Friday, April 1, 2011

Hercules eCAFÉ HD and EX Slim HD, two netbooks that bet on Linux and ARM

Recently we talked more tablets than netbooks, something conditioned by the amount of news and reports that appear, but that does not mean that occasionally pop out of the network different proposals that deserve a place on our website. This is the case with the last of Hercules. A couple of netbooks under the name Hercules eCAFE come to market, and most striking feature count as using a Freescale chipset i.

MX515, based on ARM Cortex A8. Both models have 10.1-inch screens, and is the first time we met with such great devices for Freescale processors. We have two models, the EX Slim HD and HD, which have a rather unique design as you can see in the pictures accompanying the news. The keyboard is slightly submerged below the line formed by two side bars, so that when you fold the screen is within that space.

The main difference between the models is that the EX HD with HDMI output, 16GB of internal memory (8GB Slim HD model), an internal slot for SD cards (it comes with additional 8GB) and a larger battery also determines the size and weight. Common features include 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, WiFi n, a 0.3-megapixel webcam, a miniUSB, and three USB 2.0 ports.

Nothing is out of the ordinary in what we expect from a netbook with ARM architecture. The resolution of the 10.1-inch screen is 1024 × 600 pixels, and Hercules assures us that the computer has power to play 720p video smoothly, the following standards are supported: DivX, Xvid, H.264 and MKV.

Following specifications, we have the HD Slim model weighs 880 grams with a battery of 2400mAh, which gives a range of 4.5 hours of use. The EX HD eCAFÉ weighs 1.27 kg when using a battery of 6.800mAh, which gives a range of up to 13 hours. Android Nothing on this occasion, the people of Hercules has decided to customize a Linux distribution that we fail to recognize, but we are confident that we can change for any other support in case that does not meet our needs.

In some media comment that this eCAFÉ Netbook Edition could be a modified version of Ubuntu Netbook Edition. The system has a suite compatible with Microsoft Office. The price you are going out to the market is less than a netbook Intel, as expected, the model is available in HD Slim $ 229, while the EX HD will eCAFÉ up to $ 269.

Both appear this April. Despite a different design, and price is very high, do not quite find the room for this kind of development, firstly because the hardware does not seem strong enough compared to what we find in the competition, and the possibilities your operating system, unknown to us, and can not stand up to the ecosystem that we propose or iOS Android devices.

I leave you with a video of the official presentation of the two devices, it provides an overview of the main features, such as synchronization with PC via miniUSB, or connection to the big screen with HDMI Output:

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