Android has gained a lot of market share in a very short time. It has also traversed through many types of screens in doing so. From a whole plethora of 2.8” to 5” phones, from 6” phablets to 10” tablets and some 12” hybrids as well. However, something that Android was never meant to be was a proper laptop.
It is not designed to intuitively work with a physical trackpad or mouse and the Windows 8 fiasco tells us that sometimes mixing the two things is really not the best idea.
Google itself develops two OSes- Chrome OS for laptops and Android for Mobile. Of course, there is more of a philosophy difference as well in both the OSes with one focusing on being always online and web-apps, while other trying the more traditional app system. Nevertheless, Google (as of now) doesn’t have any ambitions to take Android to Laptops.
Of course, being open source, Android doesn’t need to listen to Google on everything. Thus we have Slatebook 14 from HP. A leaked video of the upcoming notebook (spotted by an Italian Publication and deleted now) showed a 14” laptop with black and yellow color scheme.
It rough specs are as follows:
- Tegra processor
- 2 GB RAM
- Full HD Screen
- WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, HDMI, MicroSD and Sim card slot
- Beats Audio Integration
The screen should be a touch screen as Android supports it best and people would expect the same. Many laptops today are also selling laptops with touchscreens and with Windows supporting the interface, this will be an upward curve.
HP is expected to release the Slatebook 14 at Computex 2014 in Taipei, next month, in all probability. We can also expect it to be a low cost laptop which is trying to fill the space that currently Chromebooks and low end laptops are trying to take.
Of course, the biggest question is whether Android is capable enough to handle this.
In my opinion – No.
Android has some very basic flaws that stop it from taking on Windows and Mac OS X. The biggest being multitasking capabilities which are weak in mobile OSes. While this might seem a small issue in a phone, any laptop is generally expected to be running around 5 apps (softwares) at a time and Android will lag there.
Second, as soon as you switch from mobile or tablet to a laptop, the purpose changes. From content consumption, you turn to content creation. This is a very important difference that in my opinion is the sole reason for failure of low-budget laptops and netbooks. Compromises on entertainment are acceptable but work needs trust of higher order. A laptop that hangs on every other file will never gain my trust enough to save even Rs. 10K. I will rather invest more money than waste more time and most people have that approach in life. Thus, unless Android breaks that barrier, it won’t be a full-fledged OS for laptops.
Maybe HP has found a solution for that. Maybe the Android has seen some modifications that are enough to support such ambitions. In such a case, HP will have a deal in their hands.
[Via]
