Slashdot Mirror
ArsTechnica Espresso PC Review
Hannibal from ArsTechnica gave the head's-up of their review of the Espresso PC. We had an article on this super-sweet little machine recently. This little machine weighs .99 pounds, has USB, Celeron, 3D Sound, built in touchpad - and Hannibal covers putting Linux on the puppy as well. /me wants.
There are USB -> lineout devices could be used in the car-based MP3 systems.
Check out recent annoucements on http://www.minidisc.org for links to the Sony one (<$50 I think) and others.
alex
So much for using it as an MP3 player.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
As an international reader, I have absolutely no clue how much a "pound" is.
At current exchange rates, a pound is 1.716 Euros or 1.56 USD (U.S. Dollars). Hope this helps.
(Gonna get smacked one of these days...)
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
For those who want the precise number. Using a 2-decimal precision number and a 1 decimal conversion factor isn't going to give you a real greate number.
Notice that the User has a period in the front. Hal Duston hald@sound.net Boring is good. A conformist in a nonconformist world
Lots of people are saying the same things: why buy it? You need an outlet and a monitor (not to mention a keyboard and a mouse and a usb network card), so its not exactly a portable. It has no room for expansion, so its not exactly a desktop. It's too expensive for a thin client, so why would anyone want to buy it?
When I first saw the espresso, I thought one thing: "LAN Party". This would be (almost) the ultimate LAN Party box. Imagine walking into a LAN party with a 15" LCD, a happy hacker keyboard, and a 4"x6" machine. Quite the envy, methinks. The biggest downside: no hardware 3d. But for the Quaker or the Half-Lifer, thats not much of an issue.
I wouldnt mind the extra inch of depth for a PCI/AGP slot. I wouldnt even mind an extra $50 or $100 on the price tag. And I'm sure there are plenty of gamers out there who would agree.
It also mentions that the Display is the intel i810 - Having recently helped set one of theseup with Linux (It was under Mandrake 7.0 on an HP Pavillion 6630) - I can attest to the fact that it is indeed a pain in the ass to do. Intel, to their credit, does document it fairly thoroughly and provide an X server for it (http://support.int el.com/support/graphics/intel810/release_notes_1.h tm).
The objection to metric seems to arise soley from a portion of the group of people raised from childhood primarily on imperial or without metric altogether.
Likewise, the objection to imperial units seems to arise soley from a portion of the group of people raised from childhood primarily on metric units or without imperial units altogether...
I'm quite familar with both systems and frankly, there is no real reason to prefer one over the other. Metric fans like to point out the ease of metric unit conversion, but first of all, unit conversion is rarely a significant percentage of the real work involved in any calculation, and secondly, people in metric countries seem to love to create new unit names which defeat the whole metric principle. For example, why have liters? Why have metric tons? Both these units can be expressed in terms of basic units, but people don't do this in practice.
"Hard Disk 12 GB, 2.5" x 9.5mm HDD" I read this to say that the unit is 2.5 INCHES by 9.5 MILLIMETRES. In looking at the pictures at Ars, I noticed that the HD seemed to be an almost standard looking. Perhaps the 9.5 mm is supposed to mean the depth. When you take this three dimensionally, it appears that someone forgot to include the length. And besides, if you click here it shows that the 12 gig has mysteriously turned into a 6 gig. Anyone else find this odd?
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
If you want to move your desktop workspace from place to place, it's the file system that you want to carry, not the processor package. Such portable disk solutions already exist.
After reading the original story on Slashdot, I purchased one of these puppies and started playing with it.
I put up small review with some pictures
I really like the unit. I wanted something small that I could cart around data such as games, mp3s and others. I loaded Homeworld on to it last night and it ran surprising well in both OpenGL and Direct3D. As a little game machine, this sucker really shines.
I originally purchased it as machine to play MAME games on and so far this is working pretty well. My only complaint is I can't seem to get sound working with DOS MAME. The Sound Blaster DOS emulation on the SoundMax drivers seems to just crash. MAME32 (the win32 version) runs fine howerver.
In all, I really like the unit. It's a small size, but it's not small in its capability. It's a good powered machine and can play most of the latest games (Half-Life, Homeworld, etc). Quake3 does run, but the 4MB of texture memory really slows it down.
The TV SVideo and composite out is very handy for portability as well--you can take it to people who don't have a monitor handy and use any TV. I've been watching DVD movies on it hooked to my TV and it works very well.
I also like the fact its easily upgradable. It's a Socket 370, so as new Intel Coppermines come out, you can upgrade the processor easily. IBM is also producing newer small drives with larger capacity so it would not be unreasonable to throw a 24GB drive in there in the next year when one ships.
I'd recommend it for someone looking for an additional PC to their current one that doesn't take a lot of space and is easy to pack up and move.
/// Zoid.
Why does the US still use such a non-portable, strange measuring system? I
mean come on, its the 21st century (almost)...
In the US we have 12 fingers, se feet/inches makes sense.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
What really sucks is that all school work is done in metric, but real world stuff is imperial. So I can't do calculations in imperial, but I couldn't judge how far a km was if you paid me.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
My Espresso came in on Friday. I've spent the last 5 days getting Redhat 6.2 installed on it. Then upgraded the kernel to 2.3.99pre6. I managed to get a Linksys USB network adapter working, and downloaded the ALSA drivers. I finally got the sound to work this morning, but when I tried to transfer my MP3 collection, the adapter "went away." I reloaded the network and it started working again.
I think that there is a problem with EMI inside the case that is causing problems with both USB and Sound. That would explain the problem when using the docked configuration. I'll have to check and see if it actually shows a second hub, or it is just extending the existing ports out the doc. I have to wonder if adding an external USB sound card would work or not. I'm still working on it. Look for a review in about a week.
Here's a 10.4" TFT Color LCD VGA Monitor that runs on 12 volts for those in-car applications.
... If someone could somehow put an SPDIF input/output on this machine, or replace the soundblaster ADC with a high grade chip, it would make an absolutely kick ass digital audio recorder.
Another thought
12 gigs = 20 hours uncompressed stereo at 44.1KHz. Who needs portable DAT anymore with that sort of capacity?
Yeah everyone's happy.
Like NASA.
Well sometimes it's time to move on.
Really.
It's called new wave but it's just the same.
You can also buy just the box without a CPU, without RAM and without harddisk from AWE, but their prices for these components were within German standards and so their price for a complete kit was the same or better than buying their box and the rest somewhere else.
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
To go from pounds to kg, divide by 2.2. So, .99lbs is, what, around .4kg.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Uh, where do you get that a CuMine needs an adapter to work in an S370 socket? The only problem using a CuMine in an LX chipset is getting the multiplier to agree with the CuMine but Celerons don't use the old LX chipset anymore, they haven't since they went to PPGA.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
I can see the point of small, portable computers, but if this has to be plugged into a power socket somewhere, what makes this better to own or use than a laptop, palmtop or even a desktop PC?
The fact that it's physically small makes it ideal for embedded PC use by those of us who are looking for embedded PCs to do things that generic PC/104 units don't do well or do well too expensively. This wasn't necessarily cheap, but it was small, all-in-one, and takes DC power in.
When I'd heard about it, I thought that it'd make an excellent MP3 player for my truck-- I don't
have much interior space, being a pickup truck, and anything I build in takes interior cargo space from things like ratchet straps and the flashlight and the squeegie.
Unfortunately, if they went cheap on the sound output, it doesn't do that well, and if they went cheap there, who knows what else they did cheaply? It won't solve the problem I hoped it would solve, and now I wonder about its suitability for other problems.
Does anyone know (or can anyone speculate) whether or not this thing will run BeOS without too much pain?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
At 2.2lbs/kg, .99lb is 450g
Hope that helps,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
My thoughts exactly. It would have been a lot better if they put it next to a *ruler* rather than a pencil.
~jawad, not your normal hot grits troll...
My friend brought one over and we were listening to MP3's using winamp and everything sounded fine, no distortion. We ran line outs to the stereo and video to the TV for some acid television (aw yeah).
Maybe Hannibal didn't investigate the situation enough. (Outputs too high causeing clipping?)
Jon
I think of more importance is the line:
"Hard Disk 12 GB, 2.5" x 9.5mm HDD"
I read this to say that the unit is 2.5 INCHES by 9.5 MILLIMETRES.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time these units were mixed together like this, didn't something really expensive crash into Mars?
So I ask 2 questions:
1) What are the actual measurements (in metric, please, I'm Canadian and don't understand the old Imperial System)?
2) Why does the US still use such a non-portable, strange measuring system? I mean come on, its the 21st century (almost)...
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Easy Tex!
No-one uses Hectares, centilitres or torr. Also no one uses league, furlong or stone any more either. Even in those countries who deviate from the SI naming convention norm, a metre is still a metre (100 centimetres, 1000 milimetres) etc.
How many feet in a mile? How many inches in a yard? Convert yards to feet? Miles to yards? Gallons to Quarts? (trick question...is that US gallons or Imperial gallons (one is bigger you know)?).
Now try the same with metric. Why how easy, all multiples of ten! No memorizing bizarre conversion factors or numbers, just basic mutliples of 10 (that means adding 0's or moving the decimal point, in case you don't know what a multiple of ten is).
All that internal consistancy you are so proud of didn't stop that Mars mission from crashing now did it.
BTW the metric house is in order and has been for 200 years. Only the US still uses the old imperial system..kinda ironic for the country that separated from England at about the time metric was invented.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
even tho this would the perfect consultant's rig ... just have the clients supply me with a monitor and some keys and we's in biddness ... the wave out and lack of descent ethernet connectivity ( USB we dont need steeeeenkin USB) has this kid awaiting version two, which will certainly suck down a paycheck or two of mine :)
/. as always
thanks to the ars bunch for the review and
use Signature::Witty;
So this thing weighs around .5 kg.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The review says "wearable" every 3rd sentence, but then cautions that it has no battery. So what am I supposed to do? Have an operation to install 120 V outlet in my chest?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
After the first slashdot article, I bought one.
The unit blew up (literally, blue sparks and smoke and scorch marks on the unit). I suspect a cheap power supply. The replacement unit works so far, but the power supply does run hot.
I plan on a battery pack to make it really portable.
It is lacking ethernet (usb/ethernet is not nearly the same) and irda.
Will review more complete shortly on www.advogato.org
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
would you mind also displaying metric units in your future articles?
As an international reader, I have absolutely no clue how much a "pound" is. Telling, for example, that it "weighs 0.99 pounds (x.xx kg)" or so in articles would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
Hannibal's review pointed out two shortcomings of the machine -- a sometimes not so high qulity sound output (MP3's are affected) and the lack of an ethernet port.
when they release a new model that addressed these issues... it will be perfect.
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
the poweful idea here is to break a laptop computer down into its component parts -- make it modular, think object oriented hardware.
<i>component 1:</i>
cpu
(done)
<i>component 2:</i>
CD and floppy
(done)
<i>component 3:</i>
small, high res lcd monitor
<i>component 4:</i>
power supply (strap on battery)
<i>component 5:</i>
a really really nice AD/DA sound input and output box, turn this thing into a super minidisk/MP3/sampler/whatever thing
<i>component 6:</i>
[insert bright idea here]
This makes for a standard sort of desktop system, just made out of small parts. With today's technology, <b>why make it big?</b> Most PCs today are 90% air! The original iMac was a PowerbookG3 with a CRT attached...
Now if it all could just run Bluetooth so i don't have to drag cables to connect all this stuff, i will be really really happy.
I think we are going to see a lot of stuff like this come out in the following years, and none too late!
If anyone is interested in brainstorming ideas like this and finding interesting ways of looking at intelligent applications of off the shelf technology, don't hesitate to talk to me...
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
Personally, I intensely dislike the metric system. Many many people harbour as great a dislike of standard units. The proper way to settle this sort of thing is to use both systems. That way everyone is happy.
There are two projects that make me VERY interested in this product, but the lack of ethernet really kills it. I do a bit of mobile live video production for clubs and parties ("vj" if you will). This would be a GREAT size unit for taking on the road. 2 for music matched vis, maybe one for DVD and another for VJAMM/Composite Station/Motion Dive video work. Throw in a KVM, dump the s-video to the mix board, and this would be one truely portable digital video station. Neat! I also find my self on the road a lot demoing and installing server software (typically Novell products.) This would be a great way to pack up 8 servers in a small bag with a decent KVM and small hub. Walk into the customer, plug into a keyboard, monitor, mouse, and power, and you have an instant network.
:)
All of this is of course mostly useless without the ethernet support. It'd work for the video stuff, but it would be pretty kludgy. And I'm pretty certain that USB support for NetWare isn't coming any time soon
The best use is let people realize produces like Libretto 1100 is a much better design when we thought.
/_____\. .......|
vvvvvvv../|__/|
...I../O,O....|
...I./
..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
I for one, would love to see these on the desktops of secretaries and other non-power-users in a company. Coupled with a nice LCD monitor and a sutably cool, matching decor, these puppies could make a technology office look uber cool.
Any other suggestions?
A little lacking on the "usability" side.
I'm not exactly the strongest guy in the world, but any weight difference under 5 pounds for a laptop or other similar-sized portable PC makes little difference to me. At this weight range, bulk is a much more inconvenient factor than weight. And unless I'm mistaken, you'll have to carry around a monitor with you unless you can bum one off of wherever you're headed...
For something that small, I'd rather use a Palm. For something that powerful, I'd rather get a ultrathin laptop with nicer features, such as an PCMCIA slot. No, USB-only doesn't really cut it.
And a dedicated server over a shared USB bus??? LOL. That's an idea just waiting to take off. Give me a dedicated Fast Ethernet port any day of the week...I'll spend the extra $20 it cost on the mobo.
Overall, it's a nice indication of the latest miniaturization, but I just don't see the need or the market for something like this.
telnet://bbs.ufies.org
Trade Wars Lives
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I got my Espresso last week. Works great. In Win98, once I added my netgear USB/Ethernet adaptor, it started locking up, but since I installed Win2000, everything works great. Maybe my ears suck(they do) but I didn't notice the Wav out problem. Winamp sounded fine to me, at least as good as my shitty computer at work does though headphones. It's built in speaker DOES really, really suck, but who cares? Lots of people seem to be missing the point of the Espresso. With an espresso, you kind of have to "live off the land". Just about everywhere you go today has a keyboard/moniter. Why carry one, when you can just "jack in" to one that is aready there? I don't keed a laptop, but is is nice to just happen to have my computer in my suitcase when I need it give someone an important file. Laptops are just to heavy to carry with you just because you can. Not to mention that It will work great in my car :)
(appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
To make your own Espresso.
1) Buy a Laptop PC.
2) Remove Keyboard
3) Remove LCD screen.
4) Remove CDROM/DVD
5) Remove Battery
Finally put this all in a small cool looking case.
Now you have a PC which is a poor desktop machine, a poor laptop and a poor PDA.
However it does start to make your think. All these items not on the Espresso now, still have plently of room for size reduction. Not too long now before my handheld is nearly as powerful as my desktop.
I commute by train, so I want something I can read my email with, and this doesn't quite cut it for me, but it's still intriguing. (And of course, if it were $300 instead of $900, I might very well buy it in spite of its limitations
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
And since it was modded up to 2 I have no idea how you managed to miss it :).
Plus, with that many 12 GB drives, just think about the crazy "two years without repeats" playlist you could have....only you would need to rent an office building to keep the CDs in if you were gonna keep it legal.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Fill the whole pantleg with these things baby. Mind you, if you do that *and* pour hot grits down your pants, then you will probably void the warranty on your BeoWolf, and then where would you be?
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
...is that the little thing sucked at playing MP3s. Hannibal tracked it down to a WaveOut problem. Once that gets fixed up, then this baby will be a sweet little PC.
:) (sorry - somebody had to say it).
Plus, filling a normal PC case with a Beowolf Cluster® full of these things still seems like a good way to blow all that lottery money I want to win
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Okay, maybe I'm not getting it, but the following quote interests me:
Now, lest anyone get confused, this thing has to be plugged into a wall. It's not a laptop, so there's no battery.
I can see the point of small, portable computers, but if this has to be plugged into a power socket somewhere, what makes this better to own or use than a laptop, palmtop or even a desktop PC?
Seriously, anybody know where I can get the parts to build one of these bad boys?
Actually, maybe I can convince my wife; "awww, honey, it's just so key-yoooot! Lookit the dainty li'l rubber feet!"
Er, maybe somebody should just point me to the parts before my head blows up.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Socket coppermines are flipchip designs, and require an adapter for use in a regular celeron s370. This wouldn't be much of a problem except for the space limitations in this device.
Also, there is the concern of voltage, the motherboard may not support the lower voltage requirements of the cu chips, requiring an even more extensive adapter setup to use a cu p3.
It's a shame it doesn't have built in ethernet, it would be a great solution for a portable linux LAN q3 server.
NightHawk
Tyranny = Government choosing how much power to give the people.
Does anyone know about vertical space for the hard drive? The 12G is probably 9.5mm. Will it take 12.5mm? How about IBM's 25G 18mm?
pornking
It's small, it has all the latest technologies and it run's Linux. Now my girlfriend has some real competition for my affection.
kwsNI
It's not meant to be a labtop or to be mistaken as one ... it's a computer that is tiny ... that's about it ...
I want one so I can show people "What linux is" just plug my computer into their monitor and keyboard and there we go ... I have a working example.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Can I play Commander Keen on it? I'm really not interested if I can't play Commander Keen. That's all that matter. Keen rocks! What a spunky little fart, that kid!
Bruce
Thanks,
Bruce
I just love it when websites have "actual size" pics. Sometimes -- like today -- when my eyes get tired or I feel like sitting far away from my screen, I run 800x600 on my 21" monitor. I sure hope that pic isn't the actual size of this thing.
Obviously, lots of people have already suggested its use as an MP3 player, but due to the poor sound quality it probably wont happen. But, just think of the possibilities opening up from computers such as this. The hardware configuration already beats my desktop configuration, and Im sure theres more to come. For one example, hotels could also offer included monitors and keyboards (in addition to "data ports") in their suites, allowing you to merely hook up your mini-PC and go. You wouldnt have to worry about lugging around a screen, keyboard and battery like a laptop. And it wouldnt just be hotels; Many other places could be coerrced into setting up monitors and keyboards to plug into. Ever went to a lot of trouble to haul your computer to a LAN party or some other such event? With added network support, these mini-PCs would eliminate much of that task. All you might need would be some of your accessories, the monitor(possibly) and your mini-pc. The possibilities are endless. Hope the future holds success for these mini-pcs.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
It's a shame such a nice little toy has been marred by small things that should have been obvious. Positioning of the USB ports and the poor wave out quality are two things that should have been spotted by the manufacturer and never been an issue but they are. Considering that many would be using this as an mp3 player or using it to hook up to networks/the internet these are two damaging flaws. Then again, all things considered even without a fix it's a nice solution for those who would like to move their desktop PC around with them and I'm sure the next revision will fix the problems. It will be interesting to see if this drives any more innovation or if it will just disappear after its 15 minutes of fame.
Atticka
No sig here...
Espresso is probably the first non-desktop PC I've seen that interests me. However, that weak graphics solution would have to go! I might buy one if it had some sort of mini-Matrox G400 setup, say with 16 megs of video RAM? Smaller is better, but not if it's in reference to size and performance.
I can see the marketing pubes on this one sitting in a room thinking "Hmm OK, who the hell is going to want this?" and somenoone pipes up saying, "Hey lets sell it to the grossly overpaid geek community. They'll buy one at our outrageous price, play with it for a week or two then put it with their Newton, BeBox, and other such useless crap they tend to collect."
Doesnt this remind you of the netwinder !!
Well this little device might be our salvation.
With such a fully featured small computer with a low price like that. How can other companies continue selling their MP3 only systems for 500 + bucks ?
I think price will start falling quick if this gets popular. (admitedly they need to get that wav out problem fixed)
Nonetheless, its impressive.
How well does the Espresso work under Linux?
How would you rate your experience (Linux Hardware Database), any workarounds, special drivers, etc.?
it had a built in 10/100BaseT port. I hate using USB to Ethernet adapters!
www.dalantech.com