“Linux users who are looking for an alternative to the ultra-mobile PC may want to take a look at the new Pepper Pad. Yesterday Pepper Computer announced that it has updated the Pepper Pad to its third revision. The product is slated to be released on August 15th with a suggested retail price of $699. Though it is just 11.4″x5.9″x0.9″/290x149x23mm and 2.2 lbs/985 grams the Pepper Pad is touted as a full featured handheld device which is capable of surfing the internet, music/video playback, photo viewing, emailing, and more. This device is controlled with a split QWERTY keyboard and 7″ (800×480) touch screen and also houses a 20 GB hard drive and built-in speakers.”
Looks like the perfect little companion for running around the house, surfing the web, showing off digital pictures, use as a remote control, listening to music, etc. I’m not sure about typing on that keyboard but, other than that, it looks like a winner.
I just wish I could afford it…
A tad big for my pocket, but it would fit in my briefcase just fine. It would do most everything my Dell Axim X51v does, methinks. And it’s GNU/Linux, so you don’t have to worry about high-priced OS “upgrades”.
I’d love to see a comparison of these two devices sometime (particularly comparing 770+OS 2006 and PepperPad 3). Since I can’t afford either, I guess I’ll do a comparison here based solely on specs:
Architecture/Processor
The PepperPad uses something called the AMD LX800. Some research shows that the LX800 is a derivative of the Geode. Trace that back, and you find that it’s an x86-compatible processor. It supports DDR and is based off of the old Cyrix MediaGX core. So the PepperPad has a 500MHz underpowered x86 (CISC) cpu.
The Nokia 770 uses a Texas Instruments OMAP 1710 CPU at 250MHz. This is an ARM (RISC, afaik) design. There is’t much I can say about it except it has some kind of a fancy built-in TI DSP.
Storage/Memory
The PepperPad appears to operate like a standard PC, with 256MB of DDR RAM and a 20GB hard drive. The Nokia 770, on the other hand, operates much like a PDA with 128MB of XIP flash ROM and a removal memory card (RS-MMC).
Software
The PepperPad is a strange mix of software. For one thing, its web browser is the full version of FireFox. Unless they did some serious magic, you’re talking a minimum of 60MB of RAM consumed just by the web browser, plus an extremely long startup time. It also appears to use a stock HelixPlayer/RealPlayer for its multi-media needs. Somehow, it also supports Windows Media DRM’d files. How? I dunno!
On the other hand, the Mameo framework provided by the n770 seems to be rather complete and much more oriented for handheld/UMPC usage, with a mobile version of Opera and such.
Connectivity
They both have 802.11g and Bluetooth, although the PepperPad has Bluetooth 2.0. Not that it matters, since none of the 3 devices that support Bluetooth 2.0 are actually available.
Um. That’s all for now… I’ve got places to go… Anybody else feel like contributing?
Regarding the CPUs, the Geode is going to be a lot faster than the ARM. RISC vs CISC isn’t really a big deal here. What matters is that while both are simple 1-issue designs with short-pipelines, the Geode has substantial branch prediction resources and an actual FPU. The ARM lacks an FPU entirely, which hurts it unless you’re willing to write DSP code for the coprocessor.
The hardware spec says that it does “USB Host and device”. Does anyone know if that means it handles USB OnTheGo, or is there a separate port for host and for device?
Does anybody know what desktop environment it uses? Is it a custom one?
looks like a custom mix of GTK + IceWM + a lot of java…