If you think back to July 2008, Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington began a project to built a low-cost tablet PC that would be perfect for searching the web. In August, Techcrunch had the first prototype of the device ready and while it was rough, it showed promise. Now, the second prototype of the web tablet is ready, named CrunchPad, and the question to be answered is: should Arrington form a separate company around the tablet’s production team and mass produce the CrunchPad?
Personally I would like to see it happen, but I have no idea what the costs involved would be or if it would be a viable business decision on Arrington’s part. It would, however, bring a whole new way of monetizing blog traffic into the limelight. That’s not really a discussion for here though. You want specs, I know.
Well, the CrunchPad has large 12-inch touchscreen with 1024 x 768 pixels and 4:3 aspect ratio, Wi-Fi, a camera and a 4-cell battery. It boots straight to the web browser so it doesn’t suck any unnecessary power usually resulting from the operating system. However, it runs on a full install of Ubuntu Linux with a customized Webkit browser, all powered by a VIA Nano processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 4 GB flash drive to house the software. There is also an accelerometer inside so in the off chance you come across a website that requires side-scrolling, you can just tilt the CrunchPad in order to do it.
Should the CrunchPad become mass produced, it would likely cost about $299 retail. Not bad at all really, but it’s likely it would only appeal to real hardcore techies. I can’t see Techcrunch spending tons of marketing dollars to bring this thing to the mass market a la ASUS Eee PC. What do you think? Should Arrington form a CrunchPad company and bring the web tablet to stores near you?
For more pictures and a couple of demo videos, hit the Techcrunch link.
via techcrunch
