Technology for Mortals

Well, at least in the San Francisco South Bay at Fry’s though they usually have these deals elsewhere at other times.  There’s also an additional $10 rebate but I don’t have much faith in those.  Newegg sells this 32-nm “Westmere” class CPU alone for $140 so getting the CPU plus motherboard for $110 is an awesome deal.  Westmere is one generation newer than Nehalem and it comes with some new security features and AES acceleration.  The Motherboard includes a G55 graphics chipset built onto the CPU die which is roughly 2-3 times faster than the older G45 Intel Graphics chipset.  This would be perfect for an HTPC setup.

Also, this 11.6″ Core Solo based small notebook with 6-cell battery at $350 is a great Netbook killer.

eMachines has always aimed for the lowest priced desktop computers, but this is the first time that I really think they’re on to something because they’ve got a small footprint all-in-one computer that’s low cost and fanless.  eMachine desktops in my experience were notoriously noisy due to the use of cheap desktop fan components but this all-in-one computer should theoretically be nearly silent.  It is essentially a netbook with an external keyboard/mouse, an 18.5″ 1366×768 LCD, and 8x DVD burner retailing for $400 though it’s on sale for $350 this weekend (now dropped to $330 regular price).

The desktop market for anything but high performance gaming systems and engineering workstations is pretty much dead as we know it.  [UPDATE 10:26PM - What I mean by the end of the desktop market as we know it is that most people don't need a SEPARATE ATX BOX and the All-in-one design is all they ever need.  The only thing we need in this segment is inexpensive 22" and 24" AIO models with dual-core processors, 3.5" terabyte hard drives, low power/price discrete graphics, and low-RPM low noise fans that sell for less than $700.] Apple started the trend at well above $1000 and eMachines is going for the highest volume and lowest profit margins.

The main limitation for a machine like this is the Intel Atom processor and 945GSE chipset which is going to limit your ability to playback web based 720P HD video on sites like Hulu or YouTube because of the inefficiency of Adobe Flash.  Silverlight based video websites will do a lot better.  Playing back local 720P content should be ok if you’re using efficiently coded software.  Playing back DVD content should be no problem either and you can probably plug in a USB TV tuner to turn this into some kind of entertainment system in the kitchen or living room.  The other big limitation on this computer is the 2.5″ 160 GB hard drive although you can plug in an external USB hard drive though that would mess up the form factor.