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."

Looks cool

I like the looks of it, but where is the floppy drive?

Re:Looks cool

Come on, BadAnalogyGuy!

The floppy drive on this machine is like the main character in Beckett's famous novel "Waiting for Godot" in which Godot never shows up, probably because Beckett was so drunk he forgot to write that part.

Why's it so... flash?

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...

Re:Why's it so... flash?

Pretty is just as cheap to mass produce as ugly. GM should take a lesson.

Re:Why's it so... flash?

People won't just buy it for its price or features, they'll also buy it for the wow factor. If the production cost difference is minimal, why not go the extra distance?

Where I am, the EeePC is outselling other competitors (Classmate, Astone UMPC) precisely because of that. Sure, it's pricier, but you won't get embarrassed whipping it out in a café.

Looks like the EBox was designed to look like a Wii.

Re:

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 don't know what it costs to manufacture PC cases. I would guess $10 to $15 for a cheap one with a power supply. While you can get away with some cheap sheet metal, there are those folds for the card cage. This thing looks like you can mass produce it

I even hate myself for this...

"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 really do.... I feel the karma drain

Re:I even hate myself for this...

Not my fault, honest!

Seriously though, I'd put in a link to the inquirer as well (they had larger pictures of this device), which was removed and had forgotten to add the price. This was my first ever submission to Slashdot so I had actually run a spell check. What I submitted was error free.

Thank you editors. I really did need the pedant hoards blasting me for this...

Mythfrontend box

That's what I thought when I saw it. Sweet deal.

Wow...

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..

Re:

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..

Why not a laptop?

I doubt this will take off like the EEE

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.

Latest cheap thing vs Older good thing

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.

Re:Makes no sense

I don't see how any of this matters in a desktop.

The RV folks like a battery friendly PC. As a marine map display for boat use, or a topo map unit, these would make fantastic GPS map display units and double as an entertainment server for movies and music. Battery life with a 300 watt PC sucks. A sub 60 watt unit is more along the lines of usable in the evenings on battery power.

Re:Makes no sense

You can get a year old regular desktop for the same price and run an operating system of your choice,

You can get a big, noisy, ugly, year old desktop, high power-consuming, requiring an O/S reinstall, along with hunting down all the applications (a no-no for the masses), with god-only-knows-what sort of hardware problems.

Or you can get one of these things - and have all common workflows (skype, office, google, music) working out of the box.

Re:

i'm pretty sure the windows version is called a wEee box.

Re:It looks like a Wii

i'm pretty sure the windows version is called a EeeW box.

Fixed that for you.

actually

...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.

Re:

Exactly, I wondered the same thing, its just trolling

Ohhh, did the nasty reviewer man disrespect poor widdle Microsoft?

Seriously, what's with this petulant Crokeresque "Leave Vista Alooonnnee" meme over the past few months?

I mean, give me a break. T

Fighting fire with fire

"Fight Fire With Fire And Everything Will Burn"

Sure, but it might save your life. Read about it in this book [gutenberg.org]. When you are downwind from a big fire, set fire to the grass in front of you, then walk into the burned patch.

up until the last few years, Linux has been all of those things to the common "e-mail checking and web browsing" computer users

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 [google.com]? It's always on-topic to mention the alternatives, of course.
 

Re:Redundant department of redundancy...

Exactly, I wondered the same thing, its just trolling, it would almost be as relevant if [..]

You must have missed the memo, but Microsoft does not want you to be able to buy XP anymore. Everyone is supposed to move to Vista. So it is *most definitely* newsworthy if manufacturers are introducing *new products* a year and a half (!!) after Vista has been released to the public, *and they explicitly do not support the newest Microsoft OS at all*, although they do support the previous version - even though you're not even supposed to be able to buy that version anymore, at least not without jumping through all kinds of hoops. Hello? I consider this to be extremely newsworthy.

It's not designed to run Vista, therefore it does not necessitate any reference to Vista, it probably wouldnt run Ubuntu very well either, or OSX...

The EEE Laptops run Ubuntu just fine. I would be very surprised if these desktop versions wouldn't. Whether you could turn them into a Hackintosh is kindof a moot point IMO, but probably you could, at least if OS X happens to support the specific hardware they used. Please "get the facts" first next time, thanks.

Re:Redundant department of redundancy...

It's not designed to run Vista

The very fact that long-time PC manufacturers are designing systems that "are not designed to run Vista" a year and a half after it has been released is about as significant news as you could possibly get, with regards to the PC market in any case.

The only reason when you might have considered it less relevant, would have been if the systems where not selling well at all. So, have you bothered to check Amazons Bestsellers in Computers & PC Hardware [amazon.com] list lately? (Amazon being by far the largest online reseller that sells Apple, Asus EEE PC as well as Vista laptops?). The list updates hourly, but currently the first Vista laptop is at spot number 4. The Asus EEE PC used to be at 1 for over a week, and I guess the only reason why it currently isn't, is because they are out of stock everywhere. So it's currently in second place, flanked by Macbooks at place 1 and 3. So basically Microsofts margins are getting squeezed here from two directions at once: Apple at the high end, EEE PC's at the low end.

Re:Redundant department of redundancy...

So, have you bothered to check Amazons Bestsellers in Computers & PC Hardware [amazon.com] list lately? (Amazon being by far the largest online reseller that sells Apple, Asus EEE PC as well as Vista laptops?). The list updates hourly, but currently the first Vista laptop is at spot number 4.

It's also worth looking at customer satisfaction, as indicated by the customer reviews. Each of the Apple machines has a review average of 4.5/5 starts; the EEEPC has a review average of 5/5; the first Vista PC has a review average of 3/5. Not only are the non-Vista laptops selling very well, but the people who buy them are happier with what they get for their money - both at the high end and at the low end.

Re:Redundant department of redundancy...

I asked a shop in the central business district of Melbourne how the EEE laptop Linux machines were selling now that Asus provides a Microsoft system (with lower hardware specs to compensate for the cost of the OS). The answer was that the Windows version was strongly outselling the Linux version. However, Linux market share is about 0.7% so even if the Windows version is selling 10 to 1, the Linux version is still helping Linux get market share.
For the record, I use Debian and for an EEE PC I would recommend to consumers to use the Linux version.

Re:

A Mac Mini is not that much more in price, and is virtually immune to browser exploits and attacks from remote.

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