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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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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.
~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;
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?
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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
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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.
Actually those were metric pounds. A metric pound = 1.32 firkins of rasberry jam at 283 degrees kelvin. Hope that helps.
I'm in international reader too, I come from america.
-JD
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.
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
...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.
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
everyone knows notebook drives as '2.5" drives'. the only issue is the thickness of the drive, since most notebooks only accept drives of a certain thickness (thinness?). the size increments are so tiny that they use mm instead of inches. if they used inches, the units would look funnier than they do in mm. today, 8.5 and 9.5mm drives are as thin as you can get. compare that to 17mm of just 2 yrs ago.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.