You've Got PC

freitasm writes "Geekzone is reporting on the AOL Optimized PC, a 2GHz Intel Celeron PC with 256MB RAM and 50GB ATA-100 HDD. It'll cost US$299.99 from Office Depot stores, with a commitment of 12-month AOL subscription. More information on AOL Optimized website." There's also a Reuters story.

....and?

[Megaweapon]

No offense or anything, but why is this on the front page?

Antithesis

[nlawalker]

Here it is, the exact antithesis of the Linux vs. Windows story about a half hour ago, and the reason that "Linux vs. Windows" is not a reality yet. Plug it in, turn it on, and you're on (a poor imitation of) the Internet.

MS Tried This Before Through Best Buy

[geomon]

And other outlets. You bought a rock-bottom priced PC and you were obliged to use MSN for 3 years.

After calculating the high cost of MSN service versus using a local ISP, you could have spent the difference in the contract price and bought yourself a really nice PC.

Re:basic... very basic.

[Duncan3]

Millions of people need SOME kind of dialup anyway.

Now they can get what looks to me like a very good "mom and dad" PC for $300 WITH A MONITOR. No harm in that.

Granted, other ISP's are cheaper.

Services cost more than hardware

[FunWithHeadlines]

So. We've reached the point where the software is increasingly becoming free (beer and freedom), and now the hardware is increasingly becoming so cheap that it becomes the after thought in a transaction. The services part of this deal (12 months of AOL) is "worth" just about as much as the cost of that PC.

Free software. Almost "free" hardware (throw-ins to a deal). Free wireless access. How long before we see ubiqituous computing? I guess the bigger question is how long before we see a PC included in a cereal box instead of those DVDs I've seen advertised on the boxes of Fruit Loops (or whatever it was)? "Hey! Check it out! This box contains a coupon for a free PC! (just send in 20 box tops, plus $39.95 shipping and handling)"

Re:coincidence?

[Mateito]

Buy now, pay later.

If its not coming out of your pocket today, its cheaper.

People don't think long-term when making purchases. That's why banks can sell consumer credit at high interest rates with low repayments over rediculously long times.

People joke about "Wogs and Cash", but the concept of never going into debt for a non-incoming generating purchase has a lot going for it.

Re:basic... very basic.

[WIAKywbfatw]

You're not just getting a PC, you're getting a PC and a 12-month dial-up service. If you're going to evaluate the real value of this deal then price up a similar spec PC and include a 12-month subscription to a ISP on par with AOL in terms of service, etc.

Also, remember that this is the sort of deal that's put together specifically to attract novice PC users. People who've never owned a PC before can buy a machine and not have to worry about where to get an internet connection, etc: it's an all-under-one-roof solution that's perfect for people who know what they want to do (surf the internet, send email, type the odd letter) but have no idea about what to buy when they flick through a magazine or go to a superstore.

In those terms, I don't see what there is to complain about.

Fallout

[Nuttles]

The fallout from this offer may very well be the annoyance of techies everywhere. If the target audience are the people who have yet to buy a home computer then a lot of those people will be pretty much clueless with it. So it will follow in a lot of cases, these people will download or otherwise get viruses galore and/or adware. Since these new people only spent what was it 299 on a new computer, they aren't going to want to pay some tech 60 bucks an hour to fix their computer. Their tech friends will be used and abused. We will be called in to fix their problems. If the problem is software and we fix it for free than all is right with the world. The fallback on fixing a computer once is that forever more that person can say that, I think what you did 6 years ago is screwing up my computer now. Also, there is a hardware issue. These computers have the cheapest possible hardware, parts are going to die in them a lot. Well, back to the poor techie that got stuck fixing there computer. If you find out that lets say their harddrive is pooched, then they will ask how much it will cost. You will tell them and they will give you the look, like I told them that they have to hand over a years salary to fix it, then they will say well, could it be this or is there a way I can get by not using this right now...I can go on

So my assertion is cheap PCs are only a headache for techies. Any techie who finds out that someone has one of these type of computers, run run away, very fast even

Nuttles
Christian and proud of it

Buy whatever's cheap

[rdunnell]

The manufacturers probably aren't making too many 10GB drives these days. So, you get a bulk lot of what's cheapest which is probably somewhere in the 30 to 60 gig range these days for a cheap IDE 3.5" hard drive.

Re:basic... very basic.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

the main reason someone would buy a PC like this is to get on the web.

You need a minimum of 256M, 2GHz CPU and 50G hdd just to get on the web?? Tell me, how much did you pay that Cray that can go on the web *and* do word processing as well (!!)?

Sheesh, I don't what planet you live on. I use a P1-133 as a secondary computer just to go on the web in my electronics lab and browse technical PDFs.

Re:basic... very basic.

[c0dedude]

Things Obviously Wrong:

1. 256 MB. Chalk up an extra $50 to maintain sanity and upgrade to 512. AOL is a notorious memory hog.
2. CDROM-What, no CD-R? No DVD? They're dirt cheap! Yet another thing for the owners of this pc to buy. Chalk up $75 for both.
3. The printer. Ugh. I bought a Compaq a few years ago and it came with a 'free' lexmark color printer. The damn thing drinks ink. Then it throws it away. Then it gives it to special interests. Chalk up $100 for ink cartriges.
4. Honestly, who doesn't use an optical mouse these days? That's more $$ right there when the wheel breaks down or clogs because AOLers don't know how to fix it.
All in all, this is a lousy deal for which one could get a far better PC with far better internet for likely less money.

Cut-throat? Don't be so sure

[Rie Beam]

Sure, AOL sucks. But the target range here isn't the Linux geek with the 3MB/Sec connection. Like it was stated in the article, the target consists of A) retirees, but B) mostly minority and minimum-wage groups. In this case, they'll be happy just to have a connection - since they'll be paying for it anyway (if it didn't ship with AOL for a year, they'd still have to get a connection somehow), this really is a good deal for them.

Re:basic... very basic.

[Anonymous Coward]

woah woah.. calm down professor, all the guy said was that the reason to buy this box was to web surf.. he didn't say shit about minimum requirements..

Re:welcome to commoditisation

[TheRiddler]

AOL users are not linux's opportunity.

Re:basic... very basic.

[ViolentGreen]

Nobody said anything about minimum requirements. Those are all low end "modern" parts.

Re:basic... very basic.

[FunkSoulBrother]

I don't use an optical mouse. There is nothing wrong with my ball mouse, and I know how to clean it.

Re:basic... very basic.

[dasmegabyte]

Yeah, but to put together a commercial computer -- meaning you can't use used parts, as there's no steady supply, and you need to use parts that will be in production for at least the next year for swapping out broken stuff -- it would cost the same to use those stats as to lower them.

At 299, I have to wonder...

[gillbates]

why doesn't it run Linux? Granted, AOL, if you're going to use a PC as a loss leader, you might as well use Linux - at least you won't be paying the Redmond tax.

I take it that this PC is intended for newbies, which is why Linux makes a perfect choice:

• Newbies don't know *NOT* to click on every attachment in Outlook. Using Linux will avoid numerous support calls due to viruses and spyware.
• Newbies don't know they need to patch Windows every month. Explaining this to them is going to consume even more of AOL's support resources, increasing the cost of the computer for AOL. With Linux, this wouldn't be an issue.
• Newbies won't have to unlearn bad habits from Windows in order to use Linux - as this will be the *FIRST* system they've owned, it will be easier to get them started out right.
• For most people, a PC is a glorified word processor with internet access and email. For this, Linux would be a better choice than Windows.

Okay, there is one caveat: games and off the shelf software. A good Wine setup could handle the latter; the former, well, maybe not so much. But then, what would you expect for $259?*

* - price of computer sans Windows XP license....

Re:basic... very basic.

[seaniqua]

While you can get a better PC than that for under $600 right now, you miss out on one of the main reasons that the "great unwashed" are buying these PC's to begin with: internet. One of the main reasons for a family that doesn't already own a PC to get one is because internet access is becoming more and more of a convenience/necessity of life.

In an inexperienced user/internet-only situation, this looks to be a good solution. You can buy another PC for a similar price, but then you would have to add ISP charges on top of that. Plus, AOL is a name recognized by the public, which means that Grandma and Grandpa will trust them more.

Re:basic... very basic.

[Tongo]

The problem is the target audience is not likely to know about these services. Most people that would buy a PC like this barely know what "online" means let alone what an ISP or GMail is. They just want to go to a superstore and get someone to show em what they need to get online with the least amount of hassle. I serisously doubt someone who buys one of these would even have to set up a dialup account.

Re:Slashdot Daily Ad!

[Anonymous Coward]

With several hundered people trashing it in the comments, I'd say AOL didn't get their ad money's worth.

Re:basic... very basic.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The thing is that AOL has the marketing. Whether or not a geek thinks it is "worth" it is irrelevant. A lot of people may buy this, and they may all regret it, or they may not. Geeks simply can't compete against AOL.

There are geeks that are willing to assemble or refurb a better computer for less, but they simply can't get the word out, even locally.

Frankly, I really don't care to "spread the workd" because I don't get paid to do that. If I do get paid to do that, then I am likely selling something. Unfortunately, a lot of people see AOL as the cuddly giant and the local geek as a distasteful character.

This is not a crappy computer

[MobyDisk]

Half the posts are saying "Who cares? It's an entry-level $299 computer." Someone please tell me why a normal computer user (the type who uses AOL) needs anything faster than a 2GHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM?

Word Processing? check.
Web surfing? check.
Email? check.
Office applications? check.
Solitaire? check.
All of the above simultaneously? check.
Doom 3? Oops!

Other than video games, a typical "entry-level" PC like this does fine. This is the same thing as Microsoft having trouble getting people off of Windows '9x.

The Mah & Pah with a 500Mhz PII doesn't need anything faster. Their broadband is still slower than the speed that their PC can render a web page. It still plays chess better than they do. And they don't notice the few seconds of paging when the switch apps.

Re:....and?

[aardvarkjoe]

Because michael's an idiot?

Basic and slow

[AShuvalov]

Practically no modern game will play on this "machine". You get a web browser, mp3 player and a text editor with printer, that's pretty much it. Garbage from my point of view.

If you need something as close to ground as this, consider Ebay. Recently I purchased a very decent a nice-looking HP's IPAQ PC for $35:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca te gory=51109&item=5115338678&rd=1

like this one.

The config like the one this AOL ad has will cost you around $100-$150 on Ebay.

I'll tell you why.

[Roadkills-R-Us]

For the love of Christ, that's all we need is more ignorant AOL users on slow dialup connections.

I'll agree that ignoranmce can caus eproblems, but why do *you* care if they are on slow connections? Unless you just want to email huge attachments to everyone you know, or hijack their comupters. The majority of people I know (and I'm a big dog geek in a town full of geeks, but I know lots of folks all over) are still on dialup.

Frankly, I'm quite surprised that AOL hasn't gone the way of many other services (Prodigy, MSN, etc.) that abandoned their proprietary software for simple internet access.

Since they're hugely successful, that would be stupid. They would need a compelling case to change over. And a lot of people are *happy* with AOL. AOL works just fine for the teeming masses. Do I wish it were better than it is? Of course. But their users are happy, and keep sending them money. So why should they change?