AOpen has said its new Mini PC is not a copy of the Apple Mac Mini and will not compete with it either. The Intel-based Mini PC caused a stir when it was unveiled at Computex Taipei 2005. Mixed reactions from Taiwan based motherboard makers indicate some, at least, may follow suit with a Mac Mini clone of their own:
The Register – No, no, said AOpen, dismissing comments that the Mini PC was a Mac Mini rip-off, of course we’re not competing with Apple – it’s competing with us. AOpen’s ‘logic’ is that since the Mac Mini is all about winning over Wintel users to Apple’s product line, the Mac Mini competes with PCs, not the other way round.
PCWorld – My instinct is to say that the Intel/AOpen machine is a blip rather than big news… But I’m curious: Would you buy a very small, relatively basic PC that ran Windows?
The Inquirer – “It’s not our market”, said Cameron Rogers, Shuttle’s marketing director, bluntly. Meanwhile, an MSI product manager, Price Liu commented: “When we saw the success of the Mac mini, we were thinking about it.” However, for the time being, MSI won’t be adding anything more mini to its line of SFF PCs.
Here’s some information on FICs GE1. It will accept Pentium M class CPUs from 1.6 to 2.26 GHz, supported by a 916GM and ICH6-M combination. There is one DDR2 SO-DIMM slot, for up to 1 gigabyte of memory. It currently uses a tray loading optical drive, unlike Aopen’s slot loader. There is space for one 2.5 inch hard drive.
