Size matters to the latest cheap PCs
Posted 8 November 2007 at 8:23AM by Simon Dickson in IT systems and support
Taking the eternal 'size matters?' debate into unexpected new territory, a story on tech blog Engadget suggests that US retail giant Wal-Mart is stocking an Everex PC in an unnecessarily large (and frankly rather ugly) box. Why? Because apparently, 'research indicates that Wal-Mart shoppers equate the size of the system to its capability.' In other words, they'd assume a smaller machine wasn't as good.
It claims to be the first mass-market $200 desktop computer, 'with no gimmicks or subsidies,' a spokesman told Wired - and comes with a customised version of the Ubuntu Linux operating system. It's also being touted as a particularly 'green' machine - but as Engadget points out, you can't help wondering how they'll square that with the unnecessary plastic and who-knows-what-else in that case.
At the other extreme is the Asus Eee which we blogged about during the summer (well, you know what we mean). The Telegraph reports that they will be arriving in the UK on 12 November - and although the £219 price tag is a bit higher than we hoped, we can't help but get excited about an ultraportable wifi laptop which looks this good - and reportedly boots up in well under 30 seconds. Almost worth buying one to keep in the living room.
Tags: asus, eee, everex, linux, wal-mart
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Comments
2. At November 8, 2007 1:52 PM, alastair wrote:
$200 for a pc?
thats roughly £100
it cant have a good spec then.
poor little timmy will be expecting a pc for christmas to run his AOE games or other games that require a good quality pc and he'll get that $200 machine that can't run any decent new game properly.
poor timmy
3. At November 8, 2007 8:00 PM, anjanesh wrote:
speaking of boot up times Asus has a headstart with a component called Splashtop which allows you to rapid boot into a web only environment with Skype and other online apps. This is only on Asus P5E3 Deluxe / WiFi AP motherboards.
Bypasses windows boot entirely and useful for quick checking of mails or skyping.extension of web 2.0 into hardware ? ...
4. At November 9, 2007 10:33 AM, CATHERINE wrote:
Was really interested in the Asus Eee at £219 and telephoned PC World they know nothing about it. Then called a local Computer Shop in Troon Ayrshire and they said they would not entertain it at that price it would not be any good. do not know enough about computer technology can you tell me where to but this. I will then check information and decide then. Thank you
5. At November 12, 2007 4:44 PM, Scott wrote:
I suppose if all you want to do is purely internet based, then fine, but the majority of people want computers to do everything, from playing Sims 2 (sorry) to word processing. This won't do that so although it is good, my wife's 5 yr old dell notebook is better for us then the Eee.
Also, took 10 mins to actually find out the processor is 512mb - and not on the official website.
6. At November 13, 2007 9:30 AM, anjanesh wrote:
err...Scott ...that would that be the memory right ? (512mb)
7. At November 13, 2007 6:20 PM, James Lyon wrote:
So many PC's come today with a lot of junk in them that a lot of people do not want. Vista for a start - Most business users just want a basic machine with XP to carry out day to day business tasks - So lets have a good low priced Business Machine without all the unnecessary Bells and Whistles. Why should we have to pay for a box full of goodies that we do not need.??
James at Cravenmodels
8. At November 14, 2007 1:20 PM, Bob HXC Holly wrote:
the actual model of processor amongst all the Eee's i read was going to be the 900 MHz Intel Celeron-M ULV 353
the RAM will range from 256 to 512.
also after the OS install, apparently there is just 1.5GB for storage. so add an extra £50 for your external HDD....
9. At November 19, 2007 9:40 AM, anjanesh wrote:
methinks that the Eee uses a solid state 4Gb hardrive ; yes you seem to be right Bob it leaves us with only 1.5 gig space . And with the flash drive it boots up instantly into linux.someone even got around to installing a Mac Os (leopard) on it.
I think Asus is testing the waters with this scaled down version. For now , splashtop seems a better option .
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1. At November 8, 2007 9:36 AM, John McGarvey wrote: