Laptops

Kogan Agora - world’s first Chromium OS laptop ships June 7

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Australian manufacturer Kogan says it will ship the world's first notebook running on the open source Chromium OS from June 7. The release date for the 11.6'' Agora Chromium Laptop means that Kogan has pipped Samsung and Acer, whose Google-sanctioned Chromebooks are due out in a week.

Not exactly a high-end machine in terms of specs (though the lack of power-consuming Windows will help), the 11.6'' Kogan Agora laptop features a 1.3GHz Celeron M ULV (ultra-low voltage) CPU and 1GB of DDR2 RAM in the basic version, upgradeable to 4GB. An Intel GS40 chipset (GMA 4500MHD) with 256MB of shared memory is responsible for graphics and that should be enough to stream 720p and 1080p videos. There's also 30GB SSD storage, 3 USB ports, 1 HDMI port, a memory card reader and a 1.3 megapixel webcam.

Wireless connectivity is achieved via 802.11 B/G/N Wi-Fi, while battery life is a little disappointing - estimated at 3.5 hours (4 Cell, 4600mAh).

A key selling point for the Agora Chromium Laptop is fast loading - the machine boots in under 5 seconds and resumes instantly according to Kogan - and apps, documents, and settings are stored in the cloud, so "even if you lose your computer, you can just log in to another Kogan Agora Chromium Laptop and get right back to work."

Initially the Kogan Agora Chromium Laptop is available for pre-order exclusively for Australian and UK customers and is priced at AUD349 or £269.

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8 comments
Michael Mantion
Honestly the parts sound just right.. I mean they spent the money where it counts.. I would much rather have a 30gb ssd then a i5 power hungry processor. someone goofed on the battery estimate.. How can a 4600mAh battery only power this for 3.5 hours.. I mean is the batttery 6 volts? even a 12 volt 4600 mAh should power a laptop 5 hours. Maybe I am confused.
Steve Bennett
Battery life on a netbook is more important than you expect. I absolutely love the 8 hours on my Samsung NC10. You can get through a whole working day without taking the battery pack. Charging becomes this thing you do from time to time - not the default mode of operation.
Ender Wigin
What a waste of money... so you get future upgrades to make sure that you always own a crappy machine. Awesome... 1.3Ghz Celeron. Can any1 explain to me the rationality of buying a machine that\'s weaker than any netbook out there for the same price, AND has no real OS, just to have its desktop shortcut conveniently to links?
Михаил Финогенов
Oh yeah! They are selling this (a-hem) to Australia and UK first, because people in these countries are REALLY gadget-crazy, and they can\'t possibly resist this \"amzing\" offer. They will test it on them and see how it works. Perfect strategy, but 75% chance for a failure product.
John M
If this computer can be set up to do video/audio robot control I would definetly buy one. It coild make for 1 very powerfil controller for bots & other machine control.
The price sonds about right for us hobby poeple we get a new machine.
GO FOR IT AUSSIE?.
Mr Stiffy
I think \"THE CLOUD\" is a wholesale bullshit trip.
Yes it has certain advantages, but it also has some significant disadvantages..... Kind of like sleeping with a hologram of your wife while she stays in your best friends bed.
No WWW, No Google, No ISP, No phone lines, No electrickery = No nothing.
Personally - I am only interested if it can all be run from on board, and THEN be sent around the WWW...
And that it has a muscley inyernals, and fast SATA II and USB 3 ports etc.
This PC is just a weak teabag in tepid water.

Piri
Make sure they have them in stock before you order - they take your money at time of order and you then have to wait, and wait, and wait. Other web stores I use bill your credit card at time of shipping. Not these guys. Maybe they use your money to pay for their stock first?
Gregg Eshelman
\"The Cloud\" Translation: \"Requires an expensive broadband internet connection. Useless without it.\"
And what happens to all your cloud-stored files if the company holding it all goes out of business or is bought out by a company with no interest in \"cloud computing\" or simply makes a business decision that the \"cloud\" resources are better used elsewhere?
I\'ve been through it once already, before anyone thought up this \"cloud\" nonsense. The ISP I was with got bought out by another company. The new owners were really nice, they pulled the plug on Thanksgiving and took away all servers and everything but a desk and phone for one guy to take all the calls from seriously irritated customers who suddenly had no internet access and no websites and of course none of the files they\'d stored on their FTP and web space.
The same could happen with Amazon, Google, HP - any company providing such services could take it all away in an instant.
Circuit City pulled the plug on the Divx disposable rental DVDs, even though the system had the ability to reprogram all the players to permanently unlock all Divx discs. Microsoft could have easily setup a method for easing out the original XBox from XBox live, yet they chose April 15, 2010 (Tax Day!) to simply boot the original XBox off the system. All the online stuff people paid for? GONE!
Keep all your files LOCAL, on your own systems. Only then is it safe from the vagaries of business or a company deciding to kill a program they no longer want to support.