Allwinner sees market for Android laptops

China chipmaker Allwinner has made what could be the most affordable Android laptop on the market today. ARMDevices showed off three new Allwinner laptops running Remix OS, a modified version of Android meant for laptops. The lowest-cost version will go for $79 when purchased in bulk. It will have an 11.6in screen, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. People who want to use the machine everyday will likely need to pay extra for the 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. Allwinner has also made versions in 14.1 and 11.6in with a touchscreen that can flip 360 degrees to become a tablet.

These laptops will run on Allwinner's A64 quadcore ARM Cortex-A53 chips. The machine is clearly not a powerhorse, but it is more in the realm of a Chromebook, allowing users to get some work done with a light, inexpensive laptop. The advantage of Android is that it can run most of its apps even without an Internet connection. Chromebooks lose a lot of functionality when not connected to the Internet.

The price point and the potential capability of a laptop running on the free and open-source Android OS give the product some allure, even if it is not particularly impressive.

But interesting things are on the horizon for Chromebooks, too.

News recently broke that the Chrome OS source code hints that Chromebooks may eventually be able to install apps from Google Play, the company's Android app store. This would greatly improve the functionality of Chrome OS. The news comes a few months after the rumored merging of Android and Chrome OS. Given that both systems run on open-source code and are free to install, laptop makers could soon have a more viable OS option from Google. This will keep manufacturers from heavily relying on Microsoft Windows. Linux, the other major PC OS, is also open source, but it never widely caught on partly because users found it too confusing.

See a comparison table of selected laptop & desktop suppliers on GlobalSources.com