More "Green" PCs - Update

It seems I may have been mistaken with the price of the SolidLogic Little Valley 5677. I quoted the price off a review site and closer inspection of the Logic Supply list of Intel-based systems leads me to believe the 5677 is pricier than I had first thought. If you look at this page, you'll see most of the complete systems are priced in the $500 range. The only exceptions are the Aopen mini-PCs, but those units do not come with any processor, memory or storage options in their sub-$400 configurations.

Now going back to the 5677 . In my experience, when a product is listed with the comment "call" or "call for pricing" it means it is more expensive than the other products in the same page or the price is negotiable. If the former is the case, then it would be better to consider something like System76's Koala. It's a bit more powerful, has twice the memory and has a faster hard drive. It does come with a higher price tag, but if the 5677 is indeed in the $500 price point then the Koala would be a better option at $539.10 USD. I'd ask Logic Supply but I'm not about to call (international) to get a price quote.

Anyway, here are the specs of the Koala Mini according to the official product page:

• 1.46 GHz Celeron 410 processor;
• 512 MB of DDR2 Memory;
• 40 GB 5400 RPM SATA drive;
• CD-RW / DVD-RW (slot-loading);
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet;
• Intel 802.11 abg wireless built-in;
• Extra ports (that the other PCs in my previous post did not have): DVI, FireWire 1394B, S-Video.

The specifications above are for the lowest-priced configuration. You can go with a faster processor, bigger capacity hard drive and more memory if you opt to spend a whole lot more. The configuration above costs $539.10 USD. If that's the price I could spend on a low-power system, I'd rather buy a laptop that can output to an LCD screen. There's a lot to choose from when it comes to satisfying that need. Here's great list from HP. Or maybe even consider a low-end Dell Vostro 1000. It would probably cost almost the same as the Koala Mini with the added benefit of an LCD screen (albeit, small in laptops) already included in the price tag.

So if you go back to my previous post and read it, ignore the SolidLogic Little Valley 5677 in the meantime. Until I confirm its in the $300 range that is.