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

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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

Re:Looks cool

[Profane MuthaFucka]

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.

Re:

[aproposofwhat]

Yep - it was a play.

I remember seeing Leo McKern and Max Wall performing it in Manchester several decades ago - one of the best plays I ever saw (Pinter's The Birthday Party may have trumped it, but it's a close call).

Very good bad analogy, though :o)

Re:

[arivanov]

Talking of becket: you should watch "The End of the Game" with a good cast... Though make sure you have a good samaritan friend handy for the next couple of days or you may end up hanging from a tree somewhere.

Talking of the desktop EE this looks like the perfect thin client and/or set-top box for a linux/vlc based media distribution system. Rip out the hard disk and voila. It should have enough grunt to decode SD and scale it to 1344x768 without skipping frames. After all 4 year old Via can do that and Geo

Why's it so... flash?

[ChowRiit]

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?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

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

Re:

[Kjella]

If people have one definition of "pretty". Multiple designs cost quite a bit if you run different product lines with different stocks, unless it's really simple like snap-on covers. There's a reason the beige box was fairly popular, it's the most inoffensive box possible. What some consider flashy and cool like neon and blinking lights others think is cheesy and about as classy as a cheap strip joint. Even Jobs caved in and offered a black MacBook and colored iPods for those that really, really hate white.

Re:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Like all costs of production, that cost get distributed over the units manufactured. Also, one measure of the cost of production is indicated by the marginal cost, that is, the cost incurred by producing one more unit. That particular measure would not be affected by a development cost.

How much does a good design cost over a bad design? Are bad designers available for $20 an hour, and good designers available for $100 an hour? A large production run would dilute even a big difference in costs there.

Re:

[Oktober Sunset]

It's a square box, on a silly stand, it's not really a grand feat of form and function.

Re:

[jedidiah]

...looks remarkably like an AppleTV. Although that's not hard since
the AppleTV is nothing more than a white box (minus the stand).

Hopefully this will be something that can be used as a nice cheap
non-ugly low noise PC for applications that require that sort of
thing. Other mini PC's are more expensive than they really need
to be and appliances like the AppleTV/xbox are troublesome to hack.

Relative Clownology

[Stanistani]

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.

Re:

[pembo13]

It's just plastic

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

[dominique_cimafranca]

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:

[zakezuke]

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 in a mold without those pesky inside folds or rivets. I mean it looks nice, but I'm thinking the price mark would be similar to that of a regular PC case.

Also, I think also tried their hand at beige box PCs. I had a couple of hand me downs which were no

plastic box

[nguy]

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?

Re:

[Yvanhoe]

You need a specifically designed case. Making it stylish isn't really more complicated or costly than to make a boring one. A power status LED is something I would consider unavoidable, and it costs less than a dollar.

Re:

[Rogerborg]

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...

Why would you think that? Silly stands and LEDs cost pennies, not $50 per unit. It costs money for someone to produce the design, but that's a fixed cost, not per unit, and since they just cloned a Wii (and their previous design cloned the Acer Veriton, which was itself a bloated Mac Mini), that's not such a huge expense either.

And even if they could sha

Remember the Mac Mini

[DrYak]

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.

Re:

[tsa]

So people who buy Apples are cheap!

I even hate myself for this...

[penguin king]

"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...

[the_leander]

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

[pembo13]

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

Re:

[batkiwi]

An xbox 1 would be more capable.

It likely won't be able to upscale SD let alone play anything HD.

A popcorn hour is cheaper and more capable as a front end...

Re:

[Colonel Korn]

You can buy the original Xbox at GameStop (in the US) for $60 used. However, my understanding is that it doesn't handle HD streaming well at all, and you still need the know-how to mod the system. Plus, it's huge...I'll take something small even if there is a price premium involved...which is offset by the ease of installing the MythTV frontend.

Yeah, you need a softmodded xbox, to do it, but an xbox with xmbc handles HD streaming better than any other media streamer on the market. The only problem is that it can't handle most HD content.

Re:

[Colonel Korn]

That was me rearranging my sentence and not noticing that I left HD in there in the first place. It's great for NON-HD content, but chokes on HD.

Re:

[tji]

Yes, I thought the same thing. The obvious question is about the CPU power and capability to play HD content.

Other things I've read about the Atom processor mention speeds in the realm of 1.6GHz. Depending on the type of core, this may be enough, but probably not.

Dual core Atom processors have also been announced, but the low cost Asus box will probably not have that.

The other factor is the GPU. If it used one of the newer Intel integrated GPUs, there would be a chance of using XvMC or possibly VAAPI to

Wow...

[RuBLed]

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:

[zakezuke]

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?

Re:

[jedidiah]

I have such a machine.

It's a 5 year old Vaio laptop that's used as the living
room web terminal. It sits on the bar between the living
room and the kitchen. Turn it around on that bar and it
makes a dandy recipe viewer. ...not sure I would want to use a small machine for such
a task though.

Re:

[vidarh]

My brother has one, with the screen mounted in the door of a kitchen cabinet (he cut a hole for the LCD), and hid the machine in the cabinet. No idea if he actually uses it for anything..

Re:

[hkmarks]

We've been on the verge of getting one, and hooking it up to a small (19" or so) LCD TV, for about 3 years. We were sort of waiting for a small, cheap computer that ran Linux... like this, for instance.

I thought of 3 probable configurations for it.
1) A laptop with a TV tuner. Convenient all-in-one. Can be grabbed and taken away. Downside: TV would take time to turn on, and 90% of the time we'd just want it as a pure TV. Also, cables and adaptors everywhere. Good laptops are expensive, bad laptops don'

I doubt this will take off like the EEE

[jkrise]

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.

Re:

[norminator]

People buy desktops for connecting to backend office infrastructure

Some (meaning relatively few) people buy desktops for that. Probably many of the people you work with. I know how to connect to my office's Exchange server and VPN, but I don't do it from my home desktop (occasionally with my laptop from work, but I rarely even do that). Most home users, however, buy desktops for sending e-mails, browsing YouTube, MySpace/Facebook and the blogs of friends and families, playing games, and for their kids to do their homework on. Most people out there don't know about Ex

If is anything like the eee900 or MSI Wind...

[distantbody]

...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 [gizmodo.com] 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!

actually

[nguy]

...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:

[lbbros]

I believe the OP is referring to the situation in Australia, where the Eee 900 with Linux will cost more than the Windows version.

Re:

[sapphire wyvern]

True, and that sucks... but it's still got superior hardware with 20GiB of flash instead of 12GiB on the Windows version. So apparently the cost of Windows XP licenses in Australia (or MS's other incentives) are not enough to offset the 8GiB extra flash. Either that or, more likely, Asus is just profiteering on the basis that Linux users are more likely to be relatively wealthy educated techies.

No word on if the batteries are any different between the two models; I noticed an article linked off TFA which me

Re:

[deniable]

In Australia, the Windows version is advertised at $599. The Linux version (with 20GB drive) is $650. The OP said double the price.

Re:

[vidarh]

In the UK the Eee 900 is offered at exactly the same price with Linux and Windows by at least some retailers, but still with the 8GB difference in amount of flash.

Oh Pleeaze

[kahrytan]

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 desk

Re:

[nguy]

There are already plenty of small, low-cost motherboards around. But who wants to bother with them? And other companies just aren't picking them up enough.

Latest cheap thing vs Older good thing

[zakezuke]

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:

[blackest_k]

if this is based on the EEE then there are a few good points it might have inherited.

noise - the EEE is nearly silent in use.
power consumption the EEE uses only 22 watts tops.
how does that compare with your old desktop system?

pulling figures out the air lets say your desktop uses 250 watts and this uses 25 then thats 6 kw a day against .6kw or 2,190 kw a year against 219 a year using a figure like 10cents a kilowatt then your desktop has cost you $219 dollars and the eee desktop $21.90 close to $200 a year

Re:

[zakezuke]

noise - the EEE is nearly silent in use.
power consumption the EEE uses only 22 watts tops.
how does that compare with your old desktop system?

Valid point. To be fair I never measured it, but it's safe to presume above 150watts.

However.. for the $200-$300 bracket, you can get a used laptop.
HP compaq 6720s Compaq Presario v2000s are just two examples I found in seattle.craigslist.org.

It could be a good mythtv frontend, music server. it has the wife acceptance factor built in.

You know it could be, presuming it has some sort of expansion slots on it.

Power?

[tepples]

it's just been my experience that new ultra cheap has often been outclassed by 3 year old goods.

Even in electric power consumption?

Re:

[Eil]

I have to disagree. I think there is a market for this sort of thing because I am in that market. I set up lots of computers for friends and family and this Asus thing is exactly what I'd get for them. Their needs are usually rather simple and they don't want a huge mid-tower taking up their desk. A Mac Mini would be perfect, except that it starts out at $600 before taxes and shipping. Plus a good percentage of that price is probably OS X which most of my family has no intention of using. (Either they alrea

Re:

[zakezuke]

I have to disagree. I think there is a market for this sort of thing because I am in that market. I set up lots of computers for friends and family and this Asus thing is exactly what I'd get for them.

I'm willing to be totally wrong on the subject. For size and power consumption, you have laptops. The real question I have is how does this thing perform in contrast to laptops in the 2000+mhz class.

What I'd hope for personally is some standardization of laptop motherboards and screens based on this. One of my biggest complaints about buying into a laptop is the fact that the boards and screens are rather proprietary. If you lose a screen or a system board, you are stuck having to buy an old part at ne

Re:

[zakezuke]

There are many very cheap desktops on the market, much less than $400.

True... but none of your examples used a smaller than micro ATX case.

Are you guys stoned or what?

[Qbertino]

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 Inw

Re:

[argent]

Funny, I have the opposite experience with my Mac mini. The small size is cute, but the fact that it's completely unexpandable (don't talk to me about external drives, I've got that too) means that less than a year after I bought it, it was having trouble with some software... I'd have replaced the ancient video card in it but, look, there's no option for that!

And this wasn't "high end gaming", this was *Flash web plugins*.

To add insult to injury, making it that small meant they had to cripple the USB bus t

Re:

[default luser]

I have to agree - you have tradeoffs with the Mac Mini.

First of all, if you load up all four USB ports, it non-longer looks graceful; it looks like a spider spewing web over my desk.

Second, I have to agree on the lack of expandability and low-power USB: I've had to add an external USB hard drive to get the capacity I crave, and I've had to add a USB powered hub in order for the Mini to recognize my USB laser printer. I don't even TRY gaming on it, because I know how that will end up.

Reality: the Mini is a

Re:

[argent]

At least the ASUS machine is probably not going to end up a ~$300 box selling for $600. :)

But does it play HD video?

[t482]

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.

Re:Makes no sense

[Technician]

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:

[agendi]

Lack imagination much?

Re:Makes no sense

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

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:

[MichaelSmith]

I have an eeePC and I reckon a version without screen or keyboard would fit into a box (say) 100*100*20 mm. It would be great for taking to work on my bike.

I am surprised this one is so large.

Re:

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I am surprised this one is so large.

Large HDD & optical device.

Re:

[stoolpigeon]

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

Re:It looks like a Wii

[ozmanjusri]

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

Fixed that for you.

Re:

[mk_is_here]

The performance of Vista on page 10: http://article.pchome.net/content-630588-10.html [pchome.net]

Citing from original article: "Wind is using Intel 945 display chipset, which can easily handle Aero visual effects."

Though I doubt the validity of the statement.

Re:

[Bert64]

Minus the numeric keyboard? I think you're thinking of the Amiga 600 rather than the 500...

Re:

[Mr. Roadkill]

I have mixed feelings on the revival of the all-in-one-and-use-your-own-TV concept, at least as a pre-built locked-in what-is-in-the-box-is-all-you-can-get concept.

Sure, one thing that killed that formfactor off was the fact that TV resolution just wasn't good enough any more. I've been half-expecting something to crop up any time now, since HDMI is so common on newer TVs and a lot of newer sets have at least 720 lines.

But the thing that *I* think will kill this deader-than-dead in the future is the fact th

Re:

[RulerOf]

Please, forgive the OP for expecting the machine to be benchmarked against its ability to run current operating systems that aren't Linux. The thing probably wouldn't run Leopard very well either.

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

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. This is the company the _invented_ FUD. For years we've been hearing "Linux is hard to install", "Linux has poor hardware support", "Command line everything" "No games", etc, etc, etc.

Now it's your turn and you're whining like whipped bitches. Well suck i

Re:

[Vectronic]

"Fight Fire With Fire And Everything Will Burn"

"An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everyone Blind"

Frankly, I dont like Microsoft anymore, nor am I ignorant to their previous and current propoganda, but this incessant Anti-Vista nonsense doesn't do much but help advertise Vista, people who have yet to 'experience' Vista, will start because its mentioned so often, under the impression that its so atrociously horrible that its just going to be a comedic little endeavor worth some giggles, then realize its not quite as b

Fighting fire with fire

[mangu]

"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:

[tobiasly]

Why is it that Linux is mentioned 177000 times in the Microsoft website [google.com]?

For some reason I found myself browsing through those results and found this little FUD gem [microsoft.com] (warning: .doc format; here's Google's HTML version [64.233.167.104]) which is a "Customer Case Study" on the City of Indianapolis switching from their "heterogeneous" environment to an all-Windows one.

As part of this case study, the following is given as one reason for their need to upgrade:

For instance, the city has many multiuser applications based on Microsoft Access 97 database software. When employees we

Re:

[tobiasly]

There are actually only 892 results [google.com]. Google constantly inflates their results numbers...(yes, it says duplicates ommitted, but if you turn that off, it goes to 893.

And if you munge the results URL to try to view results starting at 1000, you get the following explanation:

Sorry, Google does not serve more than 1000 results for any query. (You asked for results starting from 1000.)

That doesn't mean there are no more than 1000 hits; it means you need to refine your query. The 177000 number is an approximation (thus "about") but it's much closer to that than to 893 (even with duplicates included, the numbers don't jive exactly so it's difficult to actually get 1000 hi

Re:

[drsmithy]

I mean, give me a break. This is the company the _invented_ FUD.

I think you meant IBM.

For years we've been hearing "Linux is hard to install", "Linux has poor hardware support", "Command line everything" "No games", etc, etc, etc.

Difference is, most of that stuff was (or still is, in the case of games) true. Pretty much everything negative that gets written about Vista - *especially* on Slashdot - is just flat-out wrong.

Microsoft's FUD pales into insignificance compared to the anti-Vista (and anti-Mi

Re:

[jedidiah]

Nope. Edison invented FUD. Either that or he stole it from someone else (as was his practice).

FUD didn't begin with Microsoft or IBM.

You could probably find some examples in Greece, Egypt or Ur if you tried to look for it...

It's just getting old

[Moraelin]

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 pric

Re:

[thegnu]

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.

Right, except that this whole thread generated itself out of the trolls on your side. OP stated that you're not going to run Vista unless you're a masochist. Now let's deconstruct:

1. Windows is the most common OS.
2. Vista is the latest version of Windows.
3. It has high system requirements.
4. Most people hate running software on a machine that's not fast enough for it.

What is the likelihood, really, that someone who is posting a synopsis about new hardware that it won't run--at satisfactory speeds--the ne

Let's talk about who made that progress

[Moraelin]

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 help

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

Even MS FUD steered clear of blatant lies. Just something to think about.

Hi Sparky.

I'm from Earth. What planet are you from?

Re:

[jedidiah]

Nope, not pathalogical.

If we were pathalogical whiners that would imply that we don't have something
legitimate to whine about. See this is the problem with the anti-ABM crowd.
They see decades of griping and whining and try to make that out into something
unreasonable. Quite often that's the case.

Although sometimes people/companies/products are rightfully criticized.

Gates and his company have been jerks for over 20 years. They have earned all of
the ill will that follows them. This starts with the first custom

Re:

[jedidiah]

> It was not made by the trolling fanboys posting FUD.

Someone has to counteract the nonsense and lies and the descriptions of Linux that are 10 years out of date.

Yes, but...

[Moraelin]

Someone has to counteract the nonsense and lies and the descriptions of Linux that are 10 years out of date.

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-monopol

Re:

[Minwee]

This is the company the _invented_ FUD.

Are you trying to say that IBM made Vista?

I think you may need to do a little fact checking there.

Re:Redundant department of redundancy...

[Idaho]

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...

[Idaho]

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...

[Simon Brooke]

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:

[rapiddescent]

Actually, if you look down that list of the top 20 or so products and pick out the computers (with an OS) you will find that only 2 are Vista machines:

• Apple: 8
• Linux: 6, Asus, Nokia
• Vista: 2, HP

with HP branded vista machines placing at 4th and 9th. The other items in the list are screens mostly.

it makes me wonder what HP are going to do about this because they are the losers here - they could easily develop a Linux based system to rival the Macs or the Asus EEE's.

Re:

[Gideon Fubar]

I don't get it.. why would it be able to run xandros and not run ubuntu? They're even both Debian based distros.. they're virtually the same, except for the UI (which can, of course, be changed anyway).

Re:

[drsmithy]

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... and it can't chew my food for me, so my food must suck too...

The Atom CPU in this thing (even the single core variant) will run Vista fine (assuming the rest of the machine is up to snuff, of course).

Re:

[the_leander]

The Atom CPU in this thing (even the single core variant) will run Vista fine (assuming the rest of the machine is up to snuff, of course).

I stand corrected.

It does however make you wonder then why Asus seems to be going out of it's way to not offer Vista over XP.

When this device was previewed in January it was made abundantly clear that XP would be the only Microsoft option offered.

If it's not due to technical reasons (I'll take your word on the fact that a low power cpu will allow for a graceful experience with Vista), perhaps cost?

Re:

[digitig]

The fact that it's not designed to run Vista, and probably has a spec that would struggle to run Vista is noteworthy to those who want to run MS on it. XPs days are numbered, so anybody buying one hoping for an MS Windows platform needs to know that they're already near the end of support. They might decide that it's worth it anyway, they might not, but it's relevant information, not naive Vista-bashing.

Re:Redundant department of redundancy...

[timrichardson]

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:

[MojoStan]

XPs days are numbered, so anybody buying one hoping for an MS Windows platform needs to know that they're already near the end of support.

That depends on what the user needs from support. Windows XP will continue to get "Mainstream Support" until April 2009 and "Extended Support" until April 2014 [microsoft.com]. Extended Support includes [microsoft.com] free security updates, MS Knowledge Base, and paid support options. I'd be very surprised if the current Eee PC version of Xandros will get security updates until 2014. Also, since Xandros is not a free-as-in-beer distro, it's unclear how long Asus will provide free updates to their customized version of Xandros.

Not that

Re:

[Gordonjcp]

"the brand new SMART car, has 5 extra horsepower over the last model, but it still can't pull a horse trailer"

Get a smaller, lighter horse. [falabella.co.uk]

Re:

[mhall119]

How is mentioning that a new desktop PC won't be able to run Vista in anyway off topic?

And a 1.6GHz processor and 2Gb of RAM is more than enough to run the latest Ubuntu. Frankly, I'd be surprised if it couldn't run Vista too.

Re:

[thegnu]

and it can't chew my food for me, so my food must suck too...

Are you suggesting, sir, that not only do you run a pile of shit as an OS, you eat them, too?

Re:

[Aranykai]

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

You must be new here...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why settle for 'virtually immune' when you can have 'immune'?

Re:

[cerberusss]

A Mac Mini is not that much more in price

That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Let's say the Desktop EEE goes for $300. Well, a Mac Mini is $600. You call a TWO HUNDRED PERCENT PRICE INCREASE "not that much more in price"??

Re:

[khayman80]

Actually, your example numbers show a 100% price increase. To demonstrate this, consider the price after a 0% price increase- it would be the same price as before.

Re:

[chthon]

100%. Two hunderd percent would be $900.

Re:

[muuh-gnu]

>That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard.

Forgive him. He just wants you to buy overpriced hardware from a company/cult he deeply worships (and jacks off to), to make really really sure it wont never ever die. Its just like a scientologist tries to sell you Dianetics as a solution to all your problems, no matter what problem you actually have. here, at Slashdot, the equivalent of a Dianetics book seems to be "Get a Mac".

Mac Mini and price difference?

[King_TJ]

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

Re:

[pieleric]

To answer this question, let's leave the computer geek mind and enter the mind of average joe:
Because it's new,
Because it's beautiful,
Because it's small,
Because it's quiet,
Because it has the same interface as the eeePC (that you already have)