Are sub $300 PCs the wave of the future or is this just another fad? Flexbeta examines the effects cheap PCs may have on Microsoft, hardware vendors and the rest of the computing industry.
Are sub $300 PCs the wave of the future or is this just another fad? Flexbeta examines the effects cheap PCs may have on Microsoft, hardware vendors and the rest of the computing industry.
I hope Via release a cheap nano ITX board with dual C7’s on it for me to run Linux on……..and no DRM type stuff on it either!!!!
This could be a nasty stroke for the software sales of OS market; that was badly worded. When they get that cheap, the $8-$18 the distributor pays to Microsoft starts to become noticeable!
Can someone just confirm to me that Via are not implementing DRM crap and are not planning to? This would mean they seem to be the only player who don’t, therefor the only option for me. Look forward to see their market share rapidly increase.
If they want their platform to enter into the IPTV/PVR space as a set top box reference platform and be adoped for anything more than say a MythTV or low-number community efforts, they are going to have to add DRM i.e. protection of the media that resides on the system.
One problem they face is that they can’t really compete in the STB platform market. The competition has systems that handle hardware H264 and VC1 decoding with rights management, PVR etc. for @$100.
People here confuse DRM for content protection purposes with trusted computing and the big brother syndrome. These two are not the same thing. Its just unfortunate that certain companies are leveraging the one as an excuse to play big brother.
yeah, for real now, cheap PCs are the way of the future especially when you think about the prices of the next-gen consoles…
Look at the Power in the new upcoming Xbox 360 for around $300.00 suggested retail price estimated today. MOre power than the current iMac G5 and way better Video Card.
lol I think Apple has some “good old” compitition!
“MOre power than the current iMac G5 and way better Video Card.”
I’m quite sure more graphical power than a powermac G5.Would be nice to run MacOSX on a PS3 and all games for the PS with backwards compatibillity as a true all-in-one device.
Probably less than 6 months after the release of the xbox360 it already be rendered dinosaur status, just like the original xbox lost its early “performance edge”. These new consoles will have to last at least 3 years, by that time they will be pretty much very old technology and will probably still run ~$200 each.
It would be nice to be able to run linux on a PPC based platform finally without having to pay the “Apple tax”.
the el-cheapo PC’s manufacturers ?
What we need is $99 PCs. I’ve been saying this for a while. They dont need to be fast, around 800mhz. Remember the old mini pc’s from about 4 years ago. They were a great size. And fast for their time, but we could use them again.
Imagine, $99 PCs, and what they could do for all your fun little projects. If you saw Phillip Torrone’s skype payphone, you know what i mean. He had to have it hooked to a pc to make it work. Why not dedicate a $99 PC to do it. It doesn’t need much. a 10 gig hard drive, ethernet, vga video and a slow old cpu around 800mhz. Since these things will be doing basically one thing, power isn’t that important. 800mhz is plenty powerful for most things anyways.
Just imagine, for $99 bucks you can just pick one up and toss into the cost of your little weekend project. It’d be amazing.
“Are sub $300 PCs the wave of the future or is this just another fad? ”
Since a lot of consumer devices are only one or two steps away from being a full-fledged PC. I’d say the wave is already here, and it will only get cheaper.
With todays prices I doubt you can find an 10GB 3.5″ IDE hardrive that has a significant price difference from an 80GB drive
“Probably less than 6 months after the release of the xbox360 it already be rendered dinosaur status, just like the original xbox lost its early “performance edge”. These new consoles will have to last at least 3 years, by that time they will be pretty much very old technology and will probably still run ~$200 each.”
One, the Xbox is still the best-performing console of this generation, and it can handle games as recent as Doom 3 and Half-life 2. You’re throwing a logical fallacy out.
Two, the consoles will last around 4-5 years, typical lifespans.
Three, current consoles are “old technology” but are still working some amazing things. Technology is not automatically bad just because it’s old.
Sure why not. Just supply your own OS, your own software, your own power plug, your own mouse, your own keyboard. But the spyware, adware, malware and viruses… no charge. It’s cheaper to get a Mac-mini!
while, i’m all for Os x. For small pc’s for projects, i wouldn’t, its a bit overkill. If your mini pc is dedicated to one function, you dont need to worry about viruses and spyware. no browsing would be happening, because its not being used for that. and no viruses would get on there either since email would not be used, and i’m sure you’d have a router.
Anyone using a baby pc for a project, would be pretty proficient in these things anyways. It woudln’t be a problem. 9 times out of 10 it’d have a flavor of linux running on it anyways.
“ust like the original xbox lost its early “performance edges”
This is totally wrong. This is a perfect example of what i’m talking about.
Sure the Xbox doesn’t have impressive specs anymore. but its powerful enough to do a TON of things. Its my media center, and power any old console i want. And when the xbox360 comes out, i will be able to pick this up for $50.
Thats a LOT of power for $50. Why can’t we have something like this that is new? and not old used hardware.
Bought an Xbox for $150 – will soon be putting a mod chip in it, basically a ‘modified’ PC for less than $200, which will let me run emulators for arcade ganes and anything up to and including the PSX, as well giving me a region-free DVD player that can upconvert to 1080i. Not a bad deal if you ask me
Personally, if I could’ve found one, I would’ve liked to have a 1ghz+ PC (so I could play Mortal Kombat and its ilk, which the Xbox doesn’t seem to be quite fast enough to do) and a DVI output for the HDTV. But, we don’t live in a perfect world.
Personally, if I could’ve found one, I would’ve liked to have a 1ghz+ PC for less than $300 (so I could play Mortal Kombat and its ilk, which the Xbox doesn’t seem to be quite fast enough to do) and a DVI output for the HDTV. But, we don’t live in a perfect world.
You can get a full system minus the monitor and software for $300 and less. Just install your favorite linux distrib.
Saw a AMD 2400+ Sempron, 256mb ddr, 80gb hd, 52X cd-rw, floppy, nice black case, kb+mouse for $300CDN ~$239USD. One could probably find a system of these specs for less in the states. I remember paying 2,500 for a P1-133mhz back in 95/96 prices have really dropped.
I just hope the futer leads to good onboard graphics or more reasonable video card prices.
If PCs get cheap, they will still have windows on them. Either legally or illegally. People still want windows on their machine since they neither care about linux or other open source OS’s or never heard of them.
MS will more then be able to adjust for such things coming to market.
Things like the mac mini work well in the current market because so many people have things like monitors and such that are fine with them. In the late 90s the iMacs worked well since people only had junky old 12 inch Gateway monitors off their 486, so an all in one worked. Today it doesn’t as people have gotten nice monitors and even LCDs cheap with their Dell, so a headless machine works well. Over time things will probably change again, maybe back to all in ones. Also the mini works not just causes it’s cheap, but because it has an OS that has a real draw to it. It’s a cheap and easy way to try something else. Things like linux may be cheap, but they aren’t easy, and you now are a freak and incompatible with the world.
I doubt cheap PCs will take off like the mini, since people already have PCs. They aren’t going to buy a new computer to get a cheap computer. What they have works fine. And when they get a new computer they will want something much more powerful then their current computer. So anything cheap will have to be powerful. With the apple mini, it just needed to be cheap. Since peoples goals were to get a mac, and used macs costed just as much as new ones.
Computers of course will get cheaper over time, and become even more and more disposable. Things like ATX standards and such will slowly become dinosaurs as people buy smaller and more integrated computers. Things like shuttle XPC show this evolution. Break some standards and integrate and create a smaller box. And they are getting cheaper too. Expansion cards are nearing death, and as IGPs get better and better separate video cards will be come less and less common.
Once a computer or anything gets so cheap, you don’t care about upgradability and such, which when removed from a design makes it even cheaper. At that point you have a disposable product. This is where computers are going. Just look at an iPod shuffle, it’s a disposable MP3 player. If it dies, oh well, you just buy another one. Why worry about fixing it or buying protective covers and so forth for it.
And anyone who thinks MS won’t be able to follow is a fool. If a computer gets dirt cheap, they will sell more of them, thus more volume, thus they just cut their prices more. If MS charges OEMs 50 bucks now per computer (which is probably way high), they will gladly charge 5 bucks if they can sell 10 computers.
In 10-15 years building your computer will be a thing of the past. Even now it doesn’t save you money, just gets you control over what you get. Computers will be more like embedded devices, you buy them, they are what they are, and when you want more or it dies you toss it and buy the next. And they all come with Windows or Mac OS.
Yes, I think they will continue to get cheaper but nobody has mentioned internet connected @ broadband speeds with no hard drive and remote storage. Will that be large in the future?
I think cheap PC’s ARE definately the future. How many of you remember $300 (or more) DVD players??? Yeah, that is a machine that does a single operation (like a drive). Be that as it may, you can find brand new DVD players with the same functions (or more) than the previous $300 models……for around $40. With the rate at which technology progresses, people will desire to spend less money on each computer purchase since they are finding themselves upgrading more frequently. My $0.02
I can’t predict the future but I can say that the idea of cheap, disposable computers is very attractive.
And by cheap I do not mean low quality.
With components getting cheaper as we speak, it’s possible to produce a servicable computer (running Linux, of course) for your everyday tasks at the $100 price point.
However, the concept of a computer “device” for various tasks does not sit well with me.
Having a separate device for word processing, multimedia, internet and such would cost–all together–as much as a PC today. And who would want their investment to be spread out over several devices when one PC can do it all?
As PC’s get cheaper, Microsoft’s software prices would be similar to a tsunami approaching the shore: as the price for an individual PC gets lower, their prices would be seen as towering over the actual cost of the hardware itself.
Up until now, the actual price for Windows has been hidden by the hardware cost. Now, with cheaper hardware a reality, the Microsoft OS would be seen as a higher-than-necessary expense…unless of course Microsoft adjusted their prices for volume sales which in all likelyhood they would do.
But, all told, I look forward to the day when buying a new computer–device or otherwise–will be as simple as going to the store and buying another screw driver or hammer. Both are tools and will be as easy to replace.
I think people get carried away with what the cheap PC ‘revolution’ actually means.
What is means is this; companies like Dell have to start justifying their pricing model. If they’re going to charge $200 more for a machine of similar specifications, they’ll have to back up the extra $200 by providing better technical support, better integration of the hardware and operating system, better software bundles etc. etc.
Apple has proven that being cheap isn’t the only way to make a buck; craft a cool looking computer, pack it to the brim with a well built and integrated operating system, crammed with heaps of software required so the user can land on his or her feet running, and provided LOCAL (yes, your own country) technical support, where a person can under stand YOU and YOUR unique accent. That is what you pay the premium for.
I am sure that there are examples of the exact same model in the PC world, where companies choose to focus on delivering the complete package rather than simply assembling and shoving a computer out the door.
just for the record, apple doesn’t include that much with a computer far as software. If you buy at the right time you might get something like ilife for free. But really there isn’t that much there out of the box. But then again people like me didn’t need very much. I still haven’t bought iLife 05 cause there isn’t anything there i find worth while.
I think the idea that apple includes tons of great software out of the box is rather overblown. What is there is ok, but it’s not that huge of a deal, and not like Windows XP comes with nothing.
Far as tech support, well, a good product needs no tech support, so you got a mixed bag there. if they get things good, then the quality of their support is less of an issue.
For software hardware integration. Well, thats lies between hardware makers and MS. As components get more integrated that becomes easier. By the time computers become only made by OEMs and are completely integrated per application, things will be better. As long as people build their own computers, and you have white box computer makers around the corner, MS cannot get to far on more tightly integrating things. When they do such as Windows Media Center Edition, they get a lot of flack. But at the same time those boxes run great because all the hardware was made for the ground up for it.
My little side dream involves apple growing over the next 10 years to a size where MS is no longer a monopoly, then MS buys Dell (since at that point the government would allow that) and the whole computer industry is changed. There is now 2 apple like companies. All the other brands are left to scramble for an OS, but at that point Dell already has 98% of the PC market, so there isn’t much left. We then go back to full system providers. I think it would be great if MS did the whole thing. They would quickly crank out window boxes as solid as Macs. Will this happen who knows, just a thought.
just for the record, apple doesn’t include that much with a computer far as software. If you buy at the right time you might get something like ilife for free. But really there isn’t that much there out of the box. But then again people like me didn’t need very much. I still haven’t bought iLife 05 cause there isn’t anything there i find worth while.
I think the idea that apple includes tons of great software out of the box is rather overblown. What is there is ok, but it’s not that huge of a deal, and not like Windows XP comes with nothing.
Tonnes and great software are relative concepts. For most people, that is Joe and Jane Average, Apple Works would suffice as a word processing tool, there is an encycopedia for little Susie or Billy to do their home work, a couple of non-violent games, a chess game for the parents or the budding teenage geek of the house who wants to tune up his chess skills.
There is something for everyone. Yes, true, there are things that aren’t suitable for you or I, but we’re NOT mainstream users; we aren’t the bulk of the purchasing public. We’re the equivilant to a man pissing into the ocean – a person on the other side of the ocean wouldn’t notice a difference.
Far as tech support, well, a good product needs no tech support, so you got a mixed bag there. if they get things good, then the quality of their support is less of an issue.
When you hardware fails, and requires to be sent away; that is technical support. When you wish to purchase and extended warrenty, thats part of technical support.
Technical support is more than just, “Hi, I’m Joe, I’m as dumb as rocks, and I can’t get my cup holder working, oh, and I can’t find my any key”.
For software hardware integration. Well, thats lies between hardware makers and MS. As components get more integrated that becomes easier. By the time computers become only made by OEMs and are completely integrated per application, things will be better. As long as people build their own computers, and you have white box computer makers around the corner, MS cannot get to far on more tightly integrating things. When they do such as Windows Media Center Edition, they get a lot of flack. But at the same time those boxes run great because all the hardware was made for the ground up for it.
Who gave them flack? People can either have ‘freedom’ with inconvenience, or a slight curb on their ‘freedom’ and have something that actually work together like a well tuned watch. Dell’s equipment works simply because they don’t design any part of it; the motherboard, processor, chipset etc. the whole thing is designed by Intel; Dell merely throw the components togethe, and voila, it works.
My little side dream involves apple growing over the next 10 years to a size where MS is no longer a monopoly, then MS buys Dell (since at that point the government would allow that) and the whole computer industry is changed. There is now 2 apple like companies. All the other brands are left to scramble for an OS, but at that point Dell already has 98% of the PC market, so there isn’t much left. We then go back to full system providers. I think it would be great if MS did the whole thing. They would quickly crank out window boxes as solid as Macs. Will this happen who knows, just a thought.
I don’t think Microsoft would buy out Dell or vice versa, however, I do see some of the current partners being bought out, like UNISYS and maybe HP, once they’ve continued to rip the gut out of the company by turning it into a me-too Dell clone.
“MS is no longer a monopoly,…
then MS buys Dell …
at that point Dell already has 98% of the PC market”
???
So MS gets a monopoly not only on the OS, but on the hardware, too?
No thanks. I’d rather have some healthy competition with vendors able to compete on quality/features than just the one vendor telling me what is available.2 vendors (MS and Apple) is a cartel, not much better.
Just a random thought, but such cheap systems with fixed hardware could actually team up with Linux very well. Fixed hardware means one-click installation and no hardware issues if done right. It could mean that no omnipotent root account is needed in the system because most things that the root user could change in a “normal” Linux system are fixed anyway. The few remaining options (like fixed local IP address) could be available for a restricted “admin” account to change.
It would need a hell of work to customize everything correctly, but then it would be much cheaper than Windows and actually easier to install and maintain.
The Multiplier Effect is a basic economic principle which means that any cost added at the beginning will cost typically 5-10 times as much at the retail end.
To sell a $300 PC the OS can cost no more than $5-10 and a $100 PC needs an OS that costs $1-2.
That means there is no room for MS or Apple at these price points.
Expect cheap non-x86 pcs running linux or a BSD flavour in 3-5 years for the home market.
I just hope the futer leads to good onboard graphics or more reasonable video card prices.
Yeah, that’s exactly the problem – find a $300 PC isn’t a problem at this point, but finding one that has a decent video card is another. I guess the Xbox’s GeForce3 isn’t sate of the art anymore, but I would guess it’s a helluva lot better than the integrated graphics cards that come with most cheap PCs.
Most integrated GPUs are crappy. However decent 128MB graphics cards retail for about US$50 now.
the moment your looking for a gaming computer your walking outside of the parameters set for a cheap computer as games have a bad habbit of pushing the edge of home computing.
these computers that the talk is about would work nicely with a linux distro on a flash, a usb or firefire hdd externaly connected and thats it. on the flash you have a nice desktop (kde og gnome) and stuff like openoffice/koffice, browser and mail, multi-protocol im, audio&video playback software and some simple image manipulation software. face it, gimp, photoshop and similar is overkill for what people realy use them for: red eye removal (more and more a non-issue with modern cameras) and removal of stuff that dont need to be in view.
these are not professional desktops but rather glorified typewriters.
one could even go further and put xen on the linux thats running from flash. then put a xen os image onto the external hdd. then the user can bring with him his whole desktop wherever he goes. no more logging out, rather you suspsend the session.
the moment your looking for a gaming computer your walking outside of the parameters set for a cheap computer as games have a bad habbit of pushing the edge of home computing.
Depends on what kind of games, really. I’m a classic gamer myself, and currently my Athlon 1.2ghz machine with a Diamond Viper TNT2 PCI card runs all of my favorite games at full speed. Only 3 problems that prevent me from connecting it to my TV:
1. No TV outs
2. Not really the right form factor to put in my entertainment center
3. I’m using it for other things
I could probably get such a machine with a decent vid card with DVI out for $400, but $300 is my price threshold for this purpose. For the time being, my Xbox is going to have to do if I want to play games on my 46′ Toshiba. It doesn’t have quite enough horsepower to run a few games that I like to play, but it’s better than nothing.
There will always be a premium market, maintained by some “leading edge” demand–no it’s game playing, which ups the ante for “performance”.
Main St wants cheap, Wall St wants expensive, always and forever. Certain components become commodities–memory, hard drives–but cpus, motherboards–for ex–maintain the “leading edge” of what is necessary for the latest must-do task: editing video, for example, which requires a powerful, expensive computer (to me, anything over 500). If you really follow the market you will see that the price of the current “best in show” is always around 1200, give or take a few hundred. This was true years ago, it’s true now. The last thing a corporation wants is for their precious product to become a lowly commodity. They don’t want their little darlings getting soiled in bargain bins.
How long will it take for the AMD 64 to get cheap? Years, and years–unless there is some real competition. Until then, a powerful computer will need a CPU costing around 1/3 of the cost of itself. Look how the late Athlons have held their price (the best Athlons, I am referring to).
Talking about cheap computers is one thing–there are plenty out there–but talking about cheap POWERFUL computers is another. The corporations will not tolerate it, unless a rogue company comes out with something really new, really special.
ah yes, classics. im guessing your talking about stuff like console gaming from the 8 and 16-bit eras.
i see that i may have missunderstood the need for a higher end graphics board then. its not about the gpu but the ability to do tv-out and maybe mpeg decoding in hardware. hmm, maybe thats the next thing they should integrate on the motherboard chipsets?
I’ve already seen AMD64 systems going for $399 with a 19″ CRT and a 128mb ATI Radeon 9600 card. Intel Pentium D system are going for between $599 and $999 with 1024mb of memory. The PC industry is mostly done in Asian countries now and it will never return the the United States. It will become a commodity that everyone will be able to afford. The highend market will not disappear but it will have to be truly highend to stick out (highend gaming/software design/video editing/music editing).
I think that this is important. The industry needs to be seen as an enabler and not an ego trip. The most important factor is affordability and user level support.
A central server with four clients for a household should retail for about $2000. A single PC with two processors and 1024mb of memory for maybe $400 and maybe $199 for an LCD display for 15″ to 17″.
ah yes, classics. im guessing your talking about stuff like console gaming from the 8 and 16-bit eras.
i see that i may have missunderstood the need for a higher end graphics board then. its not about the gpu but the ability to do tv-out and maybe mpeg decoding in hardware. hmm, maybe thats the next thing they should integrate on the motherboard chipsets?
I remember when emulation took off in the 90’s – back then, the fastest PC I had was a P120, and the kind of GPU you had made a helluva lot of difference. I remember installing SciTech Display Doctor (I think that was the name?) that added something called VESA 2.0, which dramatically increased the speed of the games. I have no idea what VESA 2.0 is, much less if it is supported out of the box by modern GPUs.
Honestly, I think the most modern game I would be interested in is Killer Instinct, and I’m not sure if a crappy built-in vid card would do the job or not.
As for $300 PCs, one thing I forgot to mention is, what’s the likeyhood you’ll find one in a mini-ATX case for that price? That is important, if it’s going in the living room
if i find the capital to start a company then its very likey