Company forms to build CrunchPad

cdfreaks.com ^ | 7/7/09 | Jared Newman

[Willie Green]

The CrunchPad, a simple touch-screen computer for Web-browsing only, is nearing reality with a company formed to oversee its manufacture.
A dream product of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, the CrunchPad is designed to be "dead-simple," in Arrington's words. With just a half gigabyte of RAM, a 4 GB solid state drive and no physical keyboard, the device isn't capable of much besides running Firefox on Linux.

In addition, the CrunchPad will have a single button for powering on and off, and will include headphone jacks, one USB input, low-end speakers, a microphone and a Web cam. The idea is to sell it for cheap, possibly around $200.

The product, or at least the concept, has been known about for some time, but it's getting traction now that CrunchPad, Inc., is taking shape. Arrington told the San Francisco Business Times that a prototype will be ready to show at the end of this month, with "big news" coming around the same time. As the head of a major technology blog, I'm assuming Arrington grasps what is actually major news and what is baseless hype.

Which raises an admittedly off-topic point: How will TechCrunch and its spin-off blogs treat a product created by one of its own? News stories are sure to mention who's behind the product, but I don't envy whoever's assigned to review the CrunchPad down the line.

[Willie Green]

A computer without a keyboad seems pretty useless, IMHO.
But for less than $200, this seems pretty cool!

[Peanut Gallery]

It looks like a really big iTouch.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Apple did this already... It's called the Macbook Wheel.

[Willie Green]

It looks like a really big iTouch.

My nephew has one of those, (or something similar.)
He uses it all the time and it looks pretty cool.
But I'm too old to use something with a dinky little screen... the eyes are the first to go downhill! LOL!

But I can see where a lot of people would like a big screen version.

[aft_lizard]

The time of the UMPC is going to be upon us. The ones that came out a few years ago were too ahead of their times and were too clunky. This looks promising though too underpowered and unitasked for my taste.

[Popman]

I get all my information and news off the internet and for $200 it would be a nice device to be able to sit in the lazy boy and be able to read all that I do instead of sitting in front of a PC or on my blackberry.

I would buy one

[catnipman]

Hey, they could even get rid of that button if they included a “Clap-On” chip!

[Secret Agent Man]

They need to have the ability to plug in a keyboard. Or have a video keyboard filling part of the screen, when desired.

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

the Crunch Pad with a Clap On Clap Off chip will really come in handy in 2037 when I’m 73 years old.

[Willie Green]

They need to have the ability to plug in a keyboard. Or have a video keyboard filling part of the screen, when desired.

My guess is that some kind of touch-screen video keyboard in a pop-up window would be a mandatory feature of this thing.

And I supose an external keyboard might function with the USB port, although only one is provided.
Then again, if you start wanting to plug too many things into that one USB port, then this probably isn't the right machine to get. But that would be my best guess as how it might be done if you really had to.

[Secret Agent Man]

Well nowadays two USB ports would not be considered a luxury item.

[Willie Green]

Well nowadays two USB ports would not be considered a luxury item.

No, but considering the overhead and markup of the distribution chain, and low target-price for the consumer, they probably have to pinch every penny they can when they design and make the thing.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 7/11/2009.