Optima OP5-W is a thin and light Laptop that costs only $350, manufactured by Chinese manufacturer http://www.chinaoptima.com with Intel Atom N280 1.66ghz, 1GB ram (or 2GB ram for $18 more), 160GB hard drive (or more if demanded), 1.3mpix webcam, 2xUSB, mini-HDMI output integrated.
While Dell has ended the sale of their Dell Mini 12 netbook, while Lenovo S12 (with Nvidia Ion) and Samsung NC20 (VIA based) cost over $450, and Asus 1201HA has somewhat lower specs (1.33GHz Atom Z520 processor), this Optima OP5-W is a cheaper alternative for a 12.1″ netbook size. 12.1″ is a significantly larger computing experience, with more confortable screen and keyboard size for the productive adult laptop user.
The clue might be that Intel and Microsoft may have recently relaxed the rules governing the limitation of screen and keyboard size for the use and cheap licencing of Windows XP Home and the use of the cheap Netbook Intel Atom N280 processor. While I am not sure if Microsoft allows 12.1″ cheap Netbook edition Windows XP licencing, they use to not allow it for not cannibalizing the existing notebook sales profit margins, they may be allowing it now.
Battery life test:
The screen is quite bright, while the battery is not removable easily (screws are needed), I have tested the full 100% brightness, 100% speaker volume and constant video streaming over WiFi from http://live.twit.tv, the battery lasted about 1 hour 30 minutes. I have not yet tested the battery life in minimum screen brightness, low headphones volume and non-WiFi use with a light OS that doesn’t have a lot of active background processes.
Software test:
This Optima OP5-W does not currently support WiFi usage on Chromium OS. Though, I believe this could rather easilly be fixed in a driver patch update of a Chromium OS image. So if you would want to order large quantities of this hardware with a 8GB flash storage memory instead of 160GB hard drive, you may as well save another $30 on the retail price. This means, that using these hardware specifications, an Intel Atom powered Chrome OS laptop with a 12.1″ screen could be sold close to or below $300, also consider that Google can subsidize the price of the Laptop towards Laptop manufacturers by paying the manufacturers or laptop selling brands a percentage of the revenue generated from Google’s advertising.
Consider also that the Optima OP5-W is a very interesting demonstration of the user experience that one could expect from a similar design for a laptop, same sized screen and keyboard but based on a lower power ARM Cortex A8 or ARM Cortex A9 processor, a Pixel Qi LCD screen (now being manufactured) with lower power consumption in full backlit color mode and also with a much lower power black and white mode. I expect that the ARM version of this 12.1″ sized laptop running Chrome OS and a fully usable Chrome browser to be sold below $200.
Here is the cheapest laptop in the world. It can run Android since it is based on a Samsung ARM926EJ-S3C2450 processor, but for now this review unit that I am reviewing in this video only runs Windows CE 5.0. Check back hopefully within a month for another video when Menq may have sent me a firmware upgrade to use Android instead of Windows CE.
As I filmed the Menq Easypc E760 last year at IFA, Menq is a chinese company interested in providing the worlds cheapest laptop designs. Last year, they were using a 480×320 resolution 7-inch screen to reach the $89 price point for laptops, now they are able to include a 800×480 resolution 7-inch screen. Find more information about this Menq EasyPC E790 at http://www.menqgroup.com/products/pro/E790.asp
The coming of the ARM based laptops, in my opinion, are indicative of the real revolution that is imminent for the Laptop and Desktop computer industry. As soon as ARM based laptops can run a full Chrome Browser, with unlimited amounts of opened tabs all running smoothly, with Flash support, full Javascripts support and basic multimedia functions, then I think the turning point will be reached where most consumers in the world, and especially in developing countries, will be buying only the cheapest laptops.
Web Browsing is all that most people need, with clever HTML5 enabled Chrome browser running on any type of Embedded OS, be it Android or Ubuntu, even offline application could be run reliably from within the browser engine. Anything most people really need will work.
As you can see in my video review, this Menq EasyPC E790 is kind of slow since it is based on the ARM9 processor technology. For not much more cost, though, the Chinese laptop manufacturers could soon be using the ARM Cortex A8 processor technology, which should provide for a 5-10 times faster web browsing experience, and even faster if using an upcoming ARM optimized Chrome browser.
This laptop, I think, is giving us a taste of the future of laptops. Soon all laptops will cost $80 or less, run 10 hours or more on a small and cheap 3-cell battery, even over 20 hour battery life if using the Pixel Qi screen technology. It is also providing a sensation for the what we can expect from the next generation OLPC One Laptop Per Child XO-1.75 to be released by OLPC with ARM processor technology inside instead of X86.
If using ARM9, OLPC could definitely sell laptops at below $80, but maybe ARM Cortex A8 will be preferable at around $10-$20 extra in manufacturing costs, and the innovative new Pixel Qi screen, WiFi meshing, more RAM and storage, could bring the next ARM based OLPC XO-1.75 laptop coser to $125 per laptop, to reach below $100 with mass production. In any ways, I am really looking forward to see the upcoming releases of the ARM Cortex A8 based laptops, yet still, this ARM9 based laptop is very interesting, and if you want your local supermarket to start selling them, I suggest you phone your local supermarket headquarters, and ask them to contact Menq and order for example 5000 pieces or more so they can get them at the price of $80 per unit and sell it to you for probably below $100 in supermarkets.
I am a big fan of FON. It enables you to have free access to a million WiFi hotspots in the world in exchange for sharing your own WiFi at home with your neighbors. FON routers broadcast 2 WiFi signals, one is a personal WPA-password protected WiFi SSID and the other is the open WiFi SSID for sharing your Internet connection using the FON DNS authentication login page so people are not able to do illegal things anonymously on your WiFi.
This newest Fonera 2.0n router is much more than just a WiFi router. It now comes with a powerful embedded processor and a USB host connector so that you can connect USB hard drives, USB dongles, USB printers/webcams and other USB peripherals directly to your router using a USB 2.0 hub and thus have those peripherals always connected to your home local network as well as to the whole Internet. Fonera 2.0n lets you install certain applications developed open-source such as a BitTorrent downloader based on Transmission, Youtube/Picasa/Flickr/Facebook video and picture uploaders, Rapidshare/Megaupload downloaders or just run FTP, Samba, Upnp file servers locally on your local network or remotely over the Internet so you can stream all your multimedia files from any other WiFi hotspot that you may access all over the Web.
The main use that I have with my new Fonera 2.0n is to constantly have access to Terrabytes of my personal multimedia files from all over the world, any of which streamed using my 2mbit/s upload Internet broadband connection. That 2mbit/s upload connection which I have at home, lets me remotely stream DVD quality movies. This currently works fine using any laptop copying the FTP URL into VLC media player “Open URL” feature. I am hoping to soon have this work on my Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android, so that I would easily be able to remotely stream my personal movies and music hosted at my home on my Fonera 2.0n from any Internet access point in the world using that.
Cloud storage will eventually be able to host everyones massive amounts of personal multimedia files. Though as ones options are today to use Cloud storage services from Google or Amazon, to host a Terrabyte of personal data on the cloud would cost $1800 per year on Google App Engine, same price at Amazon S3, those prices are just not workable at all if you just want to host 1 Terrabyte of your multimedia files on the web. Even the new Google price for Picasa image storage at $256 per Terrabyte per year is still far too expensive cloud storage for most people. See my comment on Google’s latest cloud storage prices here: http://charbax.com/2009/11/11/cheapest-cloud-storage-needed/ A Terrabyte hard drive only costs about $80 in the US or 80€ in Europe, add to that the 79€ Fonera 2.0n, and that is all it will cost you (other than the power consumption of the USB hard drive) to have access to stream from your Terrabyte of data anytime you want from anywhere you want, as long as you have got enough upload speed from your home to support the streaming of that data.
Another feature that is really cool, is the Firefox Add-On the FON DownloadHelper, which can automatically launch the download of .torrent files to the BitTorrent client of your Fonera 2.0n router, directly from when you click on the .torrent file from within Firefox. And you can launch your BitTorrent downloads locally when you are at home or remotely using your laptop or Android product using Transdroid from anywhere in the world. And when the BitTorrent downloads are finished, you can immediately stream your downloaded video, music contents locally or remotely as well. With Extensions soon coming to the official Chrome browser, I think we can expect FON DownloadHelper extension for Google Chrome soon as well.
If you are considering to have a Network Attached Storage in your home, if you are considering to get a WiFi 802.11n router, if you are interested in hosting a remote FTP server and BitTorrent client in your router in your home, and run a print server and webcam, if you are considering joining the FON WiFi-sharing community, then I would definitely recommend that you check out the Fonera 2.0n and follow the latest developments about it in the FON Discussion Boards.
Archos is the first provider of a Youtube HD set-top-box solution by the Archos 5 Internet Tablet simply being the worlds first Android product supporting the playback of H264 High Profile at 1280×720 and 2mbit/s that is the format, resolution and bitrate that Youtube encodes all their HD videos in. More and more videos are uploaded to Youtube in HD quality (including this video that I embed in this post) and all those videos playback awesomely on the Archos 5 Internet Tablet since the 1.2.11 firmware version by just clicking on the embedded videos play button or browsing through all the Youtube videos at http://m.youtube.com
As Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said at the Royal Television Society Convention, the coming of new cheap set-top-box products that can play Internet video will be the biggest enabler of the IPTV revolution towards Video-On-Demand, with Youtube already delivering more than 1 Billion views per day, with cheap set-top-boxes with direct Youtube support on people’s HDTVs, Youtube would reach even many more views per day and there will be a greater demand for higher quality Youtube videos at up to HD quality. Archos delivers this solution with the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the first cheap embedded support for Youtube HD on a HDTV.
Waiting for Flash 10.1 support in Android is not even required for Youtube HD, HQ and Normal qualities to work. Flash 10.1 support will come on Archos as soon as Adobe releases Flash 10.1 for Android.
If Archos can support full MKV 720p H264 high profile support with full bitrates in optimized firmware updates, then the Archos 5 Internet Tablet starting at $249 MSRP for the 8GB version is effectively about to become a pocket-sized replacement for Blu-ray. With better features than Blu-ray since Youtube HD support basically is like HD quality video-on-demand.
A few things that I think Archos, Google and third party Android software developers should do to provide a perfect Youtube HD experience:
- Someone should create a YoutubeHD.apk application that should launch Youtube HD/HQ/Normal quality videos automatically in playlists and based on the Youtube user’s Youtube account to list recommendations, subscriptions, add searches and tags, display overlay ratings and comments, even provide live overlay chat for videos and for Youtube channels. It could be called Google Watch, be the same as Google Listen, but for Video. Even provide clever podcatching storage and caching of videos and not only go onto Youtube but use any other video sources of the web.
- Archos should provide the user with a choice to limit the quality to HQ or Normal if the user does not want to stream HD quality for some reason, for example perhaps the bandwidth that is available is not enough for that user to have a smooth Youtube HD experience.
- http://m.youtube.com needs to be improved, I want to sort searches by date for example.
- Archos should provide overlay text input facility such as commenting and chatting around the videos and channels. The social features around videos can be really powerful to increase the value proposition of IPTV set-top-box video-on-demand.
- Archos should release a $150 screen-less set-top-box with Android, with only 8GB built-in storage, but possibility to connect any EXT3 formatted USB hard drive or a local NAS to expand storage for DVR functions and for Video downloads also using BitTorrent and RSS. What is cool that you can see in this video of the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, is that this is a proof that Archos certainly has the hardware and software know-how to make this happen. Once the easy-to-use Youtube HD set-top-box arrives with BitTorrent, RSS and USB hard drives storage support, for below $100 to $150, I think Video-on-demand and the real IPTV revolution will finally really happen.
Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android provides the worlds first 800×480 4.8″ Android experience on an ARM Cortex A8 processor. It loads websites super fast and smooth. It plays all video codecs from DivX, WMV, Mpeg2 and H264 even MKV video files at up to 1280×720 resolution. There are thousands of compatible Android applications (now or later..) and more to test and to report on every day in the http://forum.archosfans.com as developers are optimizing their applications for Archos 800×480 resolution screen.
Why it’s the best: (better than ipod touch, zune HD and other Android smartphones)
- The screen is 2x larger at 4.8″ vs. 3.5″
- The screen resolution is 2.5x higher at 800×480 vs. 480×320
- The processor is 3-4 times faster with ARM Cortex A8 vs. ARM11 (the new ipod touch released last month does have ARM Cortex A8 as well though)
- It plays back every video codecs, including DivX, XviD, WMV, Mpeg2, VOB, H264, MP4, MOV, MKV up to 1280×720 and audio codecs Mp3, Flac, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, AC3 and WMA. Even RMVB might be supported (I have not tested RMVB yet)
- This device can stream Youtube HD and any other HD video format directly from the web over WiFi-N. It’s basically also a 180gr $200 (street price for 8GB version) full Blu-ray replacement. On the 500GB version (soon $400 street price), you can basically walk around with 120 Blu-ray quality movies in your pocket to connect and play on any HDTV using the HDMI Mini Dock.
- Archos comes with up to 500GB built-in storage for the hard drive based models.
- MicroSD card slot on the Flash based models.
- HDMI output through the HDMI Mini Dock (price not known yet) or the DVR Station ($130 or lower)
- USB and Bluetooth keyboards and mice are supported
- WiFi-N provides more bandwidth and broader coverage for connecting to WiFi Internet
- 3G Bluetooth tethering through a mobile phone for Internet when you are outside of reach of WiFi hotspots
- Video-recording and scheduling with electronic program guide like a Tivo (with the optional DVR Station $130 or below)
- Real GPS built-in for Archos provided Android GPS application or for any other Android based GPS and location based applications
- FM receiver and transmitter built-in
- Samba and UPNP file sharing for streaming of HD movies and TV shows on your local network (I have not tested this feature yet, I am waiting for my Fonera 2.0n to arrive hopefully next week)
- 1280×720 Android Desktop experience when outputting the screen to a HDTV using HDMI. This is the worlds first 1280×720 Android experience. Apps could be optimized for this in the coming months, for example I am expecting to see the full high resolution compatible and optimized Google Chrome available for ARM Cortex A8 based Android devices in the coming few months.
- All that, and it still fits in a pocket, it does not cost more than the ipod touch or zune HD, it is much cheaper than the currently available HTC and Samsung Android phones (at least when bought unlocked) and it is only 1.5x heavier than the ipod touch.
The Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android is, I think, the most significant alternative to Apple’s and Microsoft’s portable multimedia consumer electronics products on the market for real tech geeks. In my opinion, Archos already has released the industry’s best ipod touch and zune HD killer with what we have now. Even though I do look forward to them improving a few things in firmware updates to come in the next weeks and months.
What Archos can improve in the next firmware updates:
- They should fix the audio-synch issue with H264 720p HD video files such as MKV HD and Youtube HD playback. I am confident Archos can fix this in on of the soon to come firmware updates. Mostly the audio-synch issue I am experiencing is only very slightly noticable and the TV episodes as still very watchable and look fantastic using HDMI output from Archos 5 Internet Tablet to my 42″ HDTV.
- They should try to support more than 3500kbit/s MKV high profile h264 720p so that MKV 720p 4GB+ movies will play smoothly and that MKV 720p TV episodes will not sometimes drop some frames (usually for 1-3 seconds) on the high peak bitrate scenes (see my tests of MKV high profile h264 720p playback in this forum thread http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=26603)
- Hopefully Archos can add support for the DTS audio codec, which is often used in 4GB+ MKV 720p movies.
- USB Webcams or Headmounted camera for live video broadcasting applications like Ustream and Qik.
- USB 3G Dongles would be really useful even though carrying and connecting the USB 3G dongle to a Mini Dock, HDMI Mini Dock or Battery Dock is not the most compact of setups.
- Archos has promised Android 1.6, Android 2.0 and Flash 10.1 support in updates. It’d be nice to see all these officially add support for all the Google apps such as Gmail client, Google Maps, Google Contacts, Google Listen and the Google Marketplace for apps, considering it should be possible for Google to just filter the apps for Archos’s specific screen resolution and also filter out apps that require the Camcorder and the electronic compass, unless Archos does provide a Dock or USB webcam and headmounted camera add-on support that ads support for those features.
- It will be interesting to see if Archos specific hardware advantages will be taken advantage of by third party Android application developers. For example, it will be interesting to see if third party developers will be able to provide some apps that support HD video streaming, peer-to-peer downloading and streaming, video games emulation up to N64 and Dreamcast, advanced 3D games such as Quake3, and many other such really advanced things.
- It is going to be interesting to see also up to what extent Archos, Google and third party developers can take advantage of the 1280×720 output when using the HDMI output to a HDTV. I would like to be able to use my Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android as a full Desktop/Laptop replacement. That is, if the ARM Cortex A8 platform inside of it and with all the hardware acceleration can be powerful enough to provide me with the complete performance that I need for full screen, full keyboard and mouse computing.
If they can quickly improve the firmware with these improvements and added features, I believe the Archos Android Tablet could become the absolute must have product for all geeks.
In my next videos that I will post here during the next few days, I plan to show you 3G Bluetooth tethering, Youtube HD playback (which now works in todays new Firmware update 1.2.03), some awesome Android apps that work, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse fun, remote desktop, local and remote file sharing and streaming and many more awesome features.
Some pictures:
I posted some high resolution pictures of it comparing it to things you might know the size of (click on the images to see them in full size on Google Picasa):
The next hardware:
For the next Archos Phone range due to be released or shown at CES in January 2010, I wish for Archos to integrate a Pixel Qi 3Qi Capacitative touchscreen (watch my video from Computex http://techvideoblog.com/computex/pixel-qi-screen-demo-live-from-taipei/), a 720p camcorder and an electronic compass together with the 3G HSDPA sim card modem. Archos is getting to be very close to absolute perfection in mobile computing.
Full disclosure:
Full disclosure: I am the biggest Archos fanboy in the world. I run the worlds biggest Archos fans community here at http://archosfans.com and at http://forum.archosfans.com and have done so for the past 5 years. Archos did send me this new Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android 4 days ago for free and have told me that I could keep it since I also need it to support the thousands of Archos users in my online community.
Review showing this very compact and light 3LED projector, one of the first in the world with built-in USB host functionality to playback DivX mpeg4 files from a USB flash memory or from a FAT32 formatted hard drive. It has great colors and performs great for its size. Having a built-in USB reader means you can play movies on it directly without the need to use a computer or a video player device to playback the video formats. Yet the BenQ Joybee GP1 mini projector does not yet support Mp3 audio nor AC3 audio in DivX/XviD Mpeg4 files, thus audio contents has to be re-encoded mostly thus far to the PCM or the AAC format. BenQ can update the firmware so I will update this description if I hear any confirmation by them that they are adding Mp3 audio support on it.
These type of super compact 3LED projectors are getting cheap enough, bright enough, sharp enough, with very nice colors and easy to use enough so I think that it may become a very popular product.
Review of the Archos 2 mp3 player, the current cheapest mp3 player with 8GB ($59), 16GB ($99), 4GB ($39) having such a nice color 1.8″ LCD screen for videos and pictures. It’s main selling point is that it’s much cheaper than the competing devices by Sandisk, Dell, and Apple’s ipod nano.
Review of the Archos 5 TV Snap-On accessory that let’s you watch and record DVB-T (freeview) signals city-wide and country-wide for most European countries which already have good DVB-T coverage. It comes with a dual diversity antenna system that allows you to get the best reception for a mobile DVB-T receiver, it picks in real-time the best available signal while you walk around or move your device around when at the football match, at work, in school, on the bus, on the train, anywhere especially in densely populated areas which have good DVB-T coverage.
This is the video-on-demand set-top-box by Verismo Networks, a Moutain View California and Bangalore company, it is also available as a $99 VN100SD Std-Def POD (with S-video output instead of HDMI) but the one that I am reviewing is the $149 VN1000HD with HDMI 720p full codecs support. You can read the specifications about this box at http://vunow.com
The $149 VN1000HD and $99 VN100SD are based on arguably the best and the most advanced SoC ARM and DSP solution on the market, the Texas Instruments DaVinci processor which gives the VuNow a value that you probably wont currently be able to find in any other set-top-box at this price:
- works without the need to have a computer in the home,
- plays all Youtube videos directly from the Internet,
- plays live pre-listed webtv streaming channels,
- uses http://vtap.com to pull search results for videos accross many more video portals then just Youtube,
- integrates movie rentals as progressively downloaded video-on-demand, (If the movie bitrate is higher then your available download bandwidth, then you can wait a few minutes before starting to watch the movie while it continues to download to the USB storage)
- can download videos and movies using BitTorrent peer-to-peer technology, you can also add torrents to it from a computer using a web-based interface,
- also has the basic media streamer functionality connecting to DLNA and NAS devices on the local network.
During my current testing of this box with its initial pre-loaded firmware, I notice that there currently are a few missing features in my opinion, those could be described as part of my list of initial feature requests and those could possibly be added to the box from the VuNow software team in upcoming firmware updates. I am told that the box does support automatic online firmware upgrades through a main menu popup notification:
- 720p Youtube is not yet available in their interface, (it’d be nice that it automatically display Youtube’s highest available bitrate quality based on the box’s detected available bandwidth)
From the VuNow.com FAQ:
Q. Can I play the new YouTube HD videos on the PoD?
A. No. Not currently. You will be notified when this feature becomes available.
- some other sites then Youtube don’t work yet in the http://vtap.com search results, (It might not yet show a huge amount of video-blog video-podcast RSS feeds and episodes within the http://vtap.com search results)
- WPA WiFi encryption is not yet supported using the WiFi dongle, (only WEP and open access points are supported yet, FON WiFi hotspots are not yet supported because they require a browser login process and the browser is not yet available)
- My USB1 keyboard is not yet supported for text input when searching videos, (but the keyboard is detected, Enter button pauses and resumes video for now. It’d be cool to post Youtube comments using a wireless keyboard. A comments and live chat interface overlay would have a great potential.)
- .mpg, H264 .mp4 720p, DivX .avi 720p from a USB hard drive are not yet working (perhaps I need to activate the “Premium” codecs somewhere in the interface, or perhaps they are not added yet in the firmware. The advertised video resolution support is of 720p but the exact details about which codecs at what bitrates has not been detailed clearly yet within the specifications of the device.)
- NTFS formatted USB hard drives are not yet supported neither to read or to write from,
- when progressively downloading a rented movie, fast forwarding or skiping in the video is not yet possible until the video has been completely downloaded to the USB storage,
- there currently is a thin layer of a few green pixels on the right side of the screen in HDMI output mode on my European PAL LCD HDTV using the VuNow HD box. I will look further if there is something in the settings that I need to change or perhaps VuNow need to fix this in a firmware update.
In my further upcoming testing, I am going to test how BitTorrent is used on this box. How the Box Control feature allows me to add Torrents to the box’s download manager remotely using the web based Interface, if there is some way to add BitTorrent and plain link video RSS feeds to the box and if those can be set to be automatically downloaded in the background with some way to alert on new available episodes and on auto-downloading of new episodes and if there is some way to submit more live web tv stream sources. I will test how it manages NAS storage and if it can use NAS storage to store downloaded video contents.
In my opinion, the VuNow VN1000HD is getting pretty close to having a perfect hardware with the best yet available chipset on the market. That is, if Texas Instruments and Verismo Networks can confirm that this hardware will support Youtube HD, thus 1280×720 resolution H264 video streaming. If it can write downloaded files onto an NTFS formatted USB hard drive, even automatically onto several USB hard drives using a USB Hub or onto writable NAS storage, then I think that it would make things easier then having to use FAT32 or EXT3 formatted hard drives for storage of all those video downloads.
The scenario of users sitting back in their sofas with wireless keyboards and ergonomic remote controls has a huge potential to change the way people spend their 3-4 hours on average each day infront of their TVs, so really, I believe that Verismo Networks needs to optimize the interface experience in the upcoming firmware updates if they want to start a mass market Internet video-on-demand to the TV revolution.
Archos has been working on the same type of autonomous video-on-demand set-top-box solution with the Archos TV+ also using the same technology from Texas Instruments, though Archos provides built-in storage and more features such as video recording which positions Archos at a higher price. The $99 set-top-box price point I believe is really the correct price point which can kick-start a real media consumption revolution in society which I believe will not only decentralize the production of mass media content, it will also improve our democracy and change election results in certain countries such as France, Italy and Denmark where the traditional TV channels have such a huge monopoly on the influence of public opinion during elections. The VuNow solution is the kind of revolution that I am waiting for.
