OSNews

I wrote a review of the first release candidate back in June 2007, which was fairly positive overall. "First and foremost, eCS is a good system," the review states, "It is stable, relatively easy to use, and fast. It offers interesting GUI elements, and a lot of configurability. Installing applications is painless (Windows-like installers, mostly), and the excellent compatibility with Windows 3.x and MS-DOS gives major brownie points to eCS."

There were problems, too, of course. "The installer definitely needs some form of hardware recognition, and the various system settings dialogs and applets should receive an overall treatment, making them more consistent among one another, while also doing a better job at hiding advanced features (using the interesting multiple pages per tab option)."

However, that was the first release candidate, and four more followed over the past three years, so a lot has probably improved since then.

The cool thing is that Serenity Systems has listened to the most common heard complaint regarding eComStation: its high price. They've now created a Home and Student version which is considerably cheaper than the normal version. Home and Student goes for 149 USD, whereas the regular version goes for 259 USD.

The expensive version has telephone support and twelve months of software subscription services, whereas the Home and Student version has online support and just six months of software subscription services. The Home and Student version can be installed on five computers; the expensive version can be installed on an unlimited amount of machines.