Notion Ink: Another attempt at making a device in India

Wow! Now I am really excited about this one... and I really wish they can come up with a successful business model for tablet devices in India.

In my last post I mentioned about Pi, the e-book reader to be sold in India, and was not very happy about lack of "innovation" there. I also mentioned that Simputer was a remarkable product, but failed miserably in market (to read more about my views on Simputer look here: http://tovganesh.googlepages.com/simputer).

Now, a few guys (http://www.notionink.com/Home/about-us) have setup Notion Ink with the intent of creating a tablet for Indian market (http://notionink.wordpress.com/). And apparently they were at the CES.

This is good going. However, again for this to be really successful (as in consumers and developers appreciating it) there are few factors that I feel are important:

- Why would one want this device? A compelling reason(s) on why some one from Bharat will save and spend on this device, rather than just buying a mobile phone.

- The software stack. Merely porting an existing Android will not help. May I repeat, it will not help! It needs to create a whole ecosystem around it. What differentiates it from other Android devices, say for instance what Dell plans to introduce?

- What particular advantage is this device going to offer culturally? As in, culture in India. This is largely a software issue, and I think there is a lot of interesting things that can be done in this space, which address to some extent the above two points.

- Software developers are very important. You have to be able to attract "mindshare" in large numbers and it needs to be specific to your device. This cannot be just off the stock Android.

- Finally, price is a very (very) important issue in India. It has to be very rational.

I really wish that I can work with these guys. These are some of the issues that I would really like to address and seem fairly challenging to me.

(Update: The specs are out now http://notionink.in/adamtechspecs.php, still no news on how the software and sevices will stack up, but the device has quite interesting usage scenarios. The rotatable camera is something that is cool design :) In any case, as of now this is definitely innovative than that Jojoo or Crunch Pad, or what ever...)

Is Mobilis dead?

Short answer is a big YES. Long answer is, unless Encore Software (who makes Mobilis) is able to reduce the price of the device to around 5000 INR, it simply won't have any takers. This is not the only way of revival though, there are many more steps that need to be taken and I am enlisting them here.

The first thing to note is a comparison of Mobilis with other contenders of low cost laptops in the current market. I have just compared with what I have with me (HCL MiLeap L and Mobilis). I have not put up the other contender, ASUS Eee PC partly because I myself have not used it personally and partly because specs wise its comparison with Mobilis will look even worse ;) [because of accessories like integrated web cam].

Comparison Chart:

	HCL MiLeap L	Mobilis (basic model)
Processor	Intel Celeron M ULV @ 900 MHz	Intel XScale @ 400 MHz
Architecture	x86	ARM
Cooling Fan	Yes	No
Memory	512 MB (DDR2)	128 MB
Storage	30 GB HDD	128 MB Flash
Ethernet	Yes (In built)	No (USB based can be used) *
WiFi	Yes (In built)	No (USB based can be used) *
Bluetooth	No (USB based can be used)	No
Screen (size, resolution, touch)	7", 800 x 480, no touch screen	7.5", 800 x 600, touch screen
Touchpad	Yes, pretty usable	No, not required
Keypad	Yes, pretty usable	Yes, hopeless design
Battery	About 4 hrs 30 mins	About 6 hrs
Weight	1.44 Kg	about 600 grams
OS	Linux (Ubuntu)	Embedded Linux (Montavista)
Price (INR)	17,000	20,000 +

* Not every USB device can be used. The driver support on the installed OS is very bad.

 

The first thing one notices from the above comparison chart is that for less, you are basically getting more in case of MiLeap! Granted that Mobilis sports a fantastic touch screen, with a slightly larger screen and resolution. But then MiLeap has 512 MB RAM and 30 GB storage as compared to paltry 128 MB each of RAM and Flash storage!

 

What else is wrong?

• The price needs to be competitive (it should be priced around 5000 INR, any thing above is expensive for this device) with other ultraportables that have come up in market. What I think Encore should be doing is build a reference design and then sell the design to OEM manufactures and charge them some percent for each unit that is sold. This way the OEMs do not have to pay a hefty amount at the beginning (as in the case of simputer), and Encore will also be benefited in long run.
• On board flash memory needs to be redesigned so that it is expandable easily.
• OS used is another major issue. Montavista is actually a commercial vendor and you pay up a lot for their licensing fees which adds up to the total cost of the device. The development toolchain for OS is also not free, it costs another 5000 INR! And I have no idea why the old 2.4.x kernel is still being used on the device. Driver support from Motavista is absolutely useless, as compared to any modern Linux distribution. I guess Encore should look at some community supported OS like Ubuntu mobile and port it on their platform instead of using Montavista, which just adds up to the total cost of the device, and also provides a very crippled environment.
• The worst design in the whole Mobilis tablet is the keypad. It is simply not usable. It has to be redesigned, and should look attractive and easy for a user to use it.
• WiFi and Ethernet port should be inbuilt, and should not cost another 5000 INR to get them fitted!

 

I guess, I have made my point. Good luck Mobilis.

 

PS: If anyone at Encore Software does read this, I at least hope that they take this post seriously as I still use my Mobilis!

Mobilis Review - Part I : The Hardware, Software and Device aspects

What is it?

A hand held device from Encore Software, Bangalore that was introduced in late 2005 by the Indian minister for Science and Technology, Kapil Sibbal, was dubbed as a sub 10K INR laptop for the masses with an aim to bridge the much debated digital divide. However, since its availability, the price of the device seems to be little over double the initial estimated cost. With most of the connectivity options (like WiFi, GPRS and USB Lan) needing extra money, the device at present seems no where near bridging the digital divide. But if we look closer, it might have some promise...

The Hardware

The Mobilis is based on an ARM architecture and uses an Intel PAX processor clocked at 400 MHz. A main memory of 128MB is fair enough to run a number of applications included. However, a flash memory of mere 128MB is just enough for the installed applications. If you want to store data or music it is advised to get a cheap USB pen drive or an MMC card. However make sure that the drive is formatted with FAT16 only as FAT32 seems not supported. I was successfully able to use my old 128MB Lexar pen drive as well as a new 2GB Transdent drive without much problems. But I find certain data integrity issues while using the 2GB drive, and would rather recommend not to use a higher capacity drive with this device. However, I have not been able to use the MMC card that came with my Nokia 6600 on the device.

On the display side, Mobilis comes with an impressive 800x640, 16bit clear TFT display that also acts as a touch screen. I found this screen as well as the touch screen fairly well made as compared to other competing products.

Another piece of hardware that I am currently using to key in the text for this review is the 56 key keyboard that is a bit cumbersome to use. In the small keypad form factor, I am a regular user of Freedom Mini keypad along with my Nokia 6600. I find the ergonomics of Freedom Mini keyboard far better than the one offered with Mobilis. One major complain that I have about the Mobilis keypad is the size of the individual keys is so small that a person with thick figures will have problem using the keys effectively.

Another piece of hardware is the stereo speakers attached to the device and are fairly good quality piezo electric gadget. The device also includes an inbuilt mic, though I found its quality and sensitivity not at par even with cheap microphones available in the market.

The Software

On the software end Mobilis uses a commercial grade MontaVista Linux distribution.The kernel version is fairly dated in the sense it is 2.4.x series. A uname -a indicates the following kernel version:

Linux Mobilis 2.4.20_mvl31_tft_mg1

Mobilis also includes a BuzyBox based shell ash, which provides most of the command line utilities available on a standard Linux distribution. Other productivity applications like E-mail client, Firefox browser, Abiword, Presentation viewer, VLC player (mp3 and video player) and Flash player are also present.

How does it compare with other offerings in the market?

By any means Mobilis was neither released too early in the market neither too late to be run over by its competing devices. As of now I see two major factors in keeping away general public from buying this device. Most of what this device can do can be performed by a high end Nokia smart phone (except of-course the screen form factor). Another feature that this device lacks is a camera, but I don't think the current design can accommodate a camera in it. When compared with other similar form factor devices like the Nokia Internet tablet, Mylo from Sony, I find that two major things are lacking: an out of box integrated WiFi or a bluetooth connectivity and support for VoIP clients like GTalk and Skype. Though one might argue that these are not real target areas for Mobilis, these features really do affect when people are looking out for the device. Another important area where Encore is missing out is marketing. Where as Nokia and Sony have a huge marketing force as well as get fair amount of third party review, the marketing by Encore is vastly limited and has also probably received far less reviews.

In conclusion I find that Mobilis has a great promise if Encore keeps developing and improving over the current design. It a pretty good start from Indian perspective of bridging the digital divide by reliable low powered computing devices.

In the next part of this review I will cover software and programming aspects of Mobilis in more detail.... so look back at this space.

Note: This review was entirely written using Abiword on Mobilis and then transferred to my PC using USB pen drive and finally uploaded to Google Docs and published to Blogger.

updates on simputer and mobilis

It has been a long time since I kept track for developments on Simputer and Mobilies, largely so as I got absorbed in other work as well as was seeing a tremendous revolution in the Mobile Smartphone segment. Infact, if you see my previous posts, I have been personally involved in writing many first time applications specifically using the Python port on S60 devices by Nokia.

Not so long ago I had written a small article on Simputer, mainly questioning its marketing strategy and support for developers (those interested can read this here: http://qbit777.googlepages.com/simputer and a copy at http://tovganesh.googlepages.com/simputer). It appears to me now, that people at PecoPeta (who manufactured Amida Simputer) have probably been thinking the same. PecoPeta (or rather the Amida Simputer) has a new owner, http://geodesiconline.com/, which is a company based in Mumbai. Read this news item for some more info.

Geodesic on its part has taken some important initial steps in reaching out to the developer community as a whole. Like it has GPLed the Alchemy UI framework used in Amida Simputer (see: http://openalchemy.org/), but I feel even this step is not enough to light up the Simputer passion among the developers. To reach a larger mass of developer community, you not only need the software stack open-sourced, but the hardware also needs to be easily accessible (read: can be bought from a local vendor or an online store). And this aspect seem to be still missing in the case of a Simputer.

Another company that has been selling Simputer (largely to Government and Corporate customers) is Bangalore based Encore ltd. Apart from Simputer, Encore had last year introduced a so called "cheap laptop" called as Mobilis, which again seems to be difficult to purchase! However a look at their website (http://www.ncoretech.com/products/ia/mobilis/index.html) indicates that Mobilis has had a substantial software stack + hardware update, providing features like better Linux support, J2ME support, wider connectivity options (WiFi, Ethernet, GPRS, Modem support) etc.

In the end, a feeling of "we have it in us, but can't sell it to others" crosses my mind as I go through the revised product sheet of Mobilis (http://www.ncoretech.com/products/ia/mobilis/pdf/mobilis.pdf).