Skytone Alpha 680 Shows the Downside of Android on a Netbook

April 28th, 2009 by Todd Haselton  

netbookandroidA video of the Skytone Alpha 680, one of the first netbooks to sport Android as its primary operating system, has hit the Web—and boy does it look disappointing. Clearly the current version of Android was built for smaller screens like the HTC G1. On a netbook the resolution looks too low: all the buttons and icons are huge. It almost feels like a phone was just plugged into the larger 7-inch display.  And as Liliputing notes, the netbook can only one run application at a time. Worse still, the Android browser doesn’t support Flash so you won’t be able to stream videos from sites like Hulu.com. I’d give up the touchscreen for Flash and multitasking support any day. There is some hardware power under the hood to provide a zippy experience. Videos show the netbook rendering 3D objects and zooming in and out of Google Maps and placing Skype calls without an issue.  You don’t have to buy a $250 netbook for that, though. Just head for T-Mobile and buy the G1 for $199 and you’ll even get the broadband that this 680 promises. Consumers would be better off installing Ubuntu or a different flavor of Linux. If it’s the Google integration you’re after, go for a fresh gOS install. The 680 doesn’t look like a netbook I’d drop $250 on. Would you? [check out the videos over at Liliputing]

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2 Responses to “Skytone Alpha 680 Shows the Downside of Android on a Netbook”

  1. Glenn Says:
    April 28th, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    No, but that doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t have long term potential.

    If you can build a “netbook” with an ARM core instead of an x86 CPU, and if doing this drops the cost enough, or increases the battery life enough, then that would be a fine tradeoff. A future version of Android could be adapted that would provide better support. The flash thing for example is expected to be addressed in the future.

    If most of what you do with your netbook is just browse the web, and if Android has a viable app store that actually has applications that work correctly on larger screens offering the sorts of things the iPhone offers, then it could be a viable alternative.

    However, at $250, this is still too expensive. I can get a Dell Mini 9 for under $200…

  2. Ricky Says:
    June 1st, 2009 at 9:35 am

    I just have TWO problems…

    1.Incompatibility, I use camera and video a lot and Android seems that its not compatible with anything.

    2.Multitasking, or should I say no multitasking. I love streaming Pandora or listening to music in the background but this might be not possible with Android’s current version. And what about iTUNES?? OR RHAPSODY? Those were not made for Android.

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