Behold the AA battery powered netbook: the Gecko Edubook.
The manufacturer, NorhTec, used an x86 chip from a rather unknown company, DMP Semiconductor, the Vortex86MX. This is a chip targeted at embedded systems, so performance will not be extraordinary. The chip is still under development, we will certainly hear more about it if it's any good. I wasn't even aware there were more than 2 x86 licensees - VIA and Intel - maybe there's a lawsuit on the way but these guys have been building these types of SoCs for years.
Full specifications are:
- Processor -- Xcore 86 (Vortex86MX SoC) clocked at 1.0GHz
- Memory -- 256MB, 512MB, or 1Gb of DDR2 RAM, soldered on CPU module
- Display -- 8.9-inch LED backlit display with 1024 x 600 resolution
- Storage -- Internal SD card or IDE HDD (hard disk drive)
- Networking -- 10/100 Ethernet port
- Other I/O:
- 4 x USB 2.0 (3 external, 1 internal)
- VGA
- Audio -- line in and line out
- Expansion -- SD slot
- Battery -- Accepts 8 NiMH AA cells, or lithium-ion battery packs, with run times approximately four or six hours, respectively
Here's a small shot of the CPU board:
The final price for this device is expected to be around $200, which is only twice the price of a replacement battery for a particular laptop of mine, which lasted less than a year.
AA Battery powered netbook @ LinuxDevices
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