ARM-powered Ubuntu 'Webbook" Launches in South Africa
Vodafone officially launches its Ubuntu-based netbook in South Africa today, which will be distributed by local telco Vodacom.
Netbooks might not be everyone's cup of tea. However, when you're targeting a market that has poor access to any form of computing device, netbooks are a good balance between the practicality of a larger laptop and achieving the lowest possible manufacturing cost. Add a free (as in freedom and beer) operating system into the mix which has been tested and tweaked for the hardware and what do you come up with? The Vodafone Webbook.
The specs for this machine aren't going to blow you away. It's a standard 10.1" netbook form factor weighing in at a feathery 2.14 lb (0.97 kg), including the 2200 mAh battery. With a mere 512MB of DDR2 RAM and 4GB of flash storage, users of the Webbook won't be running any intensive applications or storing their entire family photo album. Assuming that Unity 2D is the default desktop shell being used, RAM consumption by the operating system should be low enough to allow common preloaded software such as LibreOffice (the fork of OpenOffice.org which ships with 11.10) and Firefox to be run relatively smoothly. No specific tweaks were made to improve performance or battery life, with the primary modification being the addition of content relevant to the market.
Most of the hardware specs are reminiscent of the original ASUS Eee PC. The most interesting hardware feature for the Webbook is its processor. In order to cut costs and power consumption, Vodafone went with an 800 MHz Freescale iMX515 (based on the ARM Cortex-A8), making this netbook the first to ship with a mainstream Linux distribution compiled for the ARM architecture, rather than x86.
“Ubuntu's founding principle is to remove the barriers of access to computing for everyone,” said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, the primary commercial backer of Ubuntu.
The base unit will cost 1499 ZAR (~190 USD). Adding a prepaid SIM and modem with 100 MB of data per month for 12 months will increase the cost to 1899 ZAR (~240 USD). There are also contract options.
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de5_Roy price is too high for a netbook with 800 mhz cpu, 512 mb ddr2(OLD) ram, 4 gb flash storage. there are $130 laptops and $60 tablets. :(Reply -
Stardude82 Actually, that's a pretty good deal considering you pay $10/month for that data plan in the States...Reply -
cookoy that's $50 for 100mb per month for 12 months, ~$5/month. Still wouldn't buy anything with less than 2gb ram and 16gb storage.Reply -
feeddagoat cookoythat's $50 for 100mb per month for 12 months, ~$5/month. Still wouldn't buy anything with less than 2gb ram and 16gb storage.cats_pawI thought the idea was to make faster and cheaper devices, not slower... The market its aimed at will be happy to even have a laptop never mind a fast one. Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth.Reply -
Pherule I wonder if there's an option to get one without the data plan. With the data plan I suspect the netbook will be useless to many people as far as price goes. Too bad about the 4GB storage. Nice that it's flash, but really, you can't do much with 4GB nowadays.Reply
100MB per month - almost makes you wonder if they are on drugs. 5GB per month should be the bare minimum for that price. -
alidan de5_royprice is too high for a netbook with 800 mhz cpu, 512 mb ddr2(OLD) ram, 4 gb flash storage. there are $130 laptops and $60 tablets.Reply
that arm will last you how long though?
ddr2 or ddr3, doesnt really matter at all, speed wise, these aren't high powered machines and 512 of ddr2 was probably cheaper than a gig of 3
4gb flash is good enough for the os to boot, keep in mind, not ment for storage, just getting online, in touch with people and such