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freitasm writes "Geekzone is reporting on the AOL Optimized PC, a 2GHz Intel Celeron PC with 256MB RAM and 50GB ATA-100 HDD. It'll cost US$299.99 from Office Depot stores, with a commitment of 12-month AOL subscription. More information on AOL Optimized website." There's also a Reuters story.
Millions of people need SOME kind of dialup anyway.
Now they can get what looks to me like a very good "mom and dad" PC for $300 WITH A MONITOR. No harm in that.
Granted, other ISP's are cheaper.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Free software. Almost "free" hardware (throw-ins to a deal). Free wireless access. How long before we see ubiqituous computing? I guess the bigger question is how long before we see a PC included in a cereal box instead of those DVDs I've seen advertised on the boxes of Fruit Loops (or whatever it was)? "Hey! Check it out! This box contains a coupon for a free PC! (just send in 20 box tops, plus $39.95 shipping and handling)"
Buy now, pay later.
If its not coming out of your pocket today, its cheaper.
People don't think long-term when making purchases. That's why banks can sell consumer credit at high interest rates with low repayments over rediculously long times.
People joke about "Wogs and Cash", but the concept of never going into debt for a non-incoming generating purchase has a lot going for it.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
You're not just getting a PC, you're getting a PC and a 12-month dial-up service. If you're going to evaluate the real value of this deal then price up a similar spec PC and include a 12-month subscription to a ISP on par with AOL in terms of service, etc.
Also, remember that this is the sort of deal that's put together specifically to attract novice PC users. People who've never owned a PC before can buy a machine and not have to worry about where to get an internet connection, etc: it's an all-under-one-roof solution that's perfect for people who know what they want to do (surf the internet, send email, type the odd letter) but have no idea about what to buy when they flick through a magazine or go to a superstore.
In those terms, I don't see what there is to complain about.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The fallout from this offer may very well be the annoyance of techies everywhere. If the target audience are the people who have yet to buy a home computer then a lot of those people will be pretty much clueless with it. So it will follow in a lot of cases, these people will download or otherwise get viruses galore and/or adware. Since these new people only spent what was it 299 on a new computer, they aren't going to want to pay some tech 60 bucks an hour to fix their computer. Their tech friends will be used and abused. We will be called in to fix their problems. If the problem is software and we fix it for free than all is right with the world. The fallback on fixing a computer once is that forever more that person can say that, I think what you did 6 years ago is screwing up my computer now. Also, there is a hardware issue. These computers have the cheapest possible hardware, parts are going to die in them a lot. Well, back to the poor techie that got stuck fixing there computer. If you find out that lets say their harddrive is pooched, then they will ask how much it will cost. You will tell them and they will give you the look, like I told them that they have to hand over a years salary to fix it, then they will say well, could it be this or is there a way I can get by not using this right now...I can go on
So my assertion is cheap PCs are only a headache for techies. Any techie who finds out that someone has one of these type of computers, run run away, very fast even
Nuttles
Christian and proud of it
Half the posts are saying "Who cares? It's an entry-level $299 computer." Someone please tell me why a normal computer user (the type who uses AOL) needs anything faster than a 2GHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM?
Word Processing? check.
Web surfing? check.
Email? check.
Office applications? check.
Solitaire? check.
All of the above simultaneously? check.
Doom 3? Oops!
Other than video games, a typical "entry-level" PC like this does fine. This is the same thing as Microsoft having trouble getting people off of Windows '9x.
The Mah & Pah with a 500Mhz PII doesn't need anything faster. Their broadband is still slower than the speed that their PC can render a web page. It still plays chess better than they do. And they don't notice the few seconds of paging when the switch apps.