Litl WebBook - the Ultimate Minimalist Machine
Well, I wast just talking yesterday about the lack of innovation in the tech industry, and how it’d be great to see some companies doing some really outside-the-box thinking.
Litl is a tech startup that is approaching the idea of computers differently. They have done what other companies have been sitting on their butts talking about for years, and built a true ‘cloud computer,’ in the Litl WebBook. The device features outstanding industrial design. Every component has been thoughtfully considered, from the hinge, to the keyboard, to the power adapter and everything else. This machine has been thought through.
Not only have they put a tremendous amount of thought into the hardware, but they’ve made the machine to last, and they are banking on it. Litl has a 2 year 100% satisfaction guarantee for crying out loud. That’s unheard of, and to my mind means they really believe in their product!
The Litl’s most amazing component however, isn’t in the hardware. It’s the software. Litl has done something that no other company besides Apple has done. They built their own operating system to go with their hardware, thus creating the ultimate level of hardware-software integration. The device takes a similar approach to the iPhone and the Palm Pre in that it utilizes a very simple, minimalist, content-is-king approach. No matter what you’re doing with the computer, you can return to the home screen with the push of the blue “Litl” button on the keyboard. This feature may have been inspired by the same feature on the iPhone and the Palm Pre, and is in my opinion a great idea. Everything about the Litl has been designed for ease of use, from the ground up. The company has taken a tremendous amount of effort to ensure that your content remains king, and that your computer is as reliable as possible. The device has no hard drive, and no optical drive.
This may sound insane to some, but isn’t all that far fetched. I use a MacBook Air as my only computer, and I beat the snot out of my Macs, doing intense web, graphics, and video work. I chose the Air because of it’s lightweight, compact, minimalist design, and I love it. Therefore, I’ve been living without an optical drive for some time now, and my hard drive is smaller than that of most people. I’m not only doing just fine, but better than ever. I have just the things I need with me all the time, and use online storage to keep all my vital documents safe. I use DropBox for most of my work, and it gives me 2GB of storage for my client projects (website code and graphics files mostly). This is fine, and it has been more than sufficient. I many months worth of crap piled into my DropBox, and it still isn’t full. I could delete my old projects and free up more space if I needed it.
This brings me to my next point, which is that the Litl has 2GB of Flash based storage built in. If I can fit all of my client projects in 2GB of space, and I’m doing more electronic work than 95% of people out there, I think 2GB is more than sufficient for most people. I repair computers for people fairly often, usually due to hard drive, optical drive, or Windows OS failures, all of which are eliminated in the Litl. Most of the people ask me to back up or restore their data. Guess what! They almost never have more than 2GB of files for me to back up. The people who have more than 2GB of files are either video or audio junkies. If you are into music, services like Pandora, Slacker, Last.fm, and Spotify are all services that allow you listen to music online, without paying for it, and legally at that. I don’t store music on my computer. I actually use these services exclusively. If I want to listen to a CD, I put the CD in a real CD player and listen. Imagine that. Services like YouTube and Viddler allow you to record video directly onto the web, without video editing software, and let you store and watch hundreds of videos online, so the demand for local video on your hard drive is shrinking.
I’m not saying the Litl can replace your Mac or PC and become your one-and-only just yet (though it very well may for some), but if you’re looking for a lightweight, sturdy machine that gets out of your way and lets you get your work and play done, the Litl may be just what the doctor prescribed.
litl.com Check it out.
