Posted by
michael
on from the penguin-in-a-box dept.
red5 writes: "Newsforge has a
report of a new "iMac-like" internet computer from the good people over at OEone. On an interesting note it uses Mozilla as its GUI. Read the article for all the details." Another submitter sent in an interview with the company.
missing features
by
Alien54
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
As seen in the source fourge article
Even though the documentation said it could record TV shows, there is no obvious way to do this yet. One OEone employee told me the documentation writers had been a bit "enthusiastic" about some of what they included in the first version of the user guide. Look for video recording capability in the next software version.
No chat software, even though chat capability is mentioned in the docs. The story here is that they were planning to include a combination ICQ/IRC client in 1.0, but it wasn't quite ready by the scheduled release date, and was held back for the moment.
No NTSC or S-video output on the video card. Sad. I am disappointed that it isn't there. Add this capability, and the Internet Computer could amost replace a TiVo or other time-shifting TV-watching aid, and serve as the heart of a simple home entertainment center, over and above its computer functions.
An optional superdrive (combo DVD/CD reader/writer) and drivers for it would make the Internet Computer a perfect "video archiving" device. This would allow users to save an endless number of favorite TV programs, either for their own future pleasure or to share with friends.
If you're browsing local files while not connected to the Internet, you get constant "cannot connect to server" error messages. This will never be noticed by users with full-time cable or DSL connections, but is going to annoy people who use dialup and can't tie up a phone line every second they're using their computer.
Also, the screen shots seemed to be hosed in the main page on news forge, so here is the link for screen shots of the Calendar app. I think the OEone site is under s heavy load for some reason;-)
-- "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ouch....pricey...and bulky
by
CDWert
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Well at 799 its a bit on the pricey side.....
I would love to see a cheap internet terminal @ under 300 , with specs like this one, I know however there is no way to make money At that point, I hate LCD's they drive my eyes bonkers and at lower res they box in, ever try and run doom on a laptop ?
On the other hand thats about all I use my laptop for, Laptops have an air about them, just ask all the posers at Starbucks, How about a LAPTOP sized appliance , No hard drive, network capablity, guts could be based on one of the small PDA units, for card compatibility etc, only with a full sized keyboard and screen, it's be LIGHT, CHEAP, and battery life could be pretty amazing. Do most anything you need whilst mobile. email, documents editing, etc. LINUX based of course:) Hell you could probably save almost all tooling costs and buy up another manufacturers mols of a dead line and make em fly as well as the low cost of a say 11.5 screen.
Offer that a $300-400 and they would get snapped up like nuts, if nothing else from all the posers that are too poor to buy a full unit but want to hang out with their buddies at Starbucks, and act all aloof like thier solving the probblems of the world on their laptop >:)
I cannot however see using Mozilla as the GUI at this point, I use and Like mozilla, but if the performance of their desktop compares to Nautilus , ayyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeekkkkk.
The market is there for these applicances, the right one just hasnt hit in my opinion...
-- Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
How long before....
by
countach
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Taking bets on how long before someone hacks this
latest internet appliance and puts Linux on it.
Oh wait... Damn. What the hell use is it, it comes
pre-cracked.
Compare to iMac
by
brunes69
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
After reading the article, I saw alot of comments on the price of the item, along the lines of "Too expensive, I can get Internet PC X for $300/$400/$500". You are making the wrong comparison.
This thing isn't an "internet device", it is a full fledged PC. Most of those internet devices you speak of have 16MB-32MB flash instead of a hard drive, and definatly do not have a TV tuner. You should be comparing the $800 pricetag to that of an iMac (which can range from $900 - $1100), and if you do you will see it is quite reasonable.
Re:Compare to iMac
by
90XDoubleSide
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Compare to iMac, eh? Sounds fair, I'll compare it to the $799 iMac. The computers are very similar in some ways: both have a 20GB HDD, 128 MB RAM, 24X CD-ROM, 100Base-T, 56K modem, and 2 USB ports. The AIO benefits from a 17" display and a TV tuner (which is mostly useless; you could add one to the iMac, but I can't imagine anyone doing so). The iMac benefits from two FireWire ports, Harman/Kardon speakers, a RAGE 128 Ultra, and VGA out. I'd say that VGA out is better than a TV tuner, but having a 17" display offset's the iMacs video card and speakers. The iMac still offers FireWire, has a far superior software bundle (sorry, but giving people commercial software adds more value than saving them a few minutes of downloading) and most importantly, I can play popular games on an iMac, both because it has an OS that supports them and because it has a real video card. The iMac also has a full BSD subsystem, so the AIO has no real advantage being on linux. And lets not forget that the AIO is godawful ugly (it looks like they were copying a Compaq copy of an iMac, badly).
So I think it's fair to say the $799 iMac has an edge over the $799 AIO. <sarcasm>This is incredibly shocking considering everyone knows Apple charges 4-8 times what their wintel competitors do</sarcasm>.
-- "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity"
-Alvy Ray Smith
The built-in speakers aren't great, but they never are in low-cost computers.
That's a bit rich considering that the machine this is ripping off (the old style iMac), for the same US$799 price, has Harman Kardon (read: good) speakers.
They proudly boast about how user friendly it is but then talk about using a terminal window to install a simple Office suite?! A web browser for the main interface?! Are they on crack? Why is everyone trying to do everything with a web browser these days. A web browser was designed to browse the web (shock horror).
I love the idea of backing up data to a sever in case you delete the file. Here's a thought: make a copy somewhere else on the hard disk or copy it to a floppy. Who's going to waste their bandwidth? Do you trust them not to look at your files?
I see this crashing and burning. Basically, for the same price you can get a real iMac. I thought rip offs were supposed to be cheaper? That's if Apple legal doesn't kill it first.
Slashdot Mirror
- Even though the documentation said it could record TV shows, there is no obvious way to do this yet. One OEone employee told me the documentation writers had been a bit "enthusiastic" about some of what they included in the first version of the user guide. Look for video recording capability in the next software version.
- No chat software, even though chat capability is mentioned in the docs. The story here is that they were planning to include a combination ICQ/IRC client in 1.0, but it wasn't quite ready by the scheduled release date, and was held back for the moment.
- No NTSC or S-video output on the video card. Sad. I am disappointed that it isn't there. Add this capability, and the Internet Computer could amost replace a TiVo or other time-shifting TV-watching aid, and serve as the heart of a simple home entertainment center, over and above its computer functions.
- An optional superdrive (combo DVD/CD reader/writer) and drivers for it would make the Internet Computer a perfect "video archiving" device. This would allow users to save an endless number of favorite TV programs, either for their own future pleasure or to share with friends.
- If you're browsing local files while not connected to the Internet, you get constant "cannot connect to server" error messages. This will never be noticed by users with full-time cable or DSL connections, but is going to annoy people who use dialup and can't tie up a phone line every second they're using their computer.
Also, the screen shots seemed to be hosed in the main page on news forge, so here is the link for screen shots of the Calendar app. I think the OEone site is under s heavy load for some reason"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well at 799 its a bit on the pricey side.....
:) Hell you could probably save almost all tooling costs and buy up another manufacturers mols of a dead line and make em fly as well as the low cost of a say 11.5 screen.
I would love to see a cheap internet terminal @ under 300 , with specs like this one, I know however there is no way to make money At that point, I hate LCD's they drive my eyes bonkers and at lower res they box in, ever try and run doom on a laptop ?
On the other hand thats about all I use my laptop for, Laptops have an air about them, just ask all the posers at Starbucks, How about a LAPTOP sized appliance , No hard drive, network capablity, guts could be based on one of the small PDA units, for card compatibility etc, only with a full sized keyboard and screen, it's be LIGHT, CHEAP, and battery life could be pretty amazing. Do most anything you need whilst mobile. email, documents editing, etc. LINUX based of course
Offer that a $300-400 and they would get snapped up like nuts, if nothing else from all the posers that are too poor to buy a full unit but want to hang out with their buddies at Starbucks, and act all aloof like thier solving the probblems of the world on their laptop >:)
I cannot however see using Mozilla as the GUI at this point, I use and Like mozilla, but if the performance of their desktop compares to Nautilus , ayyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeekkkkk.
The market is there for these applicances, the right one just hasnt hit in my opinion...
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Taking bets on how long before someone hacks this
latest internet appliance and puts Linux on it.
Oh wait... Damn. What the hell use is it, it comes
pre-cracked.
After reading the article, I saw alot of comments on the price of the item, along the lines of "Too expensive, I can get Internet PC X for $300/$400/$500". You are making the wrong comparison.
This thing isn't an "internet device", it is a full fledged PC. Most of those internet devices you speak of have 16MB-32MB flash instead of a hard drive, and definatly do not have a TV tuner. You should be comparing the $800 pricetag to that of an iMac (which can range from $900 - $1100), and if you do you will see it is quite reasonable.
That's a bit rich considering that the machine this is ripping off (the old style iMac), for the same US$799 price, has Harman Kardon (read: good) speakers.
They proudly boast about how user friendly it is but then talk about using a terminal window to install a simple Office suite?! A web browser for the main interface?! Are they on crack? Why is everyone trying to do everything with a web browser these days. A web browser was designed to browse the web (shock horror).
I love the idea of backing up data to a sever in case you delete the file. Here's a thought: make a copy somewhere else on the hard disk or copy it to a floppy. Who's going to waste their bandwidth? Do you trust them not to look at your files?
I see this crashing and burning. Basically, for the same price you can get a real iMac. I thought rip offs were supposed to be cheaper? That's if Apple legal doesn't kill it first.