Marvell Targets Education With $99 Touchscreen Tablet

Chip maker Marvell is taking tentative steps into the tablet PC fray with Moby, a prototype touchscreen device that supports Flash while boasting long battery life and a price tag that comes in at under $100.

While the device, a rare end-user product from a firm known for making semiconductors, is targeted at the education market, don't chuck your textbooks just yet. Marvell says the design is just a prototype and at this point, it's not sure if it will make and sell its own device or partner with a third party.

At the very least, however, the device signals the potential for continuing refinement and dropping prices in the tablet PC and mobile handheld device space, which is still feeling the reverberations following the January unveiling of Apple's iPad. The latter starts at $499 -- far below many analysts' initial estimates.

But Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) believes it could take the tablet PC price even lower while upping its capabilities. The company's 10-inch Moby tablet offers 1080p high-definition video playback plus a touchscreen display, like the fancier and more expensive iPad. Unlike the iPad, it offers full support for Web sites that use Flash.

At the heart of the unit is Marvell's low-power Armada 600 processor, a heavily modified ARM-based processor running at 1GHz under very low power. The Marvell Moby design also includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM and GPS connectivity, and, according to its creator, enough battery life to get through an entire school day. However, Marvell hasn't provided any additional specs yet -- including more precise data on exactly how long that battery lasts. It also has been mum on how much onboard storage capacity the unit could offer.

As far as an operating system goes, Marvell spokespeople would tell InternetNews.com only that it's considering using Android -- the open source, Google-backed mobile OS -- or an unspecified "other open source operating system."

All this, Marvell said, is potentially enough to dramatically change the way students learn.

Marvell cited a Government Accountability Office study that the average price for one textbook for a high school student is between $60 and $200, which would make Moby a much cheaper alternative. At the university level, it's even worse, with books for a first-year student averaging $898 in the 2003-04 year. Given many textbooks around the nation aren't up-to-date, using digital books could make it easier to keep books current and save money at the same time.

Then there's the growing issue of weight. Marvell cited studies from around the world that show students today are carrying too much weight in their backpacks, and that the American Academy of Orthopedics cite neck and shoulder injuries from overweight backpacks as a fastest-growing health concerns for the world's children. Moby would weigh less than half of a typical notebook but carry all of a student's books.

This is all similar to the pitches used by Amazon, which got into the textbook game last year with its Kindle DX e-book reader. However, Kindle models begin at $259, and have really only been positioned as readers for digital books and periodicals rather than full-featured tablet PCs.

"Marvell can help propel education into the 21st century with an all-in-one device that gives students access to the best live content, information and resources the world has to offer -- from books and online sources, in text, video, news, music, data expression or any medium," Marvell co-founder and vice president Weili Dai said in a statement. "With [a] Moby tablet, students can conduct primary research, reach out directly to the world's leading subject experts and even collaborate with one another around the globe. Best of all, the device is highly affordable. I envision Marvell's Moby tablets to benefit all students around the world."

Marvell promises to launch a pilot program with the District of Columbia Public School system, one of the nation's most troubled school districts but also one with the highest expenses. Details of the program will be announced at a future date.

Andy Patrizio is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.