Topic: Two laptops in one?

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

LONDON — The idea of adding smartphone capability to the conventional notebook PC may seem like a bit of a gimmick at first sight. But the idea of doing email and other basic operations while increasing battery life by a factor of ten compared with the same operations on an Intel processor certainly appeals.

Note the ten fold increase in battery life.

The Dell Latitude E4200 and E4300 laptop computers run a version of Linux as an "instant-on" operating system on ARM-based hardware with flash memory. This subsystem is separate to the main Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system running on an Intel Core2 Duo processor. In theory, users can do email and other light applications under Linux, Mozilla and so on, and only need switch to the Windows operating system and the Intel processor for the heavier applications.

The equation that Wintel equals hours of battery life while Linux-ARM equals days of battery life is simplistic, but for that reason it is easily remembered and a marketeer's dream.

How many laptops are mostly running web browsing and E-Mail?  A substantial increase in battery life when doing those things may well be worthwhile to many people.  Now how long until they make an ARM based laptop without the intel or AMD chip inside at all?  A super netbook if you will.

[Javora]

My friend works with ARM based chips with his work as an Electrical Engineer, he has told me a lot about those chips and I've sat and watched while he programs them.  Mind you I have a fair amount (if outdated) of programing experience myself.  Anyway, given all of that, the ARM chip is a ways away from doing the things that a 'super netbook' that you are thinking of.  The great thing that a ARM chip has going for it is that it works with only 3~5 Hz of power.  That is where the extended battery life is coming from.  I'm not sure how much more a ARM chip can do without a serious die shrink.  I think that the best chance of a super netbook happening right now revolves around the Intel Atom chip.

While a ARM based netbook might not be here in the near future, a ARM based sentry gun would totally kick @$$.  No laptop computer would be required for something like that. 

http://kotaku.com/5024636/some-guy-went-and-built-a-sentry-gun

[Nemesis]

By "super netbook" I meant super in size not computing performance.  Some people feel that the screens and keyboards are too small.  A full size laptop configured otherwise like a netbook would suit some of them.

If the ARM chip isn't up to it I suspect the MIPS chip is and Linux netbooks (normal or supersize) can also run on it.