Starting Jan. 25 Walmart will sell Everex's eeePC competitor

[greggh]

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/mobi ... pc-walmart

Key Features

• Operating System: gOS V2 Rocket

• Processor: 1.2GHz VIA C7-M ULV Processor

• Display: 7" WVGA TFT Widescreen (800 x 480 native resolution)

• Preinstalled and Linked Software: Mozilla FireFox, gMail, Meebo,
Skype, Google Documents & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google News,
Google Maps, Wikipedia, Google Product Search, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube,
Xine Movie Player, RhythmBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3
(includes WRITER, IMPRESS, MATH, DRAW)

• Memory: 512MB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM (1GB Max)

• Hard Disk Drive: 30GB, 4200RPM PATA

• Graphic: VIA UniChrome™ Pro IGP

• Audio: VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec with built-in speakers

• WLAN: 802.11b/g

• LAN: 10/100 Ethernet

• I/O: (1) DVI-I port, (2) USB 2.0 ports, (1) RJ45 Ethernet port, (1)
Headphone/Line Out jack, (1) Microphone/ Line In jack, (1) 4-in-1
Media Card Reader (Secure Digital, Multi-Media Card, Memory Stick,
Memory Stick PRO)

• Battery: 4-Cell (14.4V, 2200mAh), rechargeable Lithium-Ion

• Dimensions: 9.06" x 6.73 x 1.16" (W x D x H)

• Weight: 2 pounds

• Warranty & Support: 1 Year Limited Warranty with 24/7 Toll-Free
Technical Support

• MSRP: $399.00

Specifications subject to change

At the same $399 base price as the eeePC the Everex Cloudbook should spark some good competition with an actual 30 GB HD and DVI out. Even with the spinning HD the Cloudbook supposedly has better battery life. The VIA CPU and chipset isn't as good as the intel in the eeePC though.

[snarkout]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think gOS is going to be much of a threat to xandros. I seriously cannot imagine Joe Sixpack enjoying E.

[greggh]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think gOS is going to be much of a threat to xandros. I seriously cannot imagine Joe Sixpack enjoying E.

Agree with you completely. I downloaded and played with gOS breifly, and I see no advantage to using it over just standard Ubuntu. Actually, it's a big disadvantage, because it's not nearly as good or supported. Just another one of the stupid things companies do in the search for "product uniqueness" and branding I guess.

[dann]

I think the advantage gOS is going for is the very small footprint of e17 and the speed it provides on lower-end systems. Like it or hate it, e17 is much faster than Gnome or KDE and requires less resources; leaving more for the applications. I suspect the benefits are seen on the low end systems Everex produces as opposed to most people's beefier workstations.

[davijordan]

http://gizmodo.com/343446/olpc-is-fd-de ... -75-laptop

[Vogateer]

Well, as long as it still runs linux, that's fine by me.

[snarkout]

I think the advantage gOS is going for is the very small footprint of e17 and the speed it provides on lower-end systems. Like it or hate it, e17 is much faster than Gnome or KDE and requires less resources; leaving more for the applications. I suspect the benefits are seen on the low end systems Everex produces as opposed to most people's beefier workstations.

I'd agree with that viewpoint if the benchmarks and usability reviews I'd seen of gOS hadn't all been horrible. Also, my understanding is that the version of xandros used in the Eee has been customized to make the experience unsuck - Judland seems to be quite happy with his. At first blush, though, I do like the lappy that everex is rebranding more than I like the Eee, but having used neither of them, all I have to go on are specs, pictures, reviews, and gut feelings. Personally, I'm excited by the move to mini in the market, though, and the fact that a lot of it is LinuxInside is even sweeter. Good stuff on the horizon!

[dann]

Snarkout, I am more in your camp than my last post may have indicated. I'm on the fence regarding gOS primarily for it's use of e17. The interface is very alien to most users and while their initial setup is workable, even somewhat intuitive; adding software and configuring the interface is not as evident as other window managers/desktop environments or akin to OS X or Windows.

Having a fast, sleek desktop environment does not alleviate the overhead caused by many of the more popular applications. Firefox can be a pig and same goes for OpenOffice. While the concept of online applications is intriguing, ajax based app's put overhead not only on the interweb pipes but the system resources the browser will consume to run the javascript.

It's interesting that these lower end, embedded systems we are seeing have the power of systems two or three generations ago; which back in the day were great and; me being usualy a generation or two behind, made me envious. Still, as distro's keep pace with development we are seeing a significant amount of bloat making it far more difficult to put "Linux" on older hardware unless you are using an older distrobution or a distro like dsl or puppy.

I expect we'll see a lot more tweaking going on and a lot more customization resulting in many successes and even more failures. Only time will tell along with people's wallets!