Cherrypal Mini-Laptop Now Runs Android

kriston writes in about a new development with the Cherrypal mini laptop, which we discussed last December. "The Cherrypal Asia laptop is now shipping with Google Android installed (product page). This replaces the older Cherrypal Asia mini laptops that were running either Windows CE or a custom Linux. The $148 version has a 1024x600 screen while the sub-$100 model runs 800x480. Both laptops run the ARM9-based VIA 8505 SoIC platform at 533 MHz with 256 megabytes of RAM and 2 gigabytes of NAND flash. I'm looking forward to seeing how Android can squeeze more throughput out of the VIA 8505, since Windows CE didn't do such a great job on the original Cherrypal Asia."

flexible specs

[naz404]

AFAIK, Cherrypal delivers different kinds of laptops at different times.

What's advertised on their website is the *minimum* specs that they guarantee you'll get. This means, when the unit actually ships to you, you can get a machine with specs actually higher than what was advertised on their site.

From what I've heard, Cherrypal basically shops around for different parts/configs that they can get at a particular time, then they build machines out of those assorted parts -- that's why customers will get different kinds of machines with varying specs.

Android IS a custom Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Android IS a custom Linux, no?

We have been playing on these since a while

[nextvolume]

We have been playing on these since a while... well, they're not exactly CherryPals, but they're totally compatible (after all the CherryPals are just stuff they get from Chinese factories with their logos on). And yes, they have a WonderMedia WM8505 processor. Here is our forum about this: http://tinyurl.com/easypc-forum [tinyurl.com] And there is also a version of Linux running on the previous models by Cherrypal (for example the Africa) which has a VIA VT8500 instead of the WonderMedia WM8505 at http://tails92.sepwich.com/easypc_linux [sepwich.com]

Re:Android IS a custom Linux

[quantumplacet]

what the hell are you talking about? you said android is just linux, not custom linux. i pointed out that it is somewhat customized, and now (i think) you're claiming that android is NOT linux if i follow your horrendous analogy. wouldn't that refute your original point more than my response?

either way the analogy is absolutely atrocious, since the situations could not be more different. android is currently a customized version of the kernel, which still takes in new changes from upstream but is not merging all of it's changes back. apache took over for ncsa httpd since it was being abandoned by ncsa, so there was nowhere to merge back up to and nothing to get new changes from.