everex cloudbook ce1200v

Walmart drops Everex Cloudbook price to $299

Just over two months after dropping the price of the Everex Cloudbook from $399 to $349, Walmart has given the little computer that barely could another price cut. Now you can pick up at Cloudbook for $299.

At $399, there was really little reason to choose a Cloudbook over an Eee PC 4G or other similarly priced computers. Sure, the Cloudbook has a 30GB hard drive which is more storage space than you’ll find on most low-end ultraportable laptops. But it also has a difficult to use touchpad and the hardware and operating system don’t really seem to be designed to play well together.

But for $299, things start to look a bit different. The only other machine you could pick up for that price would be an Eee PC 2G Surf which has just 2GB of storage and a lower capacity battery (or a Alpha 400/Razorbook 400 which is really in a class all its own).

In addition to a 30GB hard drive, the Cloudbook has a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 512MB or RAM, 802.11b/g WiFi, a 4-in-1 card reader, and the gOS operating system, which is based on Ubuntu Linux.

[via Cloudbook UMPC]

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008, 5:02 pm by Brad Linder | Tags: bargain, cloudbook, everex cloudbook, everex cloudbook ce1200v, walmart

Walmart drops Cloudbook price to $349

Walmart has dropped the price of the Everex Cloudbook CE1200V to $349. The laptop was $399 at launch, and according to the product page, Walmart was most recently selling the computer for $388.

Does the new price point have anything to do with the news that Everex is selling a Cloudbook with Windows XP in Taiwan? Or does Walmart want to keep the price competitive given the large number of competing products starting to flood the market? Or is the company just trying to clear its inventory and make room for computers people are actually willing to pay a few bucks more for?

[via Everex Cloudbook UMPC]

Friday, May 23rd, 2008, 10:36 am by Brad Linder | Tags: ce1200v, cloudbook, everex, everex cloudbook ce1200v

Taiwanese Everex Cloudbook gets Windows XP

I had high hopes for the Everex Cloudbook. Really, I did. When the company announced it would be releasing an Eee PC competitor, there were few other products in its class on the market. And while the initial Cloudbook didn’t have a solid state drive, or a conventional touchpad, it did have a 30Gb hard drive, WiFi, and a screen that was nearly identical to that on the Eee PC. What it didn’t have was a user-friendly operating system.

Everex decided to load gOS on its Cloudbook laptops. The operating system is built on the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, but it’s built with an eye toward using web applications like Google Docs and Gmail. It’s not quite as user-friendly as Ubuntu, due largely to the fact that Canonical has a huge team of developers and volunteers working on Ubuntu while gOS does not. But here’s where Everex really messed up: The company didn’t take any steps at all to make sure that Ubuntu ran properly on the Cloudbook. Some of the windows on the setup screen were too large to display on the Cloudbook’s small monitor, which means that the first time most people turned the computer on they wouldn’t know how to get past the splash screen. (The solution was to hold the alt key down while clicking and dragging the setup windows around so you can find the OK box, but that’s not obvious if you’re not familiar with Linux).

Everex reportedly addressed that problem in later builds. But first impressions matter, and for the most part the tech blogosphere is all gaga over the Eee PC, HP Mini- Note, MSI Wind, and other upcoming computers and has kind of forgotten about the Cloudbook. Everex does plan to release the Cloudbook Max sometime next year. It will featur a faster processor, more RAM, a larger hard drive, and a higher resolution display. But honestly, but 2009, computers in this class will be a dime a dozen.

And then out of a the blue, this morning I read that Everex is selling a computer called the Cloudbook SC1200T in Taiwan, which appears to be pretty much identical to the Cloudbook sold in the US, except it has 1GB of RAM instead of 512MB and it comes with Windows XP instead of gOS.

No word on the pricing, or whether you’ll ever be able to get this unit in the US or Europe. But there’s one up for auction right now for 12,000 yuan, or the equivalent of about $400 US.

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008, 9:52 am by Brad Linder | Tags: cloudbook, everex, everex cloudbook ce1200v, everex cloudbook sc1200t, windows xp

Side by side shots of the Eee PC, Cloudbook, and Mini-Note

And here I thought my house was starting to fill up with little computers. While I’ve got an Asus Eee PC and HP Mini-Note, Flickr user Robert Nelson has me beat. He’s got both of those computers, plus an Everex Cloudbook. So if you’ve ever wanted to see how the three computer stack up against one another in size, shape, and glossy finish, check out Nelson’s complete Flickr photoset.

For my money, the HP Mini-Note is the best looking of the bunch. It’s got a nearly full sized keyboard and a high resolution display. It’s also a bit bulkier and heavier than the other two, so if that half pound matters to you (not to mention the extra money you’ll have to shell out to pick up a Mini-Note, which starts at $499), the Eee PC and Cloudbook might not look so bad.

[via Blogeee]