The Wannabe PC
posted Sunday Sep 6, 2009 by Nicholas DiMeo
Ever heard of the computer manufacturing company Linutop? Good, I haven't either. Apparently their goal is to cater to the cheapskate of the world by making computers whose sole purpose is to annoy technicians and reviewers like myself by creating a device which can only run Solitaire without crashing. It's called the Linutop 3. This beast - and when I say beast, I mean kitty cat - of a machine comes with a whopping 1 GB of RAM with a 2 GB flash-based hard drive. You may be wondering why I'm bashing a netbook so much, but this is a desktop machine, standing at a manly 9" tall and 2" wide!
Why so harsh, you ask? This is only going to further widen the technology gap for people who only buy new devices based on price. Yes, I understand that this machine could prove to be useful for the 70 year old grandfather who merely wants to check up on his family and maybe receive a picture or two. This can even be useful as an Internet center at your local library. However, we all know the difference between impact and intent.
The intention is for light use, but everyone knows that this machine is going to be bought by consumers who want to be able to edit their home movies, burn Blu-Ray discs (not even a CD drive in this puppy, by the way) and do high-definition gaming on a 50" plasma screen that they put on lay-away for 3 years. The pros? It only consumes 20 watts of power, which is a great way to make your life greener. The cons? You know it's neither a bell nor a whistle when the company's website boasts an internal clock backup, a power-on button and a strong aluminum case as it's features. And for $485, this thing doesn't even come with a monitor!
Am I crazy about this? Or should I be happy that is has room for 2 SATA drives?
