New Web-Based Netbook From Litl — Based On Clutter, Uncluttered

cananian writes "The webbook company of Gnome's own Havoc Pennington (with a healthy dose of ex-Nokia and ex-OLPC engineers) finally shed its secrecy today, with a new web site and an article in the WSJ. Technical specs on the hardware were found by Engadget last week, and now comes a bit more information on the software behind the UI. Most of the client software is written in JavaScript with GTK/Clutter bindings, and the UI has some superficial similarities to Pentagram's designs for OLPC's Sugar."

$700?

[BonquiquiShiquavius]

Why would anyone spend $700 buy a device that is dependent on the web to function, when a netbook costs half and can access the web and still function when offline?

Re:let me be the first

[Abreu]

Really? Why?

It looks like a regular Atom netbook... Why pay $700.00USD when you can get a netbook with similar specs for half that price...

Re:let me be the first

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it looks kind of lame to me. I already have a netbook, a laptop, a desktop, a TV, a Blackberry, and a Nintendo DS. I don't know which one of these devices litl is supposed to replace, nor, frankly, do I care. I give it points for versatility, but it will need to undergo further refinement if it wants to find a permanent spot in households.

Hmm...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Cute; but I'm really not seeing ~$500 worth of improvement over a mini9 running Moblin. Or buying a netbook for normal use, a chumby for widgets, and booze with the rest.

$699

[harris s newman]

For $699 I can get two eee 10" netbooks. Forget it!

Seriously, somebody's been drinking the kool aid

[Croakus]

This is a classic example of what happens when a bunch of engineers get together and they're all so dead on convinced that they've got the next great idea that they don't stop for 15 minutes to look at the market, learn what their potential customers actually want, or even write up a business plan. No one is going to pay $700 for one of these. It's just not going to work. How is a salesman at Best Buy supposed to talk me into buying a device that has no hard drive, a tiny screen, stores all of my data out on the Internet, and doesn't run Microsoft Office when there's a cool looking 15" laptop siting right beside it for the same price? It's just not going to happen. Mark my words. This will all end in tears.

Re:Can I build my OWN Back-End "Cloud"?

[agoliveira]

Yes, you can.
Check on the new Ubuntu Server 9.10. It does have all the tools you need to create a private cloud.

finally a computer for grandma

[amoeba1911]

This is going to be more awesome than WebTV! Because old people REALLY DO want to use computers... despite not being able to use a cell phone.

I foresee a not so Litl flop on the horizon.

Re:let me be the first

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It is going to get killed by Chrome OS netbooks.The product will launch, there will be some optimistic quotes from Havoc and his friends around on the open source websites about how cool this thing is, and a few unique features they are really proud of. Unfortunately, the general populace of non-geeks couldn't care less about these features, and all the geeks have their eyes fixed on all the awesome Chrome OS and Android devices coming out, so few even realize that Litl's product exist. Sales of the device will be record low and just a few months after launch, the company files for Chapter 11. Havoc writes an entry on his blog, saying that he still thinks the product that no one has heard of had some really cool features, but that regrettably there was no longer a place for it in the tough market for mobile devices. Had he known that such high-profile players as Google were entering the space, he probably would never have betted on it in the first place, but alas - he took a chance on a cool idea, but it just weren't good enough. Litl is all but forgotten, and Havoc is hired for a boring wage-worker position in an established company once more, as his story fades into obscurity. The end.

As I sat a Starbucks in Boston today

[MarceloR2]

the folks from Litl started setting up their demo table. I glanced over and saw that they had a small gadget that looked like a laptop (appeared to be the size of of a Macbook Air) with a flip screen. As I was reading an interesting article, I overheard some explanation of what the machine did and I was tempted to get up and check it out as I am always open to new gadgets. However, that temptation quickly went away when I overheard the price being quoted after the explanation of what it did. For a good five or ten minutes I put my reading material aside and tried to imagine just what market this device is trying to cater to that one would be able to justify paying $695 (the price I overheard) for. In my quest, I came up empty handed and promptly went back to my reading. At lunch time I got up and left without so much as glancing at the demo table. I doubt any reasonable person will spend more than a minute in the same quest before they promptly dismiss it.

CRAP

[Anonymous Coward]

This is insane crap- the problem with this is that for 300 bucks more you can buy a mac and get the warm fuzzies that the litle is trying to sell you.

when looking thru the website and seeing the specs I thought wow maybe 150-250 bucks I would get one. then I found out its 700 bucks and all my personal photos, etc will be combed thru by the NSA, google and whoever else cause in america you dont need a warrant anymore. fuck that. they should pay me for putting my shit on the cloud. and when they go under I have a 700 dollar door stop. good value prop.

If it was ARM, then it would have a chance

[thatkid_2002]

If this was ARM based, I would probably jump on it (and it would probably be a little cheaper) but it is just the standard netbook with a fancy interface. There is plenty of fancy interfaces around so I don't know how this Litl plans to compete.
There is a lack of good ARM based netbooks! Always Innovating has the only half decent one.