* 9.4″ x 7″ x 1.4″ for 2 lbs (with keyboard)
* ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip
* 1024×600 8.9” screen
* Storage: 8GB micro SD card
* WIFI 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth
* 3-dimensional accelerometer
* Speakers, micro and headphone
* 6 USB 2.0 (3 internal, 2 external, 1 mini)
* 10h to 15 hours of battery life

Also hardware is OpenSource schematics are published on website.

http://prototypemadereal.blogspot.com/

There is the iFrame from Olivier Seres, the CrunchPad and the OS from Tarik Krim, Jolicloud.

The MID should be the look of the PRS-700 e-reader but with all the fancy features, is that possible ?

How much money do you need for that ?

Is it possible to have the SSD on the mainboard ?

however, i do think that a hybrid netbook/webpad would be nice too. as long as the keyboard could double as a stand, be hidden behind the unit and/or be removed all together… like a mini HP tc1100 and other slate tablet hybrids with detachable keyboards.

funny how people always seem to need to take sides instead of seeing the value in all hardware designs.

as for techcrunch. they can do this project as a novelty but they are too late to be an early entrant into the market because i am certain the competition will be fierce. apple will have a larger iTouch and that alone would be too much to compete against. nevermind ALL the big computer brands will have their own webpads within 2 years. so why should techcrunch bother? i say, good job getting a discussion around the concept and possibly igniting more agressive efforts by the companies that are properly equipped to deliver these devices to the market.

I’m thinking of my 77 year old mother. With this should could:

- have an on-screen icon to get her email. She doesn’t type, so tapping out a response with the on-screen keyboard would be good enough. All of her mails tend to be a few words or one or 2 sentences

- have on-screen icons linked to the two or three websites she likes to visit

- have an icon that links to a photo site where she can see pitures of the grand kids

I’d have to take a few minutes to set it up for her, but I think a tablet like this might be less intimidating to her than firing up the desktop.

I currently have a desktop set very much like this, but she voiced a desire to be able to “look at the internet and read my letters” from several spots in the house. This device she would carry around. A laptop is a bit much and a netbook screen is too small. And as she puts it, “you always have to wait for it to turn on.”

Just my thoughts…

I

What I basically would like is an iPod touch with a larger screen, say a 10 inch screen. But the cost escalating above impulse purchase price makes this all a thought exercise as opposed to something that I’d actually buy.

This device is largely the same spec as the Crunchpad, save for screen (and keyboard). And I paid the target price for Arrington’s device.

I think the Crunchpad makes more sense if it is physically much smaller and ditches x86. For the defined purpose of the device (a superset of web browser) there is no good reason to stay x86, as it is too expensive from a hardware as well as power budget perspective. I should think ARM makes more sense, especially something like the Nvidia Tegra platform, or whatever Cortex processor is in the Archos 5 and 7 devices. I personally would be interested in a device that was the physical size of my Sony PRS505 reader in it’s leather case. Roughly that of a paperback book.

The real bogey is if Apple makes an upsized iPod Touch. If that screen grew to ~5-7 inches, Apple would sell more at the probable $500 price than Arrington could sell at $200, let alone $300.

Remember the quote from Steve Jobs when asked about if Apple would make a netbook, he said they wouldn’t enter that market because they didn’t know how to make a $500 computer that wasn’t junk. They do know how to make an iPod Touch that isn’t. More screen, more battery, and Boom! they’re done designing it. The Touch gives lie to the thought that x86 is needed for rendering the complicated pages of today. Linux with a flash plugin on a Webkit browser would be formidable.

Patrick

and this is the alternative device they create?

i guess they see now it isnt as easy as they thought it was. there is so much fundamentally wrong with this that it isnt even worth my time listing.

Arrington thinks that the netbook fills a niche, and no one wants or needs them. Sales of netbooks are proving otherwise.

He’s trying to plug a hole that doesn’t need filling.

i do think the android tablet idea may have some merit though.