http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225754
£200 to run internet access, torrents, video playback, Office, and occasional WoW-level games - Hard drives will be external, and CD/DVD can be accessed via the lappy or USB.
Left on for 16 hours a day, its got to pay for itself in 'leccy compared to the full tower, quite quickly!
Anyone see any problems with this logic? 
I believe it’s not as low power as you’re expecting - I saw somewhere that it consumes 60W though I think they were confused as I believe it uses a 60W PSU. Saying that, my rig uses 66W when idling so it’s not a HUGE difference in power and thus might not save you as much as quick as you think. Remember you also have to bear in mind the screen costs (obviously only whilst on)
In comparison, my laptop uses 30W so I guess this will top out the same (in a previous post, mackerel has stated his Eee PC used 26W with the battery plugged in so I’d imagine something along those lines).
Otherwise, it should perform fine. I was toying with getting one recently but bought the SSD instead.
I have to say, the reduced background noise is also appealing. My tower must use 65w to just make the fan noise.
Forget comparing the old Eee, that’s several generations out of date.
For something a bit closer, I just fired up my Acer Aspire One netbook. It’s not stock any more, but in short it has an Atom 230, intel chipset & gfx, 1.5 GB ram, 60GB HD. Idle at desktop, with the screen on full brightness, that uses 14W at the mains. Touches 12W at minimum screen brightness.
It’s the ION chipset that’s the energy sucker in comparison though the previous Eee etc was high thanks to the chipset that Intel were using - after all, when I had my Atom PC, the CPU was passively cooled but the chipset had a cooler on!
Yes, reduced background noise is always good. As my screen broke the other day, I’m using my work laptop at home and it’s amazing at how much quieter it really is! I think I’ll put aside the money I was going to spend on a NAS and get one of these instead!
The original Eee I have used an underclocked Celeron processor. That can’t help either! Ooh, I just measured my new laptop for comparison. Core i5-460M, 4GB ram, 320 GB HD, Radeon mobility HD5650, 15 inch 1080 screen… that uses 18-22W idle at desktop at the extremes of screen brightness! So you don’t necessarily need to go slow to go low, in power… ooh, power save just kicked in and turned off the screen. Now its down to 14W!
Mackerel, remember that shuttle i bought off you years ago? Its turned up and i remembered i could never get it running due to being unable to find drivers. Do you have the disks by any chance?
Which shuttle? I went through loads of them. Think all the drivers should be on their web site. Model can be found either on the barcode label on the back, otherwise look up motherboard model number. If I didn’t ship the CD with the unit I wouldn’t rate the chances of me finding it now…
Did you ever got one of these? There’s one for sale on the staff noticeboard for £150 which I’m tempted on getting. Would be nice for a linux desktop as I miss the penguin (so much so I’ve installed Cgywin on Windows lol)
I’ve not got one yet. Still unemployed, and the Xmas earnings are stretching thin now. However, have had phone confirmation of an offer, just going through the usual police / CRB / MI / OSA checks, so should be back in the tax pool in March. Once I get an actual offer letter, I will risk expenditure and this is 2nd on the list after the car brakes. lol
Nice comp, I know a few who use these as HTPC’ s iircc you can mount them behind your monitor or TV if it has the correct vesa mounts…thnking of getting one next time I upgrade.
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Started the job, but been skint for so long i’m struggling to force myself to buy the Aspire http://www.ebuyer.com/product/236579 - anyone want to decide to tip the balance for me?
anyone? 
Bit iffy about Acer myself. I generally don’t recommend them, but the price is hard to beat. If it failed for any reason you wouldn’t be out much cash.
Me personally, I’ve had no issues with Acer and the one I did was a doddle to take apart once I’d found all the screws.
The Revo does look a very neat package and as Egad says, the cost is minimal for what you get. If you do make your mind up you’d better hurry as Ebuyer have sold out and there appears to be limited stock elsewhere (only 4 at Amazon)
I bought a Zotac ID11 a week or so ago.
Similar spec but a slower clock speed.
I was wandering through Maplin and saw it on the bargain shelf with £50 off
Its running Ubuntu 10.10 at the moment and it works ok, nothing more than ok though, it just doesnt feel snappy even compared to an old HP desktop I have been playing with using the same release and less memory.
However, it doesnt work out of the box with HDMI, video is fine just no audio.
I apparently need to muck about with module paramaters to make it work which is a pity.
Windows 7 is claimed to be working properly so I’m dissapointed to find Ubuntu lagging behind windows.
not £99 yet, and have to say if it does/did and I miss it I’ll be quite gutted
Would have impulsed bought one at that price, but it wasn’t at lunch nor now.