Lenovo shows new Android laptop in user manual [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo shows new Android laptop in user manual [pdf]

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If I could find a 12" or 13" Android laptop with a nice screen, good keyboard, no fan, and decent specs I'd use it as my primary machine. Debian kit+console+a decent editor is all I need for work, and for play Android has more and better apps than Ubuntu or any other Linux distro.

It's about time manufecturers started producing them.

I'd actually like one a bit bigger, like 14" or 15", with touchscreen, and which dual-boots standard Linux and Android, both as first-class citizens (you can usually hack Linux booting via chroots into Android devices, but I'd rather just have the dual-booting supported at the BIOS level with no goofy hacks).

I would buy the hell out of a system like this.

Hasn't the Oyua shown that most Android apps are pretty terrible if not used on a touchscreen device? For the features you want, it's going to be comparably priced to a $1000 Surface Pro.

This is a touchscreen device.

The big failures exist in the 3rd-party apps and the home-screen. With a custom home-screen and a secondary app-store full of key/mouse-friendly apps? You could make a comfy Android/Netbook experience.

I think the Oyua has really shown also that games work well with a controller. Many android games are just trying to use the screen to emulate what we're used to (buttons, d-pad, analog sticks, etc)

It's debatable whether it's shown that, but it doesn't give us much information about this device even if that's true. The statement that Android apps are terrible on non-touchscreens doesn't necessarily tell us anything about how good they are on touch-capable devices.

Isn't that (with the exception of "Android") what Chromebooks are?

Actually, I wonder how much effort it would take to get Android userland running on top of ChromeOS. Naively, you could just write a JVM-equivalent for Dalvik (providing the same runtime services to native code.) Or you could just apply a static transformation to the Dalvik executable to turn native syscalls into calls to PPAPI, and call the result an NaCl binary.

Can be done, but a expensive project for sure..

I think the whole thing are pretty messed up..

We shouldnt be choosing between freedom to run whatever we want in our own machines against the convenience of a fat application layer and the apps that are more easilly found in iOS and Android..

We should have both worlds in only one platform.. thats what the industry are having a hard time to figure it out..

I hope when my project are launched, i can make my point more clearly by using a practical implementation to address some really bad scenarios for user and developer freedom. that are coming ahead

Well there are similar tablets, I think the one below was around $250: http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/android-tablet-reviews/voyo-...

You would have to find a case + keyboard though.

> 'Debian kit+console+a decent editor is all I need for work'

Android only has a Linux kernel, there's no GNU userspace, much less the rest of Debian. Android doesn't have a lot of desktop-style programmers editors.

Nice. Also HP already sells an Android laptop:

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/x2/slatebook-x2.html

Seems very similar to the Asus Transformer, another table with a keyboard docking station that makes it laptop-like.

For everyone complaining about using Android without a touch screen, you have obviously never done it. I have an MK808 and MK908ii Android stick (the latter of which uses the same chip set as this Lenovo) with a Logitech wireless keyboard+track pad combo as my media center. It works flawlessly, and the latest Chrome build is fast and stable. I can access my NAS and stream movies over Samba without worrying about the format, or having to have the NAS box do any stupid transcoding etc.

Best $65 I've ever spent ($130 including the keyboard).

I own a Chrome boom as well, and while I can see the benefits of ChromeOS, Android is vastly more functional. For example, the method I outlined above for streaming movies wouldn't be possible with ChromeOS unless I booted another distro in a chroot(like with crouton).

Lenovo IdeaPad A10 Specifications:

10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen

Resolution: 1366 x 768 pixels

RAM: 1GB / 2GB based on storage

Processor: Quad-core Rockchip RK3188 processor, 1.6 GHz

OS: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Storage: 16GB / 32GB versions, expandable with MicroSD card

(I'd like to see an Android laptop that takes itself seriously, with proper storage, screen, etc)

I stopped being interested after "Resolution: 1366 x 768 pixels".

thats actually fine for a 10"

Only if low end. Compare to the 2x res of a nexus 7, for example.

What I dread is the ratio, not the actual resolution.

Fuck 16:9.

Windows is going to wrecked in the low-end hardware market since switching to Android could shave $100 off the cost of a cheap machine.

The net cost of windows for an OEM is probably lower than $100. It is often offset by all the trial software and things.

and if the OEM continue to put all the trials and other bloat (and why not? :), now in Android version, it would allow for those $100 saving

And in fact they do exactly that with phones.

Not sure about that. Netbooks didn’t really work. This seems similar to netbooks. Many of those also didn’t have Windows but at least some sort of explicit desktop UI. This is a mobile UI on a desktop device. Not sure how to square that.

Netbooks worked until Microsoft intentionally killed them.

Netbooks worked just fine. Intel stopped updating their cpus for them and Microsoft wouldn't offer a lightweight OS to support them after XP was EOLed. Intel/MS purposefully killed the netbook. I know plenty of people who'd rather have a decent netbook over their tablet.

If you're talking license costs, I don't think Windows costs OEMs anything after the crapware is factored in.

And that crapware is one reason why Chromebooks feel about $100 nicer than they should.

Ideally we'd be looking at Cyanogenmod fully and easily supported on Chromebook hardware, but they seem busy enough, and until then this might have to do the trick.

The real problem is finding a laptop that isn't built like crap, and I would doubt anything of this nature is going to change that.

"The real problem is finding a laptop that isn't built like crap"

The other day I went to Best Buy with the intent of buying a non-Apple laptop to make it easier for me to do some Windows development. I left empty handed after being appalled by the bulky plastic machines I found. It felt like the PC laptop industry hadn't evolved in the last 10 years since I switched to Macs. They did get somewhat thinner and nicer at the high end, but then I was getting no price benefit over just buying a Mac.

I think your first problem was looking for a professional-quality computer at Best Buy. They've always been full of cheap plastic junk that can only be pushed on unknowing consumers.

Have you considered the Thinkpad X1 Carbon, Yoga 13, Vaio 11/13 or Asus Zenbook?

Yoga 13 is available at the Best Buy by me. First time in a while I've been envious of a non-mac laptop. IMHO, non-mac design has come a long way (finally!) in the last few years.

Best Buy also has the XPS 13

If anyone's in the market for a new computer, keep in mind that the new version of the Yoga is about to be released, it's going to have a retina quality IPS panel instead of an HD+. Also the old ones have been on the outlet for as low as $500 recently, so you can save quite a bit of money if you don't get it at Best Buy.

I really hope we get the IPS retina panel for $1100. I would probably preorder a computer for the first time in my life if this happened.

But at those prices, why not just get a MacBook Air? Sure, the build quality of the Zenbook is getting close to that of a MBA, but it's still has a ways to go yet it costs the same (or even more). Sure, it may have better specs, but really, for most people's use cases, the MBA is more than fast enough.

Why should the MacBook Air be the default choice? Most people don't want to run OS X, they want to run Windows. A notebook designed to run Windows will do so better than one that's been highly optimized by a competitor.

My Thinkpad T430s let me change the memory to that of my choosing, add an mSATA stick of my choosing, change hard drives of my choosing, has an extra mini-pci slot, expresscard slot, supports Linux well, replace the DVD drive with another battery, and has a superb online manual that lets me (or anyone else) make any repairs or updates.

At the end of the day it is my machine to do with as I please. Apple's stuff not so much.

Other happy T430 user here. You forgot to mention the stellar keyboard and trackpoint. And yes, it's very easy to disassemble. On the other hand, it is a full laptop, not really an ultrabook. But I wouldn't trade it for Apple hardware.

I've been using an X230 as my personal laptop for a while and I absolutely love it. Comparing it to my work T430, it's smaller, with a vastly better screen (IPS, albeit lower resolution) and on the whole it doesn't make too many compromises versus the T series.

I second the Lenovo service manuals. Behind the excellent Linux support they're the reason I buy Thinkpads. Not only can you completely disassemble them, reading through their service manuals it's almost like Lenovo encourages you to do it. Compared to this, a teardown of the 2013 Macbook Air makes for some pretty depressing reading: soldered RAM, proprietary SSD modules, proprietary screws, etc. I get why people buy the Air and Ultrabooks, but I'm glad the T and X series are still around and still dependable workhorses that you can service yourself with nothing more complicated than a swiss army knife.

reason i never bought lenovos: i cant see them before i buy. takes a month or more to arrive. you cant return if you dont like, despite no showroom.

You give good reasons why someone might want to buy the Zenbook over the Air and then ask why anyone would want to?

There are more than a few ultra-books that are widely considered to be on par with apple in terms of build quality, its just that you'd have a hell of a time getting an Apple user to admit it even if he held it in his hands. That's just human nature.

The Acer Aspire S7, the Lenovo X230, the Lenovo X1 Carbon, the Ativ Book 9 Plus, the Lenovo T440s, the Sony Vaio Duo 13, the Asus Zenbook Infinity UX301LA. Most of these come with Full HD or better IPS panels too.

You can find something wrong with any product, but it stands to reason that a person who has lived with Apple's faults for a long time is likely to have grown more forgiving of them due to familiarity. Therefore, when that person sees a competing product that isn't absolutely flawless, he may be more critical of it than he would be of a new Apple product.

Add Dell XPS 13" Ultrabook to the list. I got one with Ubuntu pre-installed, very happy with it but there is a Windows variant available also of course. Core i7, 8gb RAM, 256 SSD, 1080p. Very yummy. (Not astro-turfing :)

Dell really need to pull their finger out and ship that laptop in .au (and upgrade it to haswell already.)

Just switched. Love it. Absolutely love it.

I have a Yoga 13 and won't recommend it. The WiFi chipset is horrible and can't keep a connection to many routers, and the keyboard has a terrible flex to it that makes typing annoying. Otherwise, it's a great little laptop :)

all that is at best buy. but he calls those $999 models "high end". so...

It's sad that the best windows laptop on the market is installing win8 on an MBP.

I have a Lenovo W520 with 32GB of RAM, discrete graphics, 4G wireless and all kinds of other goodness. It's a little ugly but spec-wise it is day-and-night better than anything from Apple.

I just have to make sure it never goes into hibernate mode because it takes a long time to wake up.

I bought a laptop from microsoftstore.com recently. They have a good selection and their sale items undercut Amazon by ~20%.

Not being able to try the device in person is not great; you might be able to go to a physical Microsoft Store and get the same prices.

The Android-x86[0] project has been doing this for a while! You can run android on x86 laptops that, in theory, don't suck and aren't built like crap. I'd suggest considering them.

http://www.android-x86.org/

This seems weird to me seeing as they could have used Chrome OS. I imagine it's because this will be marketed as a touch screen laptop though.

I'll never get ChromeOS. An Os where you cant install anything is useless. Want to use webapps? use a browser,at least on Android I can develop "native apps",run background processes. Tell me what can do ChromeOS that Android cant do? All google services are on Android.

I've felt the same way -- it makes more sense to have ChromeOS on phones / tablets, which are intended to always be connected, and put Android on laptops which are sometimes connected.

> Tell me what can do ChromeOS that Android cant do?

Boot up fast. Never get malware. Never get bogged down by a process running in the background. ChromeOS is the OS-level version of "Worse is better". The ultimate "just works" zero-maintenance device. Android keeps demanding more and more hardware to stay performant, ChromeOS is comparatively light.

That said, I'm always surprised that Google maintains 2 OS's (plus their internal Goobuntu distro). Remember that Android wasn't really suitable for this until Android 4 - no landscape mode, no Chrome browser... even now, Android's home-screen looks rather ugly in landscape since the app icons are terribly spaced. I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be looking to discontinue ChromeOS as Android gets better features in that space.

The big failing is that Android's app space is fixated on touch, and reaching out to touch a laptop touchscreen sucks.

>The big failing is that Android's app space is fixated on touch, and reaching out to touch a laptop touchscreen sucks.

If Google has learned anything from the launch of Windows 8, it's to keep touch/non-touch operating systems separate. Even if they occupy similar form factors, you still can't expect a unified UI to work well.

I think it can be done, but you have to start with that goal in mind from day one and keep all your application develpers held to that goal. The Win8RT platform avoids the legacy baggage of the main Windows desktop OS, and most users say it succeeds quite well at being a good netbook/tablet OS.

After using a Surface Pro, Windows 8 began to make sense. Still I don't appreciate the lack of Start Menu in the desktop portion of the OS, fortunately Start8 compensates that nuisance.

This. I am absolutely not interested in a touch screen on a laptop.

> Tell me what can do ChromeOS that Android cant do?

Go check out the benchmarks, Android still doesn't have a desktop-class browser.

What is an "Android laptop"? Is it different from a laptop that has Android installed on it?

That means no paying for a Windows license even though you don't want it! Awesome!

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