Would you buy a new PPC laptop, if A-Eon made one?

[danwood]

I wouldn't.  If I really want an "amiga portable" I could just pick up a Powerbook and run MorphOS for around £100, or run UAE on my Macbook Pro.  The price point it would sell at would not interest me just to run OS4.

Of course, if they ported OS4 to the iBook or Powerbook I would buy it, but that's unlikely to ever happen.

[Wilse]

I like the idea of an OS4 capable laptop - I'd certainly be more likely to use OS4 if it was portable - but the cost would likely be prohibitive to most people.

The MorphOS route of porting to cheap, existing laptop hardware makes a lot more sense to me.

Having said that, if they could somehow manage to get a decent specced machine out for around £1,000 UK, I'd be interested.

-EDIT-

Ninja'd by danwood. :pint:

[wrath of khan]

Fpga based classic amiga laptop. Yes!
No to anything else.

[Yasu]

Considering how little AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS demands of the hardware and still feel fast I could consider buying a really low end, low power consumption PPC laptop. Even a 400 MHz with 512 MB RAM would be enough. A 12" screen would also be enough (not 8", that's too small for me).

That might also attract people outside our camp. Some people just like a challenge, like getting the most out of such a weak computer. Not many people for sure, but at least enough for a bigger batch of laptops in one go, lowering the price.

Here is a thought: if A-Eon would make one, how about a kickstarter or similar? Then they would know how many computers people would buy and even getting paid in advance. It would eliminate the insecurities at least. Of course, if they can't deliver they have to repay the money (considering what happened with the last announced Amiga laptop).

I would chip in, but only if it was a pan-Amiga thing. I don't need yet another laptop. I would do it just to encourage cooperation between the camps. Which is something we desperately need.

[paolone]

If I want an "Amiga" laptop, I have two choices already:

1. a powerful yet cheap i5/i7 one, with WinUAE running AmigaOS 4.1
2. my current Icaros Desktop 2 powered, Atom based netbook (AspireOne A150)

both would provide me enough grunt for my tasks. And If need more... I can always buy a faster x86-64 notebook.

[pVC]

I would be interested if it'd be cheap enough, powerful enough, and would run both OS4 and MorphOS, but probably none of those would match... anyway, four figure sum is a no go.

[TheMagicM]

Nah.  I run MorphOS..I can buy a PPC laptop already for cheap...besides I have more important hobbies that I spend good money on :-)

[OlafS3]

Considering how little AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS demands of the hardware and still feel fast I could consider buying a really low end, low power consumption PPC laptop. Even a 400 MHz with 512 MB RAM would be enough. A 12" screen would also be enough (not 8", that's too small for me).

That might also attract people outside our camp. Some people just like a challenge, like getting the most out of such a weak computer. Not many people for sure, but at least enough for a bigger batch of laptops in one go, lowering the price.

Here is a thought: if A-Eon would make one, how about a kickstarter or similar? Then they would know how many computers people would buy and even getting paid in advance. It would eliminate the insecurities at least. Of course, if they can't deliver they have to repay the money (considering what happened with the last announced Amiga laptop).

I would chip in, but only if it was a pan-Amiga thing. I don't need yet another laptop. I would do it just to encourage cooperation between the camps. Which is something we desperately need.

Hmmm I just bought a Notebook with 2 cores, 2.70 GHz and 4 GB RAM for 300$. A weak PPC Notebook for several thousand Dollar would really make no sense

From me No

[Yasu]

Hmmm I just bought a Notebook with 2 cores, 2.70 GHz and 4 GB RAM for 300$. A weak PPC Notebook for several thousand Dollar would really make no sense

From me No

For you, no. For me, yes. There are more thing to a computer sometimes than pure price and performance. Being able to run ones favourite OS is one such thing.

[OlafS3]

For you, no. For me, yes. There are more thing to a computer sometimes than pure price and performance. Being able to run ones favourite OS is one such thing.

You wrote it could win new users. I do not believe that.

For you yes, for me no

[Wilse]

If I want an "Amiga" laptop, I have two choices already:

1. a powerful yet cheap i5/i7 one, with WinUAE running AmigaOS 4.1
....

I've been out of the loop for too long. How well does 4.1 run on winUAE and does it matter which version of 4.1 you run on it?

[OlafS3]

I've been out of the loop for too long. How well does 4.1 run on winUAE and does it matter which version of 4.1 you run on it?

I myself have no experience but you need a fast PC (i5 or i7) and you run the classic version on it

[Yasu]

You wrote it could win new users. I do not believe that.

For you yes, for me no

To quote Firefly: "Some people juggle geese"

[jj]

bought one the other day.  Last model powerbook £100 runs morphos a dream
 
In all seriousness though.  Not a chance

[Duce]

Price would be a huge determining factor.

While you can indeed buy a powerful commodity hardware laptop for a few hundred bucks, that's not the machine a NG Amiga running would be competing against.

We are, after all - in a market where one can buy a top end PPC Mac laptop off eBay or local classified ad for a couple hundred bucks any day of the week.  Add $100 for a registered version of MOS.  I could find you 15 top end PPC Mac laptops for under $200 just in my locale alone on the various for sale websites like Bargain Finder, Kijiji, and eBay.

A $2000 OS4 based laptop would be a very hard sell in this market, even to the most ardent of OS4 fans - which I am one of.

[guest11527]

This makes really no sense at all. First all, the PPCs you get nowadays are not really designed for mobile applications. 68K never was to begin with. They draw too much power, and computing performance is comparably poor.  

Given the price point, this makes the whole idea unrealistic (or rather "what have you been smoking?" (-; ). If you want to go mobile, use a platform that is suitable for that. For small computing loads, ARM (yes, really), for complex computing, x64. I would believe running an emulator on a standard laptop is probably more power efficient than fitting a PPC into such a machine and run "something like AmigaOs" on it.