We’ve been hearing a lot about Everex’s Cloudbook lately, but they’ve also been extending their reach into the realm of “mini pcs”, in the same vein as the Eee desktop PC.

You might remember that Everex has been having some tricky luck lately, with the Cloudbook’s repeated delays, and their uber-low-cost gPC being removed from the shelves at Wal-Mart, due to low sales.

Unlike the gPC though, this tiny computer has a slicker look and a slimmed-down form-factor.

Specs:

• 1.86GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core Mobile Processor T2130 (1MB L2 Cache, 1.86GHz, 533MHz)
• 120GB Hard Drive
• 512MB DDR2 667 SDRAM
• DVD+/-RW Drive
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator GMA950
• Realtek ALC268 High-Definition Audio
• Ethernet Port
• DVI-1 Port
• S-Video Port (which regrettably, the Eee doesn’t have)
• Four USB ports
• 2-in-1 Media Card Reader
• Price: $499 (which is actually more expensive than their gPC and Impact desktop PCs)

It has the look of a Mac Mini, and runs gOS (green OS) ‘Space Dock’, which is pretty spiffy looking, and it comes preloaded with many of the same standard Linux apps that the Eee PC does, including Firefox, Skype, Openoffice, GIMP, etc.  Much like the Eee PC’s OS, the gOS has many links to online applications, many of them Google.

Curiously, this mini PC is optimized for MySpace users: “The limited edition gPC mini (MyMiniPC) provides MySpace users with a customized platform to easily collaborate, modify and update webpages on the world’s most popular social networking site.”

In fact, the tag line on their product page reads “Exclusively created for the +100,000,000 MySpace users of the world”.  I can’t say that I agree with this marketing strategy, as it excludes a whole demographic of people who don’t use MySpace, but Web 2.0 integration is still a good idea, in my opinion. I just wish this mini PC was priced a little bit lower.

Product Page

So it is true then- Microsoft announced Thursday that they would continue to sell Microsoft XP Home Edition, for “ultra low cost PCs”. By this of course we’re talking about low-cost PCs that generally have small screens, low-powered processors, and (like in the case of the Eee PC) sometimes flash hard-drives.

Home Edition will be available on ULCPCs until June, 2010. This is ONLY for “ULCPCs” though- the sale of XP Home Edition for mainstream PCs will still end at the end of June. Support will continue until April 2009, and to a more limited extent, April 2014.

PC Makers will, however, have the option to choose between XP or Vista, for their “ULCPCs”.

What I would personally like to see is Windows XP “Starter Edition” on some of these laptops, if they get shipped to developing countries.

And by the way- ULCPCs? MIDs? UMPCs? OLPCs? The number of terms for these types of machines is growing by the day. I feel like I’m adding a new tag every time I post! I think the industry needs to settle on a term before consumers start to get very confused…

(Source)

(The Microsoft release) 

The new Asus Eee PC is already shipping with Windows XP, but it seems that the budding excitement over ultra portable laptops (now dubbed “Mobile Internet Devices” by Intel) has created a rather interesting position: with Windows XP licenses slated to go off the market on June 30 (extended from January), Microsoft has to decide very, very soon whether they will continue to actively sell Windows XP, or find some alternate route to keep their hands in the growing number of Linux-loaded MIDs. Windows Vista, at this point, is
simply far too large to fit easily on these smaller computers.

InfoWorld expects an announcement on the subject later this week, and with
the Intel Developer Forum in full swing, the timing is hardly a coincidence.

Charles Cooper over at Cnet has written an interesting column remarking on the development of mobile devices.  With the Intel Developer Forum this week in Shanghai, China, he gets some feedback from Kevin Kahn, the director of the Communications Technology Lab at Intel.

As Intel’s chipsets get smaller, and smaller, the race is on to create the ultimate mobile computing product, but meanwhile things screen size or button size still irk us (that right-hand shift key on Eee PC is still giving me trouble).  Charles Cooper throws in the question of what the hell happened to having mobile devices easily interact with each other- like, for instance, wirelessly connecting to a larger display when you need to. Mobile computing has so much possibility, but they haven’t had time to even begin to scratch the surface yet.

Intel’s Developer Forum will discuss and showcase a number of technologies they’re currently researching, including a multi-band, power-efficient, CMOS Transceiver. They’ll tackle topics ranging from Energy Efficiency to Biosensors to Gaming.

The Asus Eee is powered by the Intel Celeron-M ULV 353 (future models of the 900 will include Intel’s ‘Atom’ processor) and its ultra-low-voltage is just the ticket for such a compact machine.  Intel’s technology is just one of the building blocks, and from there Asustek has created a user-friendly computing experience that can easily go where you do.  The Eee PC is a strong example of how consumer needs and bleeding-edge technology are finally coming together, bit by bit- even if the Eee has yet to adopt things like a touchscreen or GPS, those sorts of features could easily appear on the horizon. 

Engadget appears to have gotten their hands on the specs for the new HP UMPC 2133.  It’s coming powered with a VIA CM-7 Processor, either 1.2 or 1.6 GHz, a 8.9″ screen, 120 or 160 GB hard drive, and either 1024 or 2048 667 MHz DDR2.  The price of the 2133 will range from $549 to $849 (depending on the model), with the $549 version coming equipped with the SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (nice choice!) and the other models with Microsoft Windows Vista.  The more expensive models will even have Bluetooth capability.

It looks like HP has designed an UMPC that will offer some stiff competition for the upcoming 9″ Eee PC. 

A post on Gizmodo has pointed out a disturbing trend, which has been noted in the laptop.org forums- the rubberized keys on the keyboard of the OLPC laptop are being easily peeled off by the children.

 The forum thread has several people asking how to get replacement keys, and one of them even posted a picture:

Having never physically handled one, I had always assumed that the rubberized keyboard was all one piece, ala the ‘rollable’ rubber keyboards that you can purchase on ThinkGeek.  The main purpose being, over course, to keep grit and moisture from getting into the keyboard.

But if laptops like the XO are to be designed for educational purposes, the designers are going to have to take into account the sorts of random things little hands will do when they get near a keyboard. 

There are no replacement keys or keyboards for the XO. Thankfully, somebody has devised a way to replace the keyboard with a usb one, but in a developing nation, I don’t think that option is always going to be readily available.

This story should make us all eternally grateful for how sturdy the Eee PC is.

Okay, so I have to confess that one of the things that bugs me about the pre-installed Linux environment on the Eee PC is that the native repositories (online resources of programs) are limited, and aren’t always compatible with Debian ones. In fact, I can say this from experience, because when I was first learning to use the Synaptec Package Manager, I accidentally nuked the OS by adding too many repositories.

Thankfully, that handy little disc that came with the system has a very simple program that can create a rescue usb drive.

But Ubuntu, of course, has many resources, which is why I’m rather intrigued that they’ve created an easy way to install Xubuntu on your Eee PC. It’s a custom package that includes all of the necessary drivers for the Eee, and it can be fully installed, or installed to a bootable usb.

Like anything Linux, this will require some tweaking and personalization, but that, in my experience, is the best part.  Everyone has their own particular needs and it doesn’t take much to learn how to turn your Asus Eee PC into your perfect laptop.  It’s totally free, and if you’re like me and you keep your personal files on an external usb key, there’s not much risk of doing permanent damage because you can always recover your original OS in a matter of minutes if something goes wrong.

The fuzzy photos we saw last week on Engadget have now given way to an official announcement about that cute li’l Netbook we were speculating on- it’s actually called the “2go PC”.

The 2go will be manufactured by CTL, and sports the following specs:

• An Intel Celeron M CPU, with a 915GMS chipset
• 512MB of RAM (upgradeable to 1GB)
• A 9-inch, 800 x 480 LCD
• 40GB hard drive
• 802.11b/g
• SD/MMC reader
• Can run either Windows XP or Linux
• A VGA Webcam
• A battery life of approx. 3 hours
• A price tag of around $400

The handy handle on the top creates a visual connection to the OLPC, moreso than the Eee PC itself. This, of course, (coupled with the price tag) makes it obvious that it’s at least partly aimed at the education market.

With specs like these, and a price tag like that, this little number will be definite competition for the Eee PC.  I don’t think it looks as nice, but looks aren’t everything.   Only the sales numbers will say for sure.

Source: Engadget 

Okay, so no sooner has Samsung issued the challenge against the Eee PC with their Q1 Ultra, than Gigabyte has unveiled their UMPC mini-tablet at CeBit, in Germany. The M700.

The M700 sports a 7-inch touchscreen (with a nice resolution of 1024×600 pixels), full Windows Vista Home Premium, a 1.2GHz Via C7-M processor, and a 2gb of memory. A few other goodies:

• Dual webcams
• GPS
• A WiMAX-capable ExpressCard

There’s no news yet of what the price would be, but I can’t imagine it’ll be cheaper than the Eee PC, since it’s running a full build of Windows Vista. It is, however, a very nice looking device.

These mini-tablets are pretty, but it’s not the same as having a laptop- for one thing, there’s no keyboard. As a person that does a lot of typing on a day-to-day basis, that’s an issue for me. However, I think surfing the web would probably be a snap on one of these devices, so I can definitely see the appeal.

Source 

Okay, so Samsung has now decided to join the OLPC fray by announcing a Q1 Ultra that will be education-focussed, and sell for only £399 (approx. $800), to compete with the ‘Asus Eee effect’, when it launches in the UK later this month.

The Q1 is a drastically different device, but it does have a touchscreen, and the new model will run Windows Vista.  Curiously, the Q1 that has already launched in the UK is priced at around £2000, so that’s quite the price-cut.

How and why this device would compete with the Eee is beyond me, since it doesn’t appear to have the form-factor or the price point that would cater well to children or developing countries, but sure, let’s keep our eye on it, shall we?