, because I think that 8.9″ isn’t different enough from 7″… A touchscreen and swivel would be great, but I’d gladly do without them to keep the price as low as possible.
give it a swivel screen and an inkable touch screen similar to the Fujitsu P1620 and I’d be more than happy to buy one with the 7” screen… if the keyboard is typeable…
if the keyboard gets too cramped then a 8.9” screen would be fine with the above specs
docking would be fantastic if it really is fast enough both for mobile and desktop use
It would be THE perfect device
â— A 7 in screen keeps the form factor small which is good by me. A big battery would go down well.
â— A touch screen is a bit of a must but don’t particularly want a swivelling tablet style, keep it simple.
â— I somehow think this would be better with a Dual Atom CPU. The AMD CPU might put me off buying this.
â— I certainly wouldn’t pay more than $1000 but would prefer something around $800.
â— I like the docking idea as long as it’s simple. Wouldn’t mind a real graphics card built into the Note or maybe there are Express Card ones (not sure) but disabled all the time you don’t need it.
â— A good fast SSD would also be preferable. Not sure how good Hybrid Drives are in practice?
http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3206&forum=18&post_id=17778#forumpost17778
It needs to be a 7′ tablet, thats the reason I got the SC3 because of the tablet. I use this at my job all week so its more portable, and if I’m going to be typing a lot then I can use my Stoweaway BT keyboard. So far that’s what I have been using on the Fujitsu U810.
keep it small please. This is the major point of raon products. I own a vega. I love it because it is small. I carry it with me all the time. It just misses a little power to play all my videos. I am more concerned about the battery life! I look forward real life testing.
according to this article, the 780G draws 0.95W as compared to 22.5W for the 945GC:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Atom-Athlon-Efficient,review-31253-3.html
that is quite simply staggering!
please Raon, do the sensible thing are ditch the 690G.
My Tosh Libretto U105 has 7.2″ 1280×768 screen at cool 200dpi.
I am seriously considering new Everun but the screen on it is so much worse. I am still tempted just because of the dual core and decent graphics. It should be possible to play decent games on this thing!
I have been disappointed with this whole netbook idea. It has moved back the sub notebook market 3 years back. There were cool laptops released, Sony U1/U3/U101, Toshiba U105, Sharp Muramasa etc. Then the netbooks came with deluge of crappy plasticky laptops for little money and screwed the whole market. Nobody is releasing quality little laptops anymore.
i sadly have to agree, the netbook formfactor is great but i cannot label the 945G as anything other than spectacularly crap.
i simply find it hard to desire a product using the worst IGP in the world combined with an in-order CPU.
bring PUMA to the netbook formfactor!
I’m using Vaio UX90 & Stoweaway BT keyboard
in the train everyday.
Everun Note is with almost the same weight to them ,much CPU power, a larger display,
better keyboard, and lower price….relly exciting.
Give me a price and a date. That’s all I need right now, I’m ready to buy!
Same boat, Zam =) loved the look ever since the first photos came along. i wouldn’t class myself as any kind of fanboy, but i’ve always been impressed by the turions in general, so i’m glad to see one getting a run.
it would be nice to see the newer 780 chipset, but i don’t think it’s really feasible currently.
overall, i like the design. currently very pleased with my mildly modded eee701, this beast looks to be everything i want! by september i’ll have the money together, looking forward to hearing release details and prices.
I would certainly go for the 5 hr (2 batt.) 8.9″ or 10″ version. If RAON provides a version with slightly bigger LED back lit screen, and SSD (slightly above 16 GB level) and a keyboard with the punctuation characters at the right place, I’m sure it will be a winner. For non-demanding users it would be an “all-you-need” type of device…