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The Pontificator
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JohnnyBoy
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 Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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What a fantastic little machine! I would have thought that since everything is solid-state, this is effectively a single circuit-board in a plastic box. Which means that $249 seems a bit steep.
If they could get the price down to something really eye-catching, people would start to write apps that were optimised for this little beastie.
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Fox
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| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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I'm keeping my eye on the mini-laptop market, but this one doesn't interest me. It's light, which is great, but the screen size is too small and the shape is wrong (too thick). I also think it would be too underpowered even to do a decent job with a Debian Linux derivative, but that remains to be seen. Even the 7" eeepc is too small a screen for me; I'm looking for a 2-3 lb. with a 9-12" display.
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The Pontificator
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| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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The CherryPal would be good for kids who either cannot or will not understand the concept of why you don't click on everything in sight or every attachment you receive.
Could also possibly appeal to seniors as well (less 'techno-fear').
Might also make a great "backup" in case your regular computer needs to go to the shop.
However, the $250 price tag, too me, is too high. I'd consider biting for, say, $199. I'd definitely bite in the $150-175 range. From what I'm reading these units will be sold through the mfr. web site for the month of August and will then be available from national vendors (Amazon.com) starting in September. Newegg? Could be. I'd be interested to see if the price point will be lower. |
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barnz
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Joined: 19 Oct 2007
Posts: 423
Location: Oakland, CA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| The Pontificator wrote: | The CherryPal would be good for kids who either cannot or will not understand the concept of why you don't click on everything in sight or every attachment you receive.
Could also possibly appeal to seniors as well (less 'techno-fear').
Might also make a great "backup" in case your regular computer needs to go to the shop. |
I was not very interested until I read your post. I think there is a big market for these - well a big niche market if that's something. Hotels, rental properties, and public applications, where someone wants to provide internet access (and a little more) to people without maintenance and security hassles. I think I will get one the next time the computer in my famiy's rental ski condo goes down with another virus!
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JohnnyBoy
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:46 am Post subject: |
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| The Pontificator wrote: | | However, the $250 price tag, too me, is too high. I'd consider biting for, say, $199. I'd definitely bite in the $150-175 range. From what I'm reading these units will be sold through the mfr. web site for the month of August and will then be available from national vendors (Amazon.com) starting in September. Newegg? Could be. I'd be interested to see if the price point will be lower. |
I think that you're getting that price estimate about right, Pontificator. $150-175 seems much more reasonable.
These guys might risk sales if they keep pushing the eco-friendly angle too hard. As Bandit Bill has said before, nobody buys a computer because of its power consumption. They need to start pointing out what this machine can do in spite of its 400MHz CPU.
I'd like to see this trend for smaller, simpler computers continuing further. The only computer uses that 11 and 12 year olds seem to have nowadays are web-surfing and gaming. If a machine with a 100MHz processor could be put together for the price of an iPod Shuffle, and loaded up with a simple OS and a friendly programming language, then the current generation of youngsters could find out what its like to make the computer do what you want rather than just being a consumer of other people's programs.
(N.B. I know that this could already happen with a PC and a Linux distro, but I'm thinking of a machine that removes all of the crap (GUIs, OOPs, user accounts, etc.) that gets in the way of just putting some shapes on a blank screen and changing them or moving them about).
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Aquafire
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:57 am Post subject: |
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Hmmm...
Sorry to be a wet blanket ... but quite honestly ... these so called MiniPc's are almost a dime a dozen...
Given that most of them are a 'variation on a theme', you might want to keep up to speed by visiting this site...
http://www.linuxdevices.com/
In the case of the "Cherrypal"
Take a look at this...
Notice the uncanny resemblance..?
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2700059670.html
The only difference being (apart form price), is that the above device has a proper Linux OS (Xubuntu) installed.
Whether such mchines are value for money...?
Well that's entirely up to the buyer...
Cheers
Aqua
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Krametash
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Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Posts: 220
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:46 am Post subject: |
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hmmmm....
256 MB RAM, 4GB SSD?
Can you upgrade these? It says on the site that you can't, but could you gut it and put in say, 512MB, or even 1GB?
A bit pricey, I reckon, for a 400MHz machine, that could have been purchased years ago.
Other than that it would be alright for a small cute computer, still think the mac mini's waayyyy cooler though 
Kramer 
Edit: On the other hand, my previous comment was a bit harsh, seeing that the machine uses 2 watts of energy....
If it had 512 MB RAM and maybe a 8 GB SSD and maybe a 800 MHz processor, I might buy it....
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Krametash
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Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Posts: 220
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| Aquafire wrote: | Hmmm...
Sorry to be a wet blanket ... but quite honestly ... these so called MiniPc's are almost a dime a dozen...
Given that most of them are a 'variation on a theme', you might want to keep up to speed by visiting this site...
http://www.linuxdevices.com/
In the case of the "Cherrypal"
Take a look at this...
Notice the uncanny resemblance..?
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2700059670.html
The only difference being (apart form price), is that the above device has a proper Linux OS (Xubuntu) installed.
Whether such mchines are value for money...?
Well that's entirely up to the buyer...
Cheers
Aqua |
Good spotting, Aqua!
If Linutop is correct in saying that their 500 MHz processor "offers the equivalent of an 800MHz processor", that doesn't seem like too bad a machine! I like how it's more customizable, and you can add more memory. Expansion's pretty good too; 4 USB ports (two times more than my Macbook?!?!). Would be cool if you could upgrade the storage though. But one could still use this little machine a a full time computer! (If they didn't need high performance, obviously)
One thing though, this weighs in at $410, and considering the power of this thing, you might as well buy a mac mini, which seriously kicks the linutop's ass......
BTW guys, the CherryPal website says that it's processor is triple core? Ever heard of that before???
Krametash
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dungeon92
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Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2403
Location: St. Louis/Rolla, MO
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:39 pm Post subject: hmm |
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Hmmm?
I could probably build something using mini-ITX and get a lot more for your money, the form facter would be bigger, but you could do a lot more with it.
This is the case I would use:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154090
only 2.7L volume and can fit a slim optical drive and 2.5" HDD, but some boards may be too big to fit in it.
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Aquafire
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:28 am Post subject: Re: hmm |
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Dungeon.
She' not exactly a beauty queen....
But I'm sure you'd have fun kitting her out...
Aqua
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Of the four X systems in the world.
Which would you choose?
OS X : LinuX : UniX or MS-BolloX. |
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JohnnyBoy
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Joined: 13 Jul 2007
Posts: 3954
Location: West Sussex, South-East England
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| Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| JohnnyBoy wrote: | If a machine with a 100MHz processor could be put together for the price of an iPod Shuffle, and loaded up with a simple OS and a friendly programming language, then the current generation of youngsters could find out what its like to make the computer do what you want rather than just being a consumer of other people's programs.
(N.B. I know that this could already happen with a PC and a Linux distro, but I'm thinking of a machine that removes all of the crap (GUIs, OOPs, user accounts, etc.) that gets in the way of just putting some shapes on a blank screen and changing them or moving them about). |
Yeah. Something like this: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/macuser/news/216705/apple-ii-reborn-as-6-pc.html
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devo
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| Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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| JohnnyBoy wrote: | | http://www.pcpro.co.uk/macuser/news/216705/apple-ii-reborn-as-6-pc.html |
I was just reading about the same thing on Engadget. |
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JohnnyBoy
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The Pontificator
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Cherrypal is "experiencing delays" and they are now offering refunds to those who pre-paid. |
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