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Asus Set To Release Desktop Eee PC Variant
the_leander writes "The Register has pictures of the desktop version of Asus's Eee PC, reportedly called the 'Ebox.' It will be released early next month after it has been unveiled publicly at Computex in Taipei on June 3. It'll come equipped with the same Xandros Linux distribution as the Eee, though it's likely that Windows XP will be available also. But given the probable choice for CPU, Atom, ithe Ebox is unlikely to allow for the use of Vista, unless you're something of a masochist. It's expected to retail for $200-$300."
I like the looks of it, but where is the floppy drive?
dsfargeg
"unlikely to allow for the use of Vista, unless you're something of a masochist".. what does that have to do with the machine?
Is it just me, or does it seem somewhat odd to make a low budget PC quite so flash and stylish? Surely, if you're trying to get sales by having THE cheapest machine on the market, then perhaps people might not care how it looks so much as how much it costs?
I would have thought you could shave at least $50 off the price if you built it in a really boring, plain case, without silly stands or LED buttons...
I like :)
I really do.... I feel the karma drain
There is a distro called ebox.
http://ebox-platform.com/
That's what I thought when I saw it. Sweet deal.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It's like a portable desktop...
Seriously, if it is slim and small enough I can clearly think of several nice uses. It's a perfect living room pc, a kitchen computer ( I dont want my mom to get my laptop dirty when browsing recipes ), a car pc (someone would definitely do this), what else.. ohhh.. and a beowulf cluster, imagine a server rack of these..
You can get a year old regular desktop for the same price and run an operating system of your choice, including Vista with Aero or hacked MacOSX. EeePC laptop has certain features unique over current or slightly older regular notebooks - weight, battery life, flash drive. I don't see how any of this matters in a desktop.
People buy desktops for connecting to backend office infrastructure, and sad to say, the Windows-Office lockin still rules in this space. Skype and other stuff like Image manipulation might make sense in the Home Linux market, but there are already plenty cheap hardware out there that can run Linux for under $200. The gBox for one.
So Asus will find it very hard to push these desktops unless they race to the bottom. Which might rule out Windows XP as well.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I have no idea if this is real or fabricated... I guess it's real, it's from a chinese review of the MSI Wind, wich is also equipped with an Intel Atom:
http://forums.msiwind.net/download/file.php?id=3
It's running Windows Vista, but I have no idea how well it performs. Anybody know of an english review that tried to run Vista on an Atom? Or can read this article?
Source (chinese): http://article.pchome.net/content-630588-1.html
It would be great if they put PC inside medium - sized keyboard (desktop keyboard minus numeric part). Everywhere I go, there is TV or Monitor with DVI/HDMI, and what I would like to have is cheap $200 Amiga 500-like (but slim) computer with flash HDD, no DVD, Atom CPU with passive cooling. I know there is one company creating expensive over-sized PC-inside-keyboard computers, with DVD and everything, but thats not it.
...It'll come in windows and linux flavours, but the linux one will have half the ram and hdd capacity as the windows version and cost a twice as much due to 'lesser availability'.
Actually MSI is making the linux version of its 'Wind' notebook with 50% less RAM, 50% less battery and taking away bluetooth!
Needless to say, many are miffed that they would have an unwanted software charge attached just to get the more capable hardware!
Wouldn't it be better for Asus to release low cost motherboard designed for Small Form Factor case like the Mac Mini. The motherboard would then have slots for DDR2 memory. Then come out with new SSD hard drive that can fit into a slot specially designed for the Asus motherboard and replaceable when it goes bad in 2-4 years.
In other note, the style of the case is beautiful. It would be nice if it would have Fast Wifi/Ethernet and HDMI/Composite Video out. Then use VideoLAN to stream video from desktop to Ebox.
\
Before I go into monologue mode, it looks like Dell already has something in the ultra slim ultra cheap arena. Dell EPP Inspiron 530S starts under $400, ok not as cheap as the Asus solution, but still.
I do see a need for an Asus EEE laptop. Something ultra cheap that you can kick around, get some work done on it, but not be too worried if it gets lost or stolen. I see slightly less of a need for an Asus EEE desktop. The market is pretty flooded with desktops, so much so that getting something in the Socket A to 939 class for $200-$300 on closeout is very possible. While duel core is all the rage, the last time I checked new egg a 4000+ single core 939 was well under $50, and that is nothing to sneeze at. A 2000mhz socket A system does the job for most people IMHO.
So the real question is this... do I want a trimmed down might as well be a laptop desktop, or do I want an older machine that might out perform it. There are no facts or specs to backup this assertion, it's just been my experience that new ultra cheap has often been outclassed by 3 year old goods.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
It's a white plastic box on a stalk. The desktop stand is the first thing to go into the trash. What's stylish about it?
...It'll come in windows and linux flavours, but the linux one will have half the ram and hdd capacity as the windows version and cost a twice as much due to 'lesser availability'.
Actually, for the announced configurations, the Eee 900 with Linux will have 20G flash (instead of 12G) and be slightly more expensive as a result. A fair tradeoff.
For the HP 2133, the Linux versions are consistently cheaper than the equivalent Windows versions.
So, direct your anger elsewhere. These mini laptops have been good for Linux.
A Mac Mini is not that much more in price, and is virtually immune to browser exploits and attacks from remote.
i can buy a far more powerful machine second hand. I can see the rationale for a low priced hand held size device as that niche didn't exist before. But a desktop? Especially when everyone is moving towards laptops...
Well,
1. it's just getting old. Yes, we know, you don't like MS. You may even imagine that it's your duty to save the world from it. Guess what? Noone else gives a fuck. Repeating the same wannabe-memes over and over again just makes one boring, nothing more.
2. Fighting FUD and disinformation with FUD and disinformation, does not a moral high ground make. Yes, MS has some nasty marketing and lacks ethics. Guess what? Being as big a lying prick doesn't make you better. It just makes you yet another lying prick.
If you have something useful to contribute (e.g., exactly what problems happen if one runs Vista on that machine, or on a similar configuration?), by all means, go ahead. But just rehashing "but does it run Vista" one-liners is just noise and literally FUD. It's, what? Saving the world from MS evil FUD, by filling it with your own? At the end then we'd still have a disinformed market, making purchases based on little more than uncertainty and _lack_ of knowledge, same as before. Big freakin' improvement. Not. It's like fighting against malaria by giving those people HIV instead.
3. If you want to talk about "inventing FUD", that term was first used about IBM. So, nope, MS didn't invent that either, just like they didn't invent the browser or personal computing.
4. "Now it's your turn and you're whining like whipped bitches" is a piss-poor ad-hominem. I know it probably doesn't fit your simplified view of the world, but not everyone who's tired of hearing you whine, bitch, and moan, is in any way connected to MS. Some of us are just tired of the endless noise from bleating fanboys, drowning the useful signal in threads that have nothing to do with their whine.
It has nothing to do with being pro or against MS. I can tell you that I have a BSD fanboy at work, trying to save me from Linux, and he's just as annoying.
5. "Well suck it up. There's plenty more to come." Well, that's what makes it annoying. You said it once, learn to take a break now and then. Repeating same tired fanboy whine again and again, is hardly going to make it either better or true than it was the first time around. It'll just add more noise to drown the useful signal. If your contribution to the world and claim to greatness is that you'll troll some more, heh... you could get some useful skill instead, and actually contribute something, ya know?
6. I'll even go one step further and say: "It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of attention, the harder the task." --Sydney J. Harris
I get the distinct impression that a lot of those who can't just shut up even for 5 minutes about saving the world from X (where X can be anything between the upcoming wrath of God, like in the Crusades, to more modern concerns like MS) are those who can't sort out their own lives, or show some backbone to the boss in person. It's _easy_ to fight for some nebulous global task that will never be done, and noone can fault you if you show no progress. So wake me up when you can claim some actual personal achievement, not just being a "me too" clone in the big cozy family of sheep bleating against MS.
Just a thought.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's smaller, lighter, quieter, uses less power and (versus getting used) you don't have to worry if the seller is hiding some problem with the used computer.
I keep reading here 'you get the same as regular PC for the same money with more power'.
WTF?
No, you don't. This thing is the size of a friggin' external HDD! It probably consumes less than a third of the power of a regular desktop and - optical media, hardcore gaming and CAD aside - can do everything a bulky box can do. And a gaming rigg or CAD machine costs a 4-digit sum anyway and serves a totally different market.
About half a year ago I replaced my large linux tower with the first ATX casing ever (an Inwin from 1996 - still the best tinker-case ever) - which weighs something like a metric ton, has the size of a minivan and sounds like a 747 taking off *and* requires me to crawl under the table when hooking up USB or Ethernet - with the smallest Mac Mini I could get. I pimped it out with 3 GB and shudder with horror whenever I boot up that cludgy thing to migrate data or something. The 1,8 Ghz Mac Mini sits *under* my 20" samsung cinema flatscreen at an arms-length away from my ears and I only hear it when I play Sauerbraten for more than 5 minutes.
I can't believe that anybody other than hardcore gamers, video compositors or 3D Fx people even consider getting a midi tower these days, let alone a bigtower.
I believe this new Asus stunt will finally tap yet another new market of zero-fuss one-stop workstation solutions and have the midi and maxi towers finally go the way of the dodo for most markets. Personally, I sure do hope so. It's about time too.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This thing is ideal for students, or anyone else going away from home for a long period of time. I live in Connecticut and next year will be going to college in California. Instead of shelling out $1500 for a comparable laptop, I can get one of these instead and keep using my elderly notebook. It goes on the plane, it fits in a small dorm room, it has a pretty big hard drive. A winner in my book.
Same Cworthless Short of a miracle
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Let's talk about who made that progress then.
It was made by people like those from Asus, who actually made a Linux computer for the masses. Or by the guys at Ubuntu putting together that wonderful distro. Or by the lots of guys who set their eyes on a realistic goal, like, say, let's make a little config utility, and actually achieved it.
It was not made by the trolling fanboys posting FUD.
In fact, any progress has been made in _spite_ of the trolling faboys and their blatant attempts at FUD. Those just helped alienate the potential market. If you tell someone a blatant lie again, you just lost credibility. Anything else that you try to tell him, will be tainted by that. And the fanboy FUD just served to create an impression in some people that the whole Linux crowd is a bunch of pathological lying whiners.
People, it's not like telling shit about Elbonia. Everyone has a Windows computer, or knows someone who does. Telling him bullshit like that his machine does this and that, which he knows (or can quickly check) that it doesn't do, is just a way to lose his trust and attention.
Even MS FUD steered clear of blatant lies. Just something to think about.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Xandros are one of those stupid companies that did a patent deal. Wake me up when I can buy one of these machines without an installed OS, or at least without a linux distro that bent-over for Microsoft.
Sure, but it might save your life. Read about it in this book. When you are downwind from a big fire, set fire to the grass in front of you, then walk into the burned patch.
Define "few" years, please. I started using Linux in 1995 with the Yggdrasil "plug and play" distribution. At that time it was more or less like what the Microsoft shills claim, but still I was able to install and run it in less than an hour, without any outside help. Google didn't exist at the time and I had never met anyone who had ever used Linux.
Compared to that, at about the same period it took me nearly a week and several consultations with other people until I got Windows 95 to run on the same machine. The hardware drivers had to be carefully configured and installed in a precise sequence to boot windows 95, even though it had been running windows 3.11 before. So, even if Linux was in an extremely primitive state for the common user at the time, it wasn't any more difficult to install and configure than windows.
For normal use today, I think Linux with KDE is easier to use than XP (I have never tried Vista). For one thing, the "K" or "Start" menu is nicely organized, divided by application type instead of by software provider. Also, It's much easier to search and install software: click on "Add/Remove programs", search by keyword, click on "install" and "apply changes", and that's it. And copy/paste is easier too: select with the mouse, middle-click to paste. One handed, no need to CTRL-C, CTRL-V. And so on, etc, etc.
Now, if you think it's off-topic to mention Vista in a discussion about Linux, think again: why is it that Linux is mentioned 177000 times in the Microsoft website? It's always on-topic to mention the alternatives, of course.
Remember the Mac Mini ?
The first branded computer to bring awareness of small-form factors to the masses ?
It was also marketed as cheap way to upgrade one's desktop, and it wasn't specially ugly either.
Asus is trying to market PCs as commodity technology, as appliance.
And it's usually the nice design which makes a cheap appliance attractive rather than the power under the hood.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
These mini style PCs are great. Quiet, cheap, low power etc. But one if it can't play MKV files then they are hard to use as media center devices.
Remember that the new extended life XP is for a very limited set of hardware. Screens = 10". That alone would probably make any desktop system (with an external monitor) ineligible for an XP license.
It'll probably run Vista, but that'd require a lot more RAM than the Linux version. How will they get away with making Linux more expensive than Vista on this thing? Who knows, but presumably MS will try to force them to.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I have to agree with some of the other comments. The Mac Mini is a great little machine, but it's most appropriate for someone wanting a small, "entry level priced" computer that runs Apple's OS X.
It's *not* really an attractive solution when the primary goal is low-price.
The cost of OS X Leopard is factored into the price of each and every new Mac Mini, and that's around $200 itself. By loading a Linux distro on an Asus, they avoid all of that, right off the bat - and Linux is just as "immune to browser exploits and remote attacks" as OS X is, really.
Well, yes, but that's still no excuse to counter them with lies that don't even work. If you have to counter a fallacy about linux, by all means do it. By pointing out the truth. Not by making up a counter-lie about Windows.
Even if you don't care about the moral high ground, Linux just isn't in a position to use the same monopolistic tactics that worked for MS. You tend to actually need a near-monopoly for those to work.
FUD is based on people's existing fear of change and unknown. It gives them more reason to not try what they don't already know. It doesn't work as a tactic to get them to ditch what they already know, because there is no Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to play on.
They're tactics for walling people _in_ your garden, not for convincing them to join it.
_If_ Linux had 90% of the market, then maybe you could scare them out of considering Windows, with made up horror stories. But when the situation is reversed, making up shit about Windows just makes you that guy who's making up shit again.
And certainly not with an obnoxious attitude like, "Now it's your turn and you're whining like whipped bitches. Well suck it up. There's plenty more to come." Which is what irked me in the message I was answering to originally. Advocating doesn't work by blanket calling everyone an enemy, and getting them to dislike you. If they dislike you, they're less likely to listen to anything you have to say.
I'm not even saying anything new or which shouldn't be common sense. Check out, for example, the Paul L. Rogers's Linux Advocacy Mini-FAQ. I'm waiting to see if some fanboy feels a need to paint him in the MS shills camp for offering advice like, "Avoid hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims at all costs. It's unprofessional and will result in unproductive discussions." Or "Focus on what Linux has to offer. There is no need to bash the competition. Linux is a good, solid product that stands on its own."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's possible (from the lack of a comma) he thought you were simply the wrong clown.
Could be I'm the right clown.
One thing is for certain: the poster is an Anonymous Coward.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
This looks like it could be very useful for someone like me who moves back and forth every few weeks between 2 homes. I could have monitor, kb, mouse etc. in each home, and travel with this light small box.
It's a small footprint computer. These have been done before for the last few years in various forms. Usually with a laptop's guts inside. The whole point of the Eee PC was that it was a low cost portable computer "laptop-like" device that ran full OSes (not just WindowsCE or some other lightweight OS). Where before those types of devices were extremely expensive for the compactness.
It certainly is cool looking. The only thing I can think of that would make this stand out is a low price. But other than that it's like a lower end Mac Mini with the Diamondville CPU.
I dunno, I think desktops kinda lend to higher expectations when it comes to what wows people for this type of thing. I think what they should do is come out with a low cost, small footprint gaming console PC that runs a modified version of Windows Vista or Ubuntu (Wine) for gaming like they've been talking about in the industry. Now that would be interesting.