ARM notebooks do exist – The Rikomagic MK802

ARM processors make some of the cheapest and most cost effective devices on the market, without skimping on performance. ARM notebooks in theory then, would be very competitively priced – hugely cheaper than Intel or AMD based notebooks.

The first ARM notebook we have ever laid our eyes on is courtesy of a company called Rikomagic. The Rikomagic MK802 is a notebook assembled largely from Chinese components and electronics and sold to the European and UK markets – but then which notebooks aren’t built like that these days?

At the heart of the system is a Allwinner A10 processor, with two ARM Cortex-A8 cores clocked at 1 GHz each. 1GB of RAM is provided too, however storage is only provided in 4GB or 8GB capacities – much like a tablet or smartphone. An SD card slot is provided to add extra storage, but the limitations of the ARM systems is the inability to attach SATA storage devices to them. Rikomagic has chosen to install Ubuntu Linux 12.04 on the MK802, Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0, would also work too – unfortunately only Windows 8 RT would work on this notebook and that’s not released yet.

The 10.1″ display has a 1024 by 600 resolution, other specs include VGA webcam, three USB 2.0 ports, accelerometer, an SD card reader, Wireless and Ethernet port. Of course there is a keyboard and trackpad too. Battery life is quite poor given the energy efficiency of ARM – just 6 hours. The price should be around £115/€120/$150.

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