Oh my. So out of touch. Where’s this thing from?… North Korea?

The biggest issue with BeIA was that it was out of date before it was released. The Opera browser was woefully out of date by 2003, when I had a DT300 wor a while. I have the SDK and had BeIA running on a generic PC too. The second biggest issue was that the executable compression was actually a PITA. The filesystem compression was good – the CELF exe’s were BAD. It was pretty much impossible to add new software to the OS after the fact, unless you were extremely lucky, of updated the magic “dictionary” file that the OS used to reconstitute the executable code. AFAIK it wasn’t possible, at least in the pre 2.0 BeIA build I played with, to extend a compressed/crushed build’s dictionary dynamically. Well, at any rate, not advisable.

I admire what Be did – it was extremely clever, but it was a major factor in the technical failings of the OS. That coupled with everything else pretty much signed the death warrant, I guess.

Spot on. The only possible benefit seems to be the HD video. My netbook fails miserably in that regard (see Intel 950). But that problem is being solved with better video cards in the next iteration of Netbooks, so people will be able to use them as “nettops” also. That leaves this strange device out in the cold. Even at $300-400 it would be hard to justify given its lack of flexibility. At $700, somebody is smoking something, and there better be a medical prescription involved.

699 is a biggie, no doubt. But you seem to get unlimited cloud storage and lifelong maintenance.

And the hardware is a lot nicer and durable than your random cheap netbook. The screen is bright and be looked at from any angle etc.

I think it is a good device for old people and kids that just want an IA. I would only buy it with excess cash, which does not exist in my world

Edit: I would have wanted a fanless design, though. Such big device should be able to cool an Atom without a fucking fan. If Dell can do it so should they.

Hi Eugenia! Long time…

Great review. You pull no punches (as always but I think that you’re pretty spot-on. I worked at Transmeta around 9 years ago, and we had lots of tablet/slate designs that we were pushing. At the time, we identified a few reasons why these types of devices were not seeing mass-uptake.

1. Access to data. There was no “cloud” and the only provider who seemed to get the whole data thing was AOL (*shudder*).

2. Cost. They were too expensive. This is still the case, but with phone subsidization helping the iPhone, a $99 touch-tablet with ubiquitous data access is really here…

3. UI. The UI’s sucked 10 years ago. To paraphrase from another great Transmetan (Linus Torvalds), todays interfaces “suck less”. The iPhone is damn good, and Moblin and the Nokia Maemo interfaces are good, as well.

4. Compelling use case. We could not find uses (especially with no cloud to pull data from) where a tablet was more desirable than a laptop, especially as they became nearly price-compettitive.

Now, the LITL is not a tablet, I know, but it’s from the same mold — an “internet appliance” as we called them. They have some great use cases (how I’d love my 15″ MacBook Pro to have an “Easel Mode” for watching movies on airplanes planes!) and people definitely want to access their pictures/music/email/web data from home. However, this seems like to much of a luxury device, as you pointed-out.

Ironically, a Moblin interface on a 40″+ TV with a Wiimote-like control seems to be a MUCH better way of dealing with the same content. Build it into the TV (or into the Wii) and just access on your PC/Mac or on from the cloud directly. Having it in a portable form-factor really doesn’t buy you much.

Cheers!

(continued)

The ironic part, is that with internet-connected TV’s, Xbox360’s, PS3’s, and the Wii, we already have these devices. They just need better media-browsing modes…

Perhaps a “lite” version, for parents/grandparents, which forgoes most of the gaming, but allows the nice 10′ experience from the couch thats’ the same as the console’s…that way (a) their younger family members could show it to them and (b) it works/looks/feels like the consoles so that there’s continuance of branding, experience, etc…

Hey Ken, long time no see.

Hi Eugenia,

Like a number of bloggers and articles out there you haven’t picked up on some important things about litl and our webbook. Please allow me to point a few of these out.

On price: ours is a premium product. We have great design. Our screen bends back with our patented hinge so you can stand the device in an inverted-V, thus minimizing the footprint and helping blend a tv-like experience with the web.

Our device looks great. We used the best industrial designers in the US. This is no shoddy cut price netbook. Our LCD is the best on the market for its size (ultra bright and huge wide angle viewing) and our keyboard is also high quality. This is unashamedly a designer item for the home. Quality does not come cheap.

More importantly, there is a big picture. We’re building a whole new platform for the web, starting with our webbook, which is just the beginning. A key to our vision is the development of applications that customize webapps and your experience of web media, and unify this into our single UI. Instead of learning multiple interfaces to many webapps, you will only need to learn one – ours.

With litl, less is more. We’ve ditched a lot of the clunky features people have been programmed to expect on laptops, including cumbersome and complex settings, disparate application interfaces and tedious software updates, and just left the minimum needed to have a great web experience with maximum ease of use. We want to get rid of the claptrap that gets in the way of enjoying the web.

Maintenance is a big hassle for most laptop users. Because we have a remote update system that seamlessly upgrades your software while you sleep (say goodbye to endless antivirus updates and service packs), we will keep pushing new features and new channels into your litl webbook. The software you get now with our device will expand quite soon. We have a whole raft of channels in the pipeline.

Most netbooks are just low powered laptops running XP or some sort of linux interface. Litl went back to the drawing board. We’re a new company and we’re unencumbered by a pre-existing product line. We can break the mold and so we have. (By the way, we are not running Gnome. The interface is built on Clutter. There is a small amount of Gtk+ for certain complex widgets.)

We have unique, easy to use device linking and sharing features so your stuff is easily viewed by your family and friends no matter how computer “illiterate” (by prevailing definitions) they might say they are.

To top it off, we have HDMI. Plug our webbook into your big screen tv and enjoy the web bigtime.

PS:

On 3G and being home bound: yes, the webbook *is* intended for home use mainly. We don’t see that as much of a drawback. Wi-fi is still dominant in the home and has considerable advantages over 3G for streaming video.

Our initial mix of channels will largely be geared for the home. You see those pictures of our device in the living room and kitchen on our website? These are there because that’s where we see our device spending much of its time.

Also: it’s highly likely that people buying our webbook will already own a “desktop replacement” laptop, and that’s great. Our webbook is not trying to replace their “desktop replacement” laptop. Our webbook is for having fun with on the web, for very easily sharing your stuff with other litl owners in your family.

Yeah, but the point you are missing out, is that you are trying to sell this thing to rich people: people who already have a desktop, a laptop, and a smartphone. The problem is that there are very few people who need a yet one more such device (that’s already too similar to a laptop in terms of end result), and definitely the majority of these few people won’t be rich.

In other words, your product makes no market sense whatsoever.

I sincerely hope you’ll find a new job soon. This product will never get off the ground. And if you are too blind to see this, well, what else can I say? Good luck maybe.