About 3 months ago I bought a Toshiba AC100 ‘smart’ book for testing. While I didn’t believe it would provide me with a netbook experience I was very interested in continuing my testing with ‘always on’ ARM-based devices. Unfortunately, that ‘always on’ experience highlighted in marketing and videos, has still not been delivered 3 months later. It’s time Toshiba actually stood up, removed the false claims, started apologizing to customers and fixing this broken device. More importantly, potential owners need to keep fingers off until we can confirm the problem is fixed.
We highlighted the standby battery life problem just a few days after we got the AC100 and a few weeks later delivered the message direct to Toshiba at IFA. The product simply doesn’t provide anywhere near the claimed ‘up to 8 days’ of standby battery life. You’ll be lucky if the AC100 still has a charge 24 hours later. Many many users have confirmed the same issue.
A promised upgrade to Froyo was the light at the end of the tunnel that most owners clung on to but that is now many weeks overdue with no official word about a timescale. In fact, a surprise firmware update last week that failed to install was followed by another firmware update that doesn’t seem to have fixed the problem or updated the device to Froyo. Do you trust them to deliver 2.2 AND fix the battery life problem?
In attempts to actually get something useful out of the AC100 I hacked the bootloader (yes, forgoing any rights to a return or repair under guarantee) to install Ubuntu and after trying the update a few days ago, I now have a bricked device. I’m sure others will fall into this trap.
I’m not going to address this email to Toshiba because their forum should be alerting them to their problems (link) instead, I’m addressing it to current and potential owners. The AC100 is still broken and I advise you to check your standby battery life and if you think I’m right, return the device. [If not, please let us know – we’d love to strikethrough and update this article.] Potential owners should refrain from a purchase until there are clear confirmations that the problems have been fixed. Better still, pass the message on and highlight that the AC100 is not yet the device with the ‘ultimate battery life’.
One of them costs €299, one of them costs €360 and the other, €999. All of them weigh between 867gm and 1060gm. One runs on ARM/Android, one runs on Windows/Intel Atom and the other runs OSX/Intel Core 2 Duo. All are ‘instant’ on.
At the MeeGo conference last week I had the chance to check out the Apple Mac Book Air. I had the lightest Intel Netbook (Samsung N350) and lightest ‘smart’ book (Toshiba AC100) with me at the time. I knew the Apple Mac Book Air (11.6 inch) was small but I was quite shocked to feel exactly how light it was. Ultra Mobile for me starts at about 1KG and the MBA fits in nicely. Battery life for me starts at 4hrs and the MBA fits in nicely again. Computing power for me must include a full web browser, a desktop OS and some video editing capability. The MBA fits in nicely, again, again!
We need to talk more about the MBA on UMPCPortal and I’ll be looking for a test sample soon so that we can get down to the detail but in the meantime, have a think about portability and capability with these images I took and feel free to comment below. This isn’t your ‘mobile’ ultra mobile PC but it’s a fine competitor to the traditional netbook. Price is a huge factor but in return you get some amazing electronic and design engineering…
Toshiba have just announced that the Folio 100, the 10 inch Tegra2-based tablet, is now being distributed in Europe. The Tablet uses Android 2.2 and is much the same hardware as the AC100 we’ve been testing (and hacking) here at Carrypad.
You’ll see that Toshiba are pushing their own applications store (Google Market was clearly not authorised for this non-phone tablet) and there’s some interesting content. AceTrax is offering the video content which will be an advantage over the Galaxy Tab which doesn’t offer any video content in Europe . 7Digital is doing the music (as on the Galaxy Tab) but we don’t yet know who’s providing the applications and ebooks. The AC100 uses the Camangi Market but we suspect they have switched providers. There’s a possibility that they have teamed up with Archos to offer AppLib but we’ll try and get that info for you soon.
As for pricing, nothing was announced today but we’ve spotted it online for 399 Euros (Google search) without 3G. With the Archos 101 starting to hit the shelves at €299, retailers will have to do better than that although we expect some premium for the Tegra 2 platform. USB OTG is included along with an SD Card slot and HDMI-out and there’s also a 3G option. Without GPS and the Google Applications though, it has its downsides.
We had some hands on at IFA and hope to bring you some testing with the retail version soon.
Fingers crossed that there’s only a few changes needed to get 2.2 out of the door for the AC100. We’re expecting an availability within a few weeks.
The work of the uber-Linux and Tegra Lords of these three forums allowed me to do this today:
Yes, you’re looking at Ubuntu 10.10 (RC) running on a Toshiba AC100 smart book.
This is the most exciting thing I’ve done in a long long time. It’s not quite there yet (the boot hangs at this point but the people-that-know are working on it) but apparently everything works apart from sound.
If I can fire up Firefox and get 7 hours battery life out of this 800gm slim-n-lite then I’ll be shouting “See. I told you the smart-book wasn’t dead. inch
It took one Linux box, some Nvidia Tegra tools, a new bootloader (dangerous) and Ubuntu built for ARMv7 on an SD card. Clearly the doors are now open for other installations although if Ubuntu is fast enough it should be good enough for most people.
I’ll be doing more work on this when the new tarball arrives.
Despite the incomplete nature of these ‘smart’ books I’ve been testing, I’m still positive that the form factor and ARM-based processor has a lot to offer and that it will greatly influence the netbook of the future. People will say that the smart ‘book’ is dead but I guarantee that if Apple were to release a MacBook iAir running on iOS, the worlds axis would change and it would become the next best thing. Smart ‘books’ aren’t dead, they’re just gestating.
I’ll be continuing to test various devices with various operating systems and applications and in this video you’ll see me test a number of applications that are working out well on the AC100. Many applications don’t work well but the nice thing about a marketplace with thousands and thousands of applications in it is that you have options. All applications shown have been sideloaded using this method.
I have a 3G AC100 on order and am looking forward to new Froyo-based firmware soon so stay tuned for more testing.
In the video you’ll see Documents To Go, NewsRob, Raging Thunder, Wave Blazer, Astro, WordPress, Touiteur, Google Maps, Photoshop Express and XiiaLive.
Update: 4th Nov. The latest I have is that Froyo will be available in Germany on within the next 2 weeks. (3rd week of Nov) Yes, it slipped
We had a great chat with the product manager for Toshiba’s AC100 in Germany at IFA yesterday and we covered a lot of ground about the target markets and future for these smart-books. Toshiba seem quite committed to the ‘smart’ sector and already have a team of 25 working on their Android builds. The next two milestones for the team are the Froyo-based Folio 100 Tegra2 Tablet and Android 2.2 (Froyo) upgrade for the AC100. Yes, it’s coming in 6 weeks and I’m excited because not only will it bring a Cortex core optimised version of Android to the device but it will also bring important browser improvements. We should get access to Google Docs and for me, that’s a huge step forward.
I’ve made Toshiba aware of the battery issue and I’ll be following up with an email. We’re also planning to get up to Toshiba’s HQ near Duesseldorf to get some quality time with the Folio soon. Yes, i’ll be taking the chance to tell them how important the Market is and encouraging them to kick Google hard!
I’m hoping to get my 3G / UK version of the AC100 from Amazon soon so if anyone want’s to buy a German (QWERZ keyboard) Wifi-only version, let me know!
We didn’t get a huge chance for hands-on as we stumbled across the Toshiba press event at IFA today and with the device locked to the wall, without and sort of Internet connection and without any supporting technical staff, it was difficult to do a good test on the Toshiba Folio 100. We want to go back and ask about pricing, Google apps and Android 2.2 availability for the keyboarded version that we’re doing extended testing on, the AC100. I’ve published a video on YouTube (below) that might give you a few snippets of information about the Folio but we’ll be back over the next few days with more information. We promise!
We didn’t get a huge chance for hands-on as we stumbled across the Toshiba press event at IFA today and with the device locked to the wall, without and sort of Internet connection and without any supporting technical staff, it was difficult to do a good test on the Toshiba Folio 100. We want to go back and ask about pricing, Google apps and Android 2.2 availability for the keyboarded version that we’re doing extended testing on, the AC100. I’ve published a video on YouTube (below) that might give you a few snippets of information about the Folio but we’ll be back over the next few days with more information. We promise!
About 3 months ago I bought a Toshiba AC100 ‘smart’ book for testing. While I didn’t believe it would provide me with a netbook experience I was very interested in continuing my testing with ‘always on’ ARM-based devices. Unfortunately, that ‘always on’ experience highlighted in marketing and videos, has still not been delivered 3 months later. It’s time Toshiba actually stood up, removed the false claims, started apologizing to customers and fixing this broken device. More importantly, potential owners need to keep fingers off until we can confirm the problem is fixed.
