News Commodore Invictus - an Eee Keyboard killer?

The Eee Keyboard is set to get itself some competition - and this contender comes equipped with the venerable Commodore branding.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/06/01/commodore-invictus-eee-keyboard-killer/1

 

Nice to see someone doing something good with the Commodore name. and this will probably do better then those systems that came out a few years ago with the Commodore name on them.

As noted in the article this is a step back to the old Commodore machines of the 80's

Now I'm off to go hug my A500.

 

It may carry the Commodore name, but it's not going to be designed by anyone other than a big manufacturing company in the far east. The guys who now currently own the Commodore name are just using it to badge up third party (third rate?) hardware. They've sourced all in one keyboard PCs that they hope will fool people into thinking they are 'like' C64's and Amigas.

Take a look at their site: http://www.commodoreusa.net/index.html

Does it really look like 'Commodore is back'? It would be great to have an innovate company have the name and do something with it.

 

Posted in the source article:

So it's actually made by Commodore, not a third party using the brand.

Personally, I can't see what they're trying to pitch this as; that screen is far too small for the device to be used as a laptop or a netbook, and the form factor doesn't lend itself to that usage anyway. It may find a niche as a net-top device, but it doesn't seem as if that's what they're aiming for; you don't necessarily need a 5 hour battery life for a net-top.

The screen would make a pretty cool control device.

 

I think you are meant to plug it into your tv set via the wireless hdmi. Kind of mini htpc.

 

That bit I got, but with such low-power components, it's not going to be good for much more than web-browsing. But are you going to want to use your HDTV to just check Facebook & email? If you really don't want to leave the sofa that badly, you'd probably be better suited with a tablet-style device or one of the many netbooks that are already on the market.

Using it to watch videos does rather make sense. But even if the Ion chipset does manage to give it some graphical power (enough to decode high definition content - frankly, with an HDTV and a machine capable of doing so, why wouldn't you do that?), you're not going to want to use the built-in battery when watching videos - the graphics chipset would eat through battery power pretty quickly.

Which begs the original question: why bother to include the battery in the first place?

 

I can't help feeling that it would be better to have the guts of it plugged in by the TV, doing the hi-def stuff via a cable and piping the low resolution feed for the inbuilt display wirelessly.

The keyboard can then be lighter and have a longer batter life and you don't have to worry about it dying mid film.

As for the branding... meh

 

TBH it looks like garbage next to the Eee Keyboard, look at the photos on their website. Looks cheap.

 

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee, an excuse to use AROS.

 

ION 2?

 

Battery life is an issue, but it has an advantage over a netbook in that the screen is not part of the computer - this means it doesn't need to sit on your lap unless you are actively typing.
If they have any sense they'll ship it with a charging station like you get with fancy remotes meaning you can chuck it on that to charge while watching a film.

 

OK...

And now tell me, why the hell should I be willing to buy this instead of a 10" netbook?

The netbook allows me to go outside and watch some video in an acceptable resolution while sitting in the train, and I can allways have a wireless keyboard with touchpad at home, if this is, what I'm looking for...

This thing doesn't make sense, nor does the eeeKeyboard.

 

I think you're missing my point: Why bother including the battery in the first place?

You clearly can't use this as a portable, so you're likely to be near a power source when using it. Why bother taking up the extra space with the battery when you could make the chassis smaller or fill that extra space with other components?

 

Wow what I want is something like this with the ability to have WHDMI built in, the wireless HDMI standard thats finally been approved, then this would be perfect for an HTPC, granted you main data base would be from like a server but Im looking forward to seeing how this market grows.

 

Fail!
You'd need see through arms for this to be usable while you're using the keyboard.
Plus I want my screen to be in front of me above my hands, not off to the right.

 

how many different Commodore named companies are there now?

This one in the USA and there is also a Dutch company named Commodore.

That and the Amiga brand has been misused so much over the years and changed owners at least a couple times.

and what does Bill McEwen have to say about all this? he should be ashamed of himself.