Say Hello To Our Resident Elonex ONE Beta Tester
Author: Rees | Date: March 26, 2008
This week’s theme on TTB surely has to be blagging skills - OwningXylophone’s managed to blag us into something spectacular (which I’m sure he’ll tell everyone all about later), and me… Well, I’ve used my industry position and Linux experience to blag my way onto the Elonex ONE beta testing programme.
The ONE, for those who don’t remember, is a sub-£100 ultraportable computer made by UK company Elonex. The specs aren’t all that great (300MHz custom-made processor, 128MB RAM, 1GB SSD HDD in the basic model) but due to its price point this thing’s set to take the world by storm.
It’s available on general release (for those who have preordered, anyway) in June but as a beta tester I will be playing with mine a bit earlier than that. So hopefully I’ll be setting up a new blog soon to tell the world about my experiences with the ONE, and of course covering it all right here on TTB too. And hey, if it sucks, I could always just sell it on ebay.
So you get one for free? Sweet!
Apparently not, just on the hella cheap.
Not that £99 isn’t cheap in the first place… Or £119 for the slightly more pimped version…
It’s the slightly more pimped version I get to test apparently. No word on how much I’ll have to pay for the privilege!
Everything looks right again, yay!
Yeah, that new theme was hella broken. Old skool TTB FTW!
So if you "break" your Beta testing unit do you think you would be able to get another one cheap?
I want one!
Trouble is, with it being a beta unit and all, if it broke they’d want it back to see exactly how it broke. I think that’s the point of the beta!
You could order your own for £100. I bet they’ll be in massive demand and sold out everywhere, probably even worse than the Eee, so it’d be well worth it. Also, you’d be backing a British company!
Also, on a completely unrelated note, I think they should’ve called the upgraded one the ONE LX, as that’s an anagram of Elonex. Clever, huh?
just a little note, but the one’s being shipped at the start of june are for people who have asked to be put on the early shipment programme, which anyone who reserves one will have to do.
I tried to get onto the beta programme, and the guy I spoke said that they were not accepting anymore, but offered to sign me up to the early shipment programme.
Just thought I’d point out that anyone can sign up for the early shipment programme by reserving your desired model on the site http://www.elonexone.co.uk, and then sending a quick email with your reservation number asking to be put on the list.
You will have to pay the full amount listed on the site, as well as the reservation fee. However, there are some review models being offered as well, which you can get at little or no cost, although these will be limited.
They expect to start shipping start of June.
Thanks for the update!
I had an email from Elonex a few weeks back with the details of the June shipping, which I posted about here. Like you say, anyone can get on the early shipping programme if they ask nicely. Unfortunately I don’t think we’re important enough for a free review unit (yet!).
Incidentally, they didn’t mention the early shipment programme when I asked to be on the beta, nor have they differentiated between the two in any of my other communication with them, so I’m not sure if there is any difference between ‘early shipment’ units and ‘beta’ units, other than terminology, as they seem to be being shipped out at the same time.
Either way, I should be getting mine soon which is all good.
Oh, and I should probably point out that I wrote this back in March when communication from Elonex was still a bit thin on the ground. Hopefully they’ll start making some more announcements soon.
You are not getting it any earlier. You may call yourself lucky,if you put your hands on it by July or august. There is nothing to show off with.
I wasn’t hugely impressed at how Elonex seems unable to supply machines (or even just give word of when they’ll be able to supply them) in a timely manner to customers who order directly from them, yet seem able to provide stock to some retailers (such as Littlewoods).
I actually cancelled my order because they messed everyone around so much. I’m looking at an EeePC now instead!
dose the screen actualy come off
Yes it does.
do you know how the keyboard work then? what’s the range? is it secure?