Obama’s already inspired a cell phone and an MP4 player, but this is the first desktop we’ve seen tipping its hat to our Commander in Chief. What’s really awesome about this one, of course, is that its makers (Taiwanese company SEED) seemed to think that merely naming the PC “Obama” would result in capturing some of the magic… because other than the name, it’s just a plain-old, boring desktop. It packs a patriotic Atom N230 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 500GB SATA hard drive, plus it’s got four USB 2.0 port and an ethernet port around the back, just to name a few. The presidentially named PC is only available in Taiwan, for the oh so affordable price of NT$7,999 (about $242). We’re kind of hoping this is just the first in a long line of POTUS-named PCs for SEED, so may we suggest the next one be dubbed POLK or FILLMORE?
Theses new colorful Inspirons take the “dull" out of “Dell", and at the same time add even more confusion to the PC buying process. The new candy-coated desktops can be had in any of the juicy colors seen above, colors which actually make my mouth water to look at them.
Like the current Inspiron mini-towers, you’ll be offered an almost endless list of configuration options. Here are the choices for the CPU alone:
Intel® Celeron®, Intel Core™ 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Quad options or AMD Sempron™, Athlon™ X2 and Phenom™ X4 processor options
It’s pretty much up to you to spec your ideal machine, but the bottom line is that they start at $300, and rise from there. We love the colors, but we wonder just who is buying a desktop PC for the home these days. Isn’t it all netbooks? Still, I wish those netbooks would also come in Flamingo Pink. China only until May.
Forget leaving notes on the fridge or carrying a laptop to the kitchen as you attempt to make scallops for dinner. PC makers are betting that consumers will spring for a sleek, new touchscreen desktop instead — a machine perfect for web surfing, leaving notes and checking internet videos.
Four major PC makers including Dell, HP, Asus and now MSI have launched ‘kitchen PCs’ — inexpensive all-in-one systems with touchscreens instead of keyboards.
MSI Wind, a Taiwanese manufacturer better known for its netbooks, became the latest entrant to a new category with its 19-inch touchscreen PC on Tuesday called the Wind Top AE 1900. Pricing and availability weren’t disclosed.
The move to touchscreen desktops is a trend that’s expected to be big with consumers, say analysts. "It’s the convenience factor and the design," says Richard Shim, an analyst with research firm IDC, "especially at the current price points."
At about $600 to $800, kitchen PCs could be to desktops what netbooks have become to notebooks today: cheap, cheerful alternatives to overpriced, overpowered machines.
Kitchen PCs offer a stylish form factor, a touchscreen interface to get to e-mail, weather forecasts, calendars, news or recipes — all wrapped up with an attractive price tag.
HP kicked off the touchscreen desktop business with its TouchSmart PC nearly two years ago. But since then companies such as Asus, Dell and now MSI Wind have rushed in to offer a similar product at lower prices.
All-in-one systems cram the computer’s guts (the CPU, hard drive and memory) into the display, much like Apple’s iMac. What sets them apart though is the touchscreen display at a price that’s easy on the pocket.
An Asus Eee Top kitchen PC costs just $600, while Dell offers its Studio One 19 PC at $800.
In the last few years, desktops have been steadily giving ground to notebooks in terms of sales. Increasingly craving mobility, consumers are steadily passing over desktops in a bid to get laptops and netbooks.
PC manufacturers hope ‘kitchen PCs’ is a way to revive the desktop computer.
"The traditional desktop is not in an explosive growth stage anymore," says Ian Lao, senior analyst with research firm In-Stat. "The combination of the touchscreen and desktop seems like a hit for now."
Most consumers will find kitchen PCs easy on the eye. Asus and MSI offer an iMac-like aesthetic, while Dell gives users the option of having fabric panels framing the display in colors, such as blue, red, black and pink. The idea is to make the desktop feel less like a consumer electronics product and more a home decor accessory, John New, marketing executive for Dell told Wired.com recently.
Meanwhile, home users are no longer that concerned about the raw computing power of their home desktops, says Lao. Most users simply want to watch YouTube and Hulu, play with Facebook and upload photos. A kitchen PC is better suited to these activities than a Dell Inspiron tower.
Shim, who owns an all-in-one system himself, says he uses his to stream online radio and watch YouTube while he’s in the kitchen. "All-in-one systems aren’t expected to be the primary systems," he says. "And its not just one killer app on them. It’s the idea of doing many different small things from one easy location in the home."
Here’s a round-up of the newest ‘kitchen PCs’ to hit the market:
Asus Eee Top
Specs: Intel Atom N270 processor, 1 GB memory, 160 GB hard disk drive, Wi-fi, 15.6-inch display. Read Wired.com review of the Asus Eee Top PC here.
Price: $600
Availability: Currently available
Dell Studio One 19
Specs: Choice of Intel’s Celeron, Dual Core Celeron, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad Core processors. Choice of Nvidia’s GeForce 9200 or 9400 graphics, up to 4 GB of memory, 750 GB of hard disk drive, six USB ports, web camera and optional Blu-ray disc player. Has 18.5-inch display.
Price: $700 for a non-touchscreen model and at $800 for a touchscreen version
Availability: Currently available in Japan. Expected to start retailing in the United States in a few weeks.
MSI Wind Top AE 1900
Specs: Intel Atom 230 processor, 160 GB hard disk drive, upto 2 GB RAM, Wi-fi, DVD drive, Windows XP operating system. More details here.
Apple’s computers are slipping in reliability compared to 2008, a report suggests.
Computer support hotline RescueCom on Tuesday issued its computer reliability report, announcing that Asus and Lenovo tied for the No. 1 spot while Apple dropped to No. 2.
To measure computer reliability, RescueCom looks at the number of consumer service calls made to its hotline (1-800-RESCUE-PC) regarding a tech manufacturer’s products while taking into account the company’s market share. The fewer the calls made about each vendor, the better — and this quarter Asus and Lenovo nabbed the top spot.
It’s worth noting, however, that this is just RescueCom’s quarterly report; the service also conducts a yearly report. Apple secured the top spot overall for 2008. We’ll just have to wait and see if Apple regains the lead over the rest of the year.
Asus’s kooky idea of a netbook stuffed into a keyboard had us scratching our heads a few weeks ago. And now a video demonstrating the gadget has us even more skeptical of whether it’s a good idea. I suppose it’d be OK if you can afford a good chiropractor to re-adjust your neck every few weeks.
What’s next? A cellphone stuffed into a pistol? Try holding that up to your ear.
Asus’s Eee PC Keyboard contains a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB RAM and either an 8GB or 16GB solid state drive for storage. It’s shipping May for $400 or $600.
Updated 2:30 p.m. PDT: Wired.com’s Dylan Tweney says he had some hands-on time with the Eee PC Keyboard. He explained it’s not meant to be a standalone PC. The small display shows applets design for the PC, and you’d use it as a companion for a TV. The keyboard would sit on your lap or a coffee table, and the small screen could bring up weather, channels, etc. and control what appears on the big screen.
Updated 12 p.m. PDT: Added link to previous post along with specification details.
One night in Las Vegas, utilitarian hardware maker HP and boutique gaming manufacturer Voodoo totally got hammered, partied like maniacs, and blacked out. When they woke up the next morning, they were married and pregnant. The offspring from that evening now takes the form of wunderboxes like the Firebird 803. The progeny of two very talented parents, this PC is one of the smartest rigs we’ve tested. Here’s what reviewer Chris Null had to say:
HP and its boutique/luxe division Voodoo deserve serious praise for what they’ve accomplished with the Firebird 803. Taking a mix of laptop and desktop guts, juicing it up with high-end components, cooling it with liquid goo instead of noisy fans, and encasing it inside a gorgeous, curvy shell that would make most industrial designers weep with envy, the Firebird is a testament to how the envelope can be pushed in the typically boring PC world.
It’s also a veritable bargain, priced at $2,100, fully loaded.
Casemods range from the peculiar to the spaceage, but this one — a pyramid PC case — kinda takes things to the next level of outrageousness. Weighing in at 7.5 pounds (just for the case) this 25-inch high beast is not exactly compact, with a 19 x 19-inch base. Modder polo360x made it from a customized Luxor pyramid case, and, and in our opinion, it fits in nicely with his home decor choices. Check out another two shots and hit the read link for many, many more, plus a full specsheet.
One thing is clear: A lot of Wired.com readers like the Mac Mini.
Apple’s puny PC is an impressively designed computer, but it’s also a bit of a mystery: Just who uses this thing, and what for?
Yesterday, we put the question to you. And your responses came flooding in — to the tune of 150 comments and counting. It’s clear that there are a lot of Mac Mini users out there, and that you are — for the most part — very happy with your Minis.
It also proves that those who have predicted the death of the Mac Mini were quite mistaken.
I pulled all the comments we received up to about 2:30pm today and tabulated them in a spreadsheet (click to view it in Google Docs, and email me if you want to update it — I’ll send you a Google Docs invitation). Here’s the breakdown:
38 of you said you (or your parents) use the Mac Mini as your primary computer, either at home or at work. Many cited the machine’s low cost ($600 and up) as a major advantage.
31 of you use the Mac Mini as a home theater PC, connecting it directly to a TV or HD monitor to watch TV, downloaded videos, Hulu, etc. Several of you mentioned that you ran EyeTV or the Plex Media Server software on your Minis.
24 of you use the Mac Mini as a second computer (or third or fourth), either for guests to use, for ad-hoc use in the living room our lounge, or for the kids to use.
22 of you use it as some kind of server: web server, development server, or file server.
17 of you use it as an audio/video server, streaming multimedia across your home network to other devices (in some cases, Apple TVs) connected to stereos or TVs elsewhere in your homes.
12 of you bought the Mac Mini as your first Mac, or as a way of trying out OS X.
1 person installed his Mac Mini in his car, using it to deliver audio to the car stereo and to drive a GPS system.
2 people reported other uses that I couldn’t categorize: one set up a Mac Mini "as a client computer on our LCS audio network" and another commenter reported setting them up in classrooms and educational labs.
A surprising number of you recommended or bought Mac Minis for your parents or grandparents. A few reported that your companies had installed dozens as employees’ primary PCs. Quite a few of you own more than one.
And one of you is just crazy for the things, with five Mac Minis at home: three attached to various TVs, one as a web server for development work, and one as a fax machine. Frank, when you say "I love my minis," we believe you, man.
MSI, the Taiwanese PC company that is known for its Wind netbooks, has created a new instant-on operating system based on the Linux kernel.
The OS called Winki will feature in an upcoming MSI netbook and could ultimately be extended to a small module that plugs into motherboards.
"Winki’s greatest ability is how it compares to other OS supported devices," said MSI in a statement. "It starts up faster, uses less electricity, will not have problems caused by virus and, best of all, and does not cost customers a penny more."
The Winki’s user interface is reminiscent of the Mac OS X. The idea with the system is to offer consumers a way to instantly turn on their PCs without having to experience extended boot times. The Winki is likely to debut in a netbook that will be focused largely on web browsing, photo sharing and VoIP calls.
MSI is not the only one to experiment with an instant-on OS. Phoenix Technologies offers the HyperSpace instant on operating system that is expected to appear in Acer and Asus netbooks. Despite their moniker, instant-on operating systems take a few seconds to boot up but the start up time for users can be up to 40% shorter than using a Microsoft Windows XP-based machine.
MSI’s device running Winki will also come with a Firefox browser, Skype and Pidgin instant messaging software. MSI did not offer any information on when the first Winki devices will make it to market.
The launch of the latest Mac Mini dispels long-held rumors that the diminutive desktop was about to be discontinued. But Apple’s shabby treatment of the device still leaves plenty of questions unanswered.
Namely, why did it take so long for Apple to make a relatively minor, incremental upgrade? Why are there no changes in the case’s overall appearance? Ultimately, why did Apple do the least it could’ve possibly done with this device?
"It’s almost like a stepchild," said Charlie Wolf, a Needham & Company analyst. "Apple hasn’t done much in the way of marketing it, advertising it or doing anything. It’s just sort of there."
Apple traditionally refreshes its computers every six or seven months, and Mac products typically receive form-factor upgrades after no longer than four years. That’s why the Mac Mini is the weirdest in the family: Apple waited about 600 days before it pushed out Tuesday’s minor update, and it still looks exactly the same (aside from an extra USB port and a new display port). The previous Mac Mini’s lifespan was so long, in fact, that many predicted Apple was abandoning the product for good.
And the Mac Mini just gets weirder. There is no clear sense of who the target market is for the device, how the product is performing in sales, or why it still even exists.
Wolf provided his very rough estimate that Apple sells about 50,000 Mac Minis per quarter. He based this guess on Apple’s quarterly sales of desktops overall, as well as the iMac’s higher popularity. That’s not a very big number relative to 728,000 desktops Apple said it sold overall in its first quarter of 2009 earnings report.
And though that small number is unsubstantiated, it would make sense given the responses ZDNet is receiving from Mac Mini owners regarding what they do with their puny desktops. The examples include cheap server setups, digital music servers for audiophiles and replacements for Windows PCs. But, as ZDNet also notes, those are all niche markets.
That’s enough head-scratching. We’re curious, too. Do you have a Mac Mini? If so, why did you buy one and what do you use it for? Feel free to reply in the comments below.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
