At $300 (US) these are amusing little toys for coffee shops and non-business travel. But with these $600+ prices, I don't know who they think their customers are. I can go to Office Depot and get a great laptop for ~$500 that's better than most desktops--dual core CPU, tons of RAM and hard drive space, high resolution screen, DVD burner, etc. Yeah, it's somewhat bigger and heavier, but given what you get in return I think that's a tradeoff most people would be happy to make.
Well today is the 8th July, and not a one PCWorld branch within 30 miles of my home town has any in!
Are they just liars, because that expectant date has been pushed back at least once? Last week it was the 7th July.
We could do with one at work for our showcase lab, but I would wager we can expect decent stock levels only after its base model, the MSI Wind is readily available.
Only trouble is our budget is 'expiring' end of July and theres no money allocated next year for this sort of purchase!
Oh well. PC World loses out on a sale because they can't get them out the warehouse quickly enough.
Well I would argue that you can get a great laptop for ~$500, for starters most skimp on RAM (and 1 MB with Vista is painful).
But even if that is so you have to look at what you are using your laptop for. Remember these notebooks are 1/2 the size of a full laptop. They have the footprint of a text book and as such you can just chuck them in a rucksack and take them everywhere so it really depends what you are doing with your laptop. If 90% of your time is spent writing some word documents, email and web browsing then these are perfect without having to lug a large brick around with you.
"Well I would argue that you can get a great laptop for ~$500, for starters most skimp on RAM (and 1 MB with Vista is painful)."
Too right: you won't even BOOT with 1MB.
The prices are FAR too high. OLPC is still around 160 euros or £120. +50% on that because OLPC is non-profit-making and your low cost PC should be ~£200 mark with PLENTY profit.
More likely it's just they are able to ream us, so they will.
Half the point of these reading these articles was take another look at the Eee PC girl. Now the she and the register have finally parted company, how about giving the Elonex One girl some publicity? After all, she is the only one with a cheap laptop, and the software is from ABM.
SimplyAcer are quoting 11 August to have these in stock, at £219 for the base model, not £230. Expansys say they have them now, but at £234 for the base model.
Interesting looking at the websites and the price differences between identical hardware with Linux or WinXP: it is £50-53. That is a lot of Microsoft tax.
Agreed... What about Dell's first entry into the SCC market? I am a little surprised there was no mention (until the comments) of Dell's "Mini Inspiron/Dell-E" computers.
I pre-ordered mine (what the hell, it's only a hundred quid) in March. Had an email today, requesting final payment for dispatch within 28 days. However, they have also offered me a free upgrade to the Elonex Onet+, which will allegedly sell for £199. With a further application of the "what the hell" principle I have done so.
The specs on line are not very detailed: same 800x480 as everyone else, 2GB storage, no mention of OS or software thought it's "compatible with MS Office" so I presume some form of Linux.
Now that I've ordered the Onet+ I can't see any mention of it on their website, so I suspect that either they are having One supply problems and punting out something which isn't officially launched yet to fill the gap or - more likely - that I'm about to be an unwitting beta tester.
But what the hell.
PS ElReg folk, contact me f you want the Onet+ to review.
Velocity Micro Edge Z30 Midsize Desktop (2.66GHz Intel Core i5 750, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, DVD±RW DL, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit)
Apple iMac All-In-One Desktop (3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR2, 1TB, DVD+-RW DL, Mac OS X v10.5 Snow Leopard, 27" LCD)
HP (Hewlett-Packard) Pavilion p6210f Mini-Tower Desktop (2.6GHz Athlon II X4 620, 6GB DDR2, 640GB HDD, DVD±RW DL, Windows 7 Home Premium)
HP (Hewlett-Packard) Compaq Presario CQ5210F Mini-Tower Desktop (2.7GHz Athlon 64 X2 215, 3GB DDR2, 500GB, DVD±RW DL, Windows 7 Home Premium)
Apple iMac All-In-One Desktop (3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR2, 500GB, DVD+-RW DL, Mac OS X v10.5 Snow Leopard, 21.5" LCD)
Small, Cheap Computer countdown continues
moonoi
Acer Aspire One available where I live #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:14 GMT
Took a look at it last Friday at my local shopping mall....but then I live in Bangkok, cost 14900THB or 219 GBP at todays' exchange rate.:-)
Nice to see I can get something before europe for a change!
Marc Lawrence
PC World #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:14 GMT
It seems some branches had stock as I saw at least one forum poster using one of the 'now delayed' brands... Wind or Acer - I forget which.
hammarbtyp
If advent 4211 is only available today .... #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:14 GMT
What am I typing this message on?
The advent 4211 was available in some PC world stores last Thursday.
For a good overview of the issues see www.msiwind.net
Stephen Thomas
The first breeze ... #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:14 GMT
Hmm. I may be ahead of the curve. My MSI Wind arrived last week and I've been having fun playing with it.
Cyberwlf
PCWorld Advent 4211 #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
Apparently some people on here picked up one of these a few days ago even, and others in the last 1-2 days, so it is already out.
Jerome
M912 #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
I wan't my mini-tablet touch screen PC dammit. Give me a Gigabyte M912, and none of your TBA nonsense.
richard
good summary - how about a specs table please? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
a nice coloured chart showing the comparable specs of these machines please. very helpful indeed.
Toastan Buttar
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
How come I've never heard of the Elonex One before today ?
Jess
Cheap? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
How is £350+ cheap? (Maybe for Paris)
cheap should be below £200.
TimP
Small, Cheap Computers - I think not #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
All of these, except the Elonex, appear to be small, overpriced computers.
Toastan Buttar
Tux... #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
...because he's "an encouraging penguin".
http://www.elonexone.co.uk/software.html
PHILIP LIVINGSTONE
And the DELL Minspiron (E Classic / E Video)? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
So you see fit to not even mention Dell's entry into this battle of the super small and cheap....
Anonymous Coward
What's with the prices #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 09:15 GMT
At $300 (US) these are amusing little toys for coffee shops and non-business travel. But with these $600+ prices, I don't know who they think their customers are. I can go to Office Depot and get a great laptop for ~$500 that's better than most desktops--dual core CPU, tons of RAM and hard drive space, high resolution screen, DVD burner, etc. Yeah, it's somewhat bigger and heavier, but given what you get in return I think that's a tradeoff most people would be happy to make.
Stu
Advent 4211 released? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 10:36 GMT
Well today is the 8th July, and not a one PCWorld branch within 30 miles of my home town has any in!
Are they just liars, because that expectant date has been pushed back at least once? Last week it was the 7th July.
We could do with one at work for our showcase lab, but I would wager we can expect decent stock levels only after its base model, the MSI Wind is readily available.
Only trouble is our budget is 'expiring' end of July and theres no money allocated next year for this sort of purchase!
Oh well. PC World loses out on a sale because they can't get them out the warehouse quickly enough.
hammarbtyp
Re:What's with the prices #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 10:36 GMT
Well I would argue that you can get a great laptop for ~$500, for starters most skimp on RAM (and 1 MB with Vista is painful).
But even if that is so you have to look at what you are using your laptop for. Remember these notebooks are 1/2 the size of a full laptop. They have the footprint of a text book and as such you can just chuck them in a rucksack and take them everywhere so it really depends what you are doing with your laptop. If 90% of your time is spent writing some word documents, email and web browsing then these are perfect without having to lug a large brick around with you.
Mark
Booting Vista #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
"Well I would argue that you can get a great laptop for ~$500, for starters most skimp on RAM (and 1 MB with Vista is painful)."
Too right: you won't even BOOT with 1MB.
The prices are FAR too high. OLPC is still around 160 euros or £120. +50% on that because OLPC is non-profit-making and your low cost PC should be ~£200 mark with PLENTY profit.
More likely it's just they are able to ream us, so they will.
W
Netbook, SCC, Laptot, etc #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
So it looks like "Netbook" is pulling ahead. "SCC" is a misnomer anyway when an EEE 90(X) is £300+.
Not a massive fan of "Netbook" personally but if it edges out the silly "Notebook" label in favour of Laptop once and for all, then I'm all for it.
Anonymous Coward
Time for the Elonex One girl? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
Half the point of these reading these articles was take another look at the Eee PC girl. Now the she and the register have finally parted company, how about giving the Elonex One girl some publicity? After all, she is the only one with a cheap laptop, and the software is from ABM.
GrahamT
Acer Aspire One #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
SimplyAcer are quoting 11 August to have these in stock, at £219 for the base model, not £230. Expansys say they have them now, but at £234 for the base model.
Interesting looking at the websites and the price differences between identical hardware with Linux or WinXP: it is £50-53. That is a lot of Microsoft tax.
Mark
Portability? What about resilience? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
"They have the footprint of a text book and as such you can just chuck them in a rucksack and take them everywhere "
Unless it's raining and your rucksack not 100% rainproof.
And you'd better treat that rucksack like it held your firstborn, because these machines are NOT robust.
It was why I was looking forward to an XO machine. Splashproof and resilient.
Barry
WinXP 901 @ ebuyer now #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
Ebuyer.com have 2 Atom-based "EEE"'s.
9in 20GB SSD with WinXP
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146033
10in 80GB HD with WinXP
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146026
Phillip
@ PHILIP LIVINGSTONE #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:10 GMT
Agreed... What about Dell's first entry into the SCC market? I am a little surprised there was no mention (until the comments) of Dell's "Mini Inspiron/Dell-E" computers.
Mine's the one with the Axim in it...
Alan Stepney
Here is a small cheap computer system.... #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 16:15 GMT
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170235859239&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=007
Trygve Henriksen
Belco Alpha-400? #
Posted Tuesday 8th July 2008 21:00 GMT
At US$249 over at http://www.bestlinkeshop.com is available now, and has been available for a while...
(I've had mine for nearly 2 weeks now)
Cheaper than the rest, weighs only 700grams, and is slightly smaller than the Eee 701.
Of course, the Linux distro has been hacked and slashed beyond recognicion and is 'rather' limited...
(They manaed to fit Linux, AbiWord, Gnumeric, FireFox 2.0, a PDFviewer, multimediaplayer and even an IceAge II Preview into 350MB... )
aaron corkin
Advent 4211 @ Currys #
Posted Wednesday 9th July 2008 03:41 GMT
The Advent 4211 is available from Currys online. I ordered mine on Thursday last week and it arrived yesterday morning.
head on over to www.currys.co.uk and search for advent 4211 :)
Ian Johnston
Elonex One #
Posted Sunday 13th July 2008 12:46 GMT
I pre-ordered mine (what the hell, it's only a hundred quid) in March. Had an email today, requesting final payment for dispatch within 28 days. However, they have also offered me a free upgrade to the Elonex Onet+, which will allegedly sell for £199. With a further application of the "what the hell" principle I have done so.
The specs on line are not very detailed: same 800x480 as everyone else, 2GB storage, no mention of OS or software thought it's "compatible with MS Office" so I presume some form of Linux.
Now that I've ordered the Onet+ I can't see any mention of it on their website, so I suspect that either they are having One supply problems and punting out something which isn't officially launched yet to fill the gap or - more likely - that I'm about to be an unwitting beta tester.
But what the hell.
PS ElReg folk, contact me f you want the Onet+ to review.