The “Cherry Pal” would once have been called a “thin client,” a computer just powerful enough to connect you to a larger mainframe server on which your real computing work would be done. Nowadays that server is a little something we call “internet” and the Cherry’s anemic 400MHz Freescale processor is sufficient to run Linux (Debian) and a web browser — and that’s good enough.It’s got all the standard hardware trimmings, including Wi-Fi, USB, and audio out.
The clincher, of course, will be price: the manufacturer is claiming it will be “dramatically cheaper” than Asus’s upcoming desktop Eee computer, but if they’re not under $100 (give or take) then the only drama they’ll be seeing will be in the board room as their executives wail that their customer base has chosen to go with more fully featured, similarly priced machines.
It’s a cute little thing, but their window for success is closing. This class of device is about to reach a commodity status that will relegate it into a bullet point on a display or monitor’s feature list. I bet in five years it’ll be difficult to buy a television or monitor that doesn’t include an embedded Linux computer and browser, a la Splashtop.
I would also like to note that many of you have smartphones more powerful than this machine. (That’s not a ding on the Cherry Pal as long as it doesn’t cost more than a cheap smartphone.)
CherryPal: A 2-Watt Computer the Size of a Paperback [Treehugger]
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