Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

Add one to the line-up of computers, weblets, MIDs, and whatever else powered by Intel's "low-powered" CPU...

From engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/17/h...s-atom-inside/

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

Wow - what a fresh design. Is 1990 already cool again?

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

Yeah, crazy. It's almost like they chose function over form...

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

It is exactly the same design, at least its not looking like a toy (or not much:)).

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

The article has one important detail wrong: the "new" Pepper Pad 3 will run Windows XP.

Yech.

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

I have to give them credit the D Pad doesn't look as crappy as on the Nokia Tablets :)

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

<splutter>

OK, but no reason Linux shouldn't work. And, IIRC, one of the main complaints was the specialness of their dedicated distro (much like maemo, actually), so maybe using Ubuntu or Ubuntu Mobile will actually boost popularity. Shame about paying the MS tax, though.

Oh, and a link regarding the XP.

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

It works pretty well. Granted, the Pad is a lot bigger than the Itablets, so there's more room to implement finger-friendly stuff. The Pad's D-pad wouldn't fit on the Itablets anyway.

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

The Pepper user community has been working on a "straight" Linux distro for the Pad3. The problem is that the Geode version uses a lot of special drivers, and there has been no input from Pepper to help.

Well, there wouldn't be, as Pepper is essentially zombie-fied (it's dead, but it doesn't want to know it).

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

That was my understanding; but presumably (though not necessarily) this will be close enough to various Atom-based MIDs with good support that it would be an easy target for mainstream distros.

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

I'm interested in the battery life of the "improved" Pad3 (although I realize it's comparing apples and wombats, as XP has radically different power management).

Aside from the inane Pepper Desktop that won't let you do anything, the limited battery life of my Pad (3 hrs with wireless off) has been my major gripe with it.

I wonder if the new Pad comes with a new battery as well. If it has a larger capacity and is compatible with the original Pad, that would be interesting...

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

I wish they had added an express card slot to the top (for convenient use with things like WWAN cards, SD card readers, etc.). And I wish they were natively supporting Ubuntu and/or Ubuntu Mobile, as an option instead of XP.

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

Pepper Pad 3 is still ugly and expensive tho

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

I care far more about functionality than beauty. And I don't recall them being terribly expensive.

Re: Pepper Pad 3 -- now Atom powered -- at Computex!
 

i don't normally care but god wtf were they thinking while designing this