Google Android on the Skytone Alpha 680

In these videos 2 employees of Skytone demonstrate the Alpha 680, which is likely to be the first netbook to be shipped with the Android mobile operating system. You get an impression of browsing the Web with a browser based on the WebKit engine, using Skype, and the Palringo instant messaging client on the Alpha 680.

Like Brad of Liliputing and Sascha of Netbook News I am not particularly impressed with what I saw in these videos and read about Skytone's Alpha 680, considering the low processing capabilities and the unjustified price compared to other netbooks.

Only being able to run one application at a time is something to get used to. Moreover, the Alpha 680 won't ship with many local apps, and as Skytone's co-founder Nixon Wu acknowledged in a recent interview with Computerworld up to 20% of Android apps don't yet run on the Alpha 680 because of compatibility issues.

The Alpha 680's 2-cell battery is expected to last between two and four hours which is far away from 12-hour battery life that experts deem possible for a combination of ARM and Android.

I doubt that the Alpha 680 will sell like hotcakes at an initial price of about $250. It will be interesting to see when Skytone reach their goal of producing a $100 device.

Google Android on the Skytone Alpha 680 Part 2