Airis' Kira 740 Eee lookalike gets reviewed

French site MobileHub has gotten its hands on another Eee competitor rip-off -- the Airis' Kira 740 (aka, Kira 100) -- and has given it the rundown. The initial impressions are about what you'd expect, besides coming with XP onboard, having 1GB of memory, a VIA C7 1GHz CPU, and a traditional 40GB hard drive, the mini-laptop is almost identical to ASUS' entry. The screen resolution is the same 800 x 480, the keyboard is apparently a shot-for-shot remake, and it features familiar ethernet and WiFi networking options. You can see in the photo above that there are some minor physical differences, though in our opinion they've somehow managed to ugly it up + 30 percent. For €299 (or around $466) you can get yourself a Kira 740 sometime soon. Yay.

[Via SlashGear]

[SimonRichards @ Apr 29th 2008 3:09PM]

How the hell is that a rip off? It doesnt look like the eee PC, it looks like an ultraportable laptop, and they all look similar!!!! Or is it just the new thing to say everything with a small screen, keyboard, and touchpad an eee ripoff??

[mike @ Apr 29th 2008 5:37PM]

Shut up pip!

[SuperDre @ Apr 29th 2008 3:13PM]

OMG are you seriously talking about this one ripping off EEE? you've got to be joking... 'Almost identical to asus'? WTF.. the EEE is nothing special in design, it's just a smalllaptop and looks like any other laptop, only smaller.. Get real, and don't pretend the EEE is anything special except for the size..
and IMHO the kira 740 doesn't look anything like the EEE.. next time, put on your glasses...

[Reader @ Apr 29th 2008 8:35PM]

Excessive use of IM acronyms are a sure way to highest (yes, highest, not highly) ranked. Also, thank you for ensuring us that it is, in fact, your opinion and not another's.

[vdogg89 @ Apr 29th 2008 3:17PM]

engadget is becoming pretty biased

[Pochi @ Apr 29th 2008 3:23PM]

Any screen under 9 inches fu$*&^g sucks.

Seriously. There's nothing worth getting excited about until these cheap bastards up the ante on the screen sizes (and yes, I know they are already starting to).

[w00t @ Apr 29th 2008 3:25PM]

It may be no rip off, but good god that's a nasty machine, I thought the bezel on the smaller EEE was oversized!

And 1GHz C7?! No wonder the machine in this picture is switched off, their original prototypes are still booting :)

[Raheem @ Apr 29th 2008 3:27PM]

Seriously, laptops are designed in the same way, believe it or not - so they're going to look similar. I hereby officially start a petition to get this article title changed! All those in favour, say aye! :P

[SimonRichards @ Apr 29th 2008 3:38PM]

aye!

[doudOSX @ Apr 29th 2008 4:28PM]

AYE

[mike @ Apr 29th 2008 5:38PM]

aye!

[iofthestorm @ Apr 29th 2008 7:20PM]

aye?!

[Reader @ Apr 29th 2008 8:31PM]

Well if they all look the same, then it's not incorrect to say Eee lookalike in the title then is it? In the same manor they could say Kira lookalike in an Eee article, though the Kira doesn't deserve that :D

[Fara @ Apr 30th 2008 5:45AM]

aye

[Fabio @ Apr 30th 2008 8:46AM]

aye!

And i must say...it has a completelydifferent hardware except for screen and keyboard...how the hell this is a ripoff?

[James @ Apr 29th 2008 3:32PM]

Who cares about another stupid bloomin Eee ripoff? The market has been so saturated that it's starting to really bug me that Engadget is constantly reporting about them.

ARGH!

[Wisam @ Apr 30th 2008 1:17AM]

Engadget should put a counter for EEE like laptops

[frankXchange @ Apr 29th 2008 3:32PM]

Of COURSE it's going to look like the EEE. The all do, including the ones being praised. There aren't a lot of options when you're building something that size. I agree that it's ugly, but it isn't identical as you claim. Please, you're starting to sound like a Mac fanboy.

[Phoenix @ Apr 29th 2008 3:50PM]

It's the Eee, now with even MORE bezel! Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse!!

[Colin @ Apr 29th 2008 3:58PM]

No doubt! At least Asus tried to mask it by putting the speakers on either size of the screen. This thing has more bezel than a Kaypro!

[Colin @ Apr 29th 2008 3:52PM]

Only 30% on the ugly? You're going too easy on it. Everything about that design is just wrong.

[Decoy @ Apr 29th 2008 3:57PM]

I know it's a trite comment, but this time it truly would be more appropriate to compare the rounded silver edges to an iPhone.

[Juaquin @ Apr 29th 2008 4:11PM]

I mostly agree with everyone that all small laptops are going to look similar, but that keyboard is a dead-on copy/paste if I ever saw one.

[Alan Strangis @ Apr 29th 2008 4:47PM]

Really? Really??? Would you prefer a DVORAK keyboard? ;)

[Juaquin @ Apr 29th 2008 5:55PM]

Wow...the layout of the actual keys, and the dimensions of the keys, are spot on. Pay attention. Of course it's a standard QWERTY keyboard, but the exact sizes and positions of the keys are the same.

[Juaquin @ Apr 29th 2008 5:56PM]

Of course, you could be being sarcastic...but given the 4chan-like nature of these threads lately I had to be sure.

[Timmy @ Apr 29th 2008 4:14PM]

Having more bezel is like having more cowbell, i think that you can never have to much cowbell.

[doudOSX @ Apr 29th 2008 4:29PM]

HEAR HEAR!!!

[doudOSX @ Apr 29th 2008 4:30PM]

THAT WAS TO TIMMIY

[Khris @ Apr 29th 2008 4:43PM]

The next ultraportable I buy has to have a 5" screen with a 32" bezel surrounding it!!

[Alan Strangis @ Apr 29th 2008 4:46PM]

Oh no, a gadget site reports on... gadgets!

Okay, so the 'lookalike' angle is pretty damned weak, but since when did we come to engadget for the spectacular prose? ;)

I love my 4G EEE, but I'm selling it in a heartbeat and going with the company that can give me the same portability, but with a convertible laptop/tablet touch screen (7" 800x480 will do, but preferably 9" 1024x600), and sub $500... $400 is better...

That's got to be RIGHT around the corner, right?

[pvanderh @ Apr 29th 2008 4:55PM]

are the editors blind? how is that an Eee look-alike / ripoff. the two computers look nothing alike the fact that both are black means nothing.

[Mark @ Apr 29th 2008 5:26PM]

I really don't see the resemblance myself.

Unless you mean that the Kira looks like the inbred cousin of the city hottie.

[Jeff Lewis @ Apr 29th 2008 5:43PM]

Why do they write this stuff?

Because if they wrote "Here's another entry into the rapidly expanding ultraportable laptop market pioneered by Asus, but we feel this one is a bit too large and really should have a larger, higher resolution screen," no one would spend their time yelling about it.

Calm, rational, unbiased reporting doesn't get people reading anymore... You need to pinch their noses and poke their eyes so they're angry enough to come here and fight...

For everyone else's entertainment.

Bread and circuses, amigos... bread and circuses.

[dos @ Apr 29th 2008 7:50PM]

So basically blogs are becoming just like the old media they're trying to replace. Awesome.

[Dach @ Apr 29th 2008 5:56PM]

It looks more like a LeapPad than an Eee. But I do like the name. If you type someone's name on it, will that person die?

[Gaz @ Apr 29th 2008 6:19PM]

Asus ripoff? I would not say it is. The more competition the better IMO. I have an older Thinkpad T23, its a lovely machine don't get me wrong but I am stuck downstairs looking after the house! The Thinkpad I have does not have the built in wireless, its too heavy and has an old battery life so its stuck to the dining table. I want to watch telly and walk around with a laptop but still have long life out of the battery, be able to run MAME (and make it so I can still afford the rent hehe), use it abroad etc I need one of these ultralites

[-Tj- @ Apr 29th 2008 7:09PM]

EEEw.

[Ninjakamster @ Apr 29th 2008 7:09PM]

Ugly design, huge bezel, Via processor?

What a waste of materials to make this POS. : (

[dos @ Apr 29th 2008 7:50PM]

Why is every small laptop an eee ripoff to Engadget?

This machine doesn't even share the same type of processor or hard drive. If anything it rips off the Everex Cloudbook which shares these specs exactly.

[Skorpius @ Apr 29th 2008 8:42PM]

EEE, now with more janky.

[cf292007 @ Apr 29th 2008 9:47PM]

i am started to get a little annoyed with smaller companies flooding the market with crappy umpcs. Why can't they just give up and leave the job to ASUS, Sony, MSI, and HP. They should stop trying to compete by making fugly machines that suck in performance.

[ahelk09 @ Apr 29th 2008 9:48PM]

Wait a minute...Kira.....so it's a death-note....book.

[Schfelzerberg @ Apr 30th 2008 1:34AM]

Someone should find out who manufactures these lappies. It's exactly the same as the Blue H1 (which sells for 16K Php/$400 here). And I'm getting tired of people saying it's an EEE rip-off. Other than the 7" WVGA screen, WiFi, and a few others, the EEE uses a faster Celeron and the other one uses a much bigger (though slower) 40GB hard drive. BTW, the one pictured looks like crap. I already saw it in different colors and it actually looks good.

And don't even fucking say it's crappy until you've tried it. I've already tried one in a store and the build is actually sturdier than the EEE PC. Haven't seen it startup yet though I'd expect the time to be abysmal compared to the EEE PC given the 1.8" 4200 rpm hard drive.