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Comment by iamdave | Hacker News Reader

Well I could be wrong but it looks like in one of those screenshots it has a USB port; what's stopping someone from just getting a keyboard and using it?

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Yes, the prototype clearly has USB, ethernet, and VGA.

Realistically, though, why would anyone bother to plug a keyboard into this thing? Why wouldn't you just use your laptop or desktop?

That's cool if it has VGA I could charge it and then at same time have it connected to my LCD TV to watch Internet TV. Use wireless handheld mouse for remote.

I think VGA is only there for prototyping purposes. This tablet probably doesn't have the power to output a very good resolution or decode high quality video for your LCD TV. You're better off getting a cheap computer and sticking MythTV on it.

My Eee PC 701 outputs at full 1360 x 768 on my 720p LCD TV. I can't imagine this tablet having less "power" than the Eee PC 701.

On the other hand, I would be a little surprised if the final version did have VGA out.

How well does it decode video? It looks like your Eee has an integrated Intel GMA 900 GPU - what does the tablet have?

The MacBook Air can't even play HD video without stuttering. How does your Eee hold up?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=636511

No, Flash on a MacBook Air can't play HD without stuttering. Flash imposes an enormous processing overhead. The GPU doesn't even enter into it because Flash 9 does not have GPU-accelerated video decoding. The same h.264 stream plays fine in native players on systems half as powerful.

To answer your question, with my current config (Ubuntu Eee 8.04) standard def plays fine. HD from sites like vimeo definitely stutters. Youtube does some sort of resolution detection and always gives a "this video has been removed" error for HD since it thinks I'm running at 800x480, even when I'm outputing solely to an external monitor (and I am certain the video exists).

Arrington mentioned in the comments that the VGA was just for the prototype. Will be going away in the real version. The only ports will be 1 USB, headphones, and power.

How do you hook up the screen into a nice position? The reason laptops work well is because the screen can be positioned well.

Apparently you use legos to build a stand.

Or as non-Americans call it, "Lego"

</pedantic>

Arrington mentions in the comments that the lego stand was just for their temp use. The final product will ship with a stand.

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