DeviceVM's Splashtop comes to ASUS laptops as Express Gate

DeviceVM's Splashtop -- the (almost) instant-on Linux system -- has made its way onto an ASUS laptop before, but the company has announced today that said application is coming to even more of ASUS' rigs. If you'll recall, ASUS decided to bring Splashtop to all of its motherboards earlier this month, and now consumers who snap up a M70T, M50V, M51Vr, F8Va or F8Vr series machine can also look forward to having near-instant access to multimedia playback, chat capabilities, etc. as soon as they hit the power button. On these lappies, the system will be dubbed Express Gate, but you can rest assured it's absolutely the same thing. We'd hold off a few days on picking up one of the aforesaid units, however, as the pre-loaded models aren't slated to ship until next month.

[Flashpoint @ May 29th 2008 11:23AM]

Asus seems determined to take over the "Race to the Bottom" and make it as trendy as possible.

[mkim @ May 29th 2008 11:24AM]

I think it's more a "race to practicality".

[eggothewaffle @ May 29th 2008 11:33AM]

I'll have to concur with mkim.

[Rohit Kapur @ May 29th 2008 11:45AM]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220307
That's the laptop I purchased last month. Check the specs, and check the price; while you're at it, check the warranty. If that's what you call "Race to the Bottom", by all means, I'm goin' downtown.

I really wish there was some way one could port Splashtop over to current motherboards. I'd love to have this. It's one of the most practical things to come to computers in terms of software in quite a while.

[darkstar @ May 29th 2008 12:31PM]

im all for "the bottom!"
i have no idea what people do with 2ghz on a notebook in the first place! nobody i know games on a laptop nor do serious vid editing on one.

500mhz is perfectly fine for me, surfing the web and chatting with buddies.

[Brendan @ May 29th 2008 11:41AM]

I love this idea. I wish other manufacturers had thought of this sooner.

[Hernan Paredes @ May 29th 2008 11:57AM]

yea i like it too, and its on the laptop i was thinking of purchasing... will look forward to this...

[taco @ May 29th 2008 11:58AM]

I'm not sure how useful this is on a laptop. Wouldn't this require you to actually turn off or reboot the laptop to use? I have turned off my laptops over the past few years maybe two, three times tops. The rest of the time they are in sleep/suspend mode.

[Phoenix @ May 29th 2008 12:07PM]

Because most of us do turn our laptops off. It's designed to boot quickly when you just wanna check a train time or something.

[Rohit Kapur @ May 29th 2008 12:09PM]

Yes but you see, not everyone likes to leave their systems running 24x7, if only to save energy (be nice) and thus, save on electric bills (be practical). As little power as may be consumed in sleep mode, it's still more than zero. Plus, basically, most people DO turn off their computers when they're not using them.
Also, there's no question of turning off your computer and rebooting to use this. This isn't anything special; this is basically just key programs that you'd like to have quick access to when your computer's being turned on. If you're already booted in, you can simply do whatever you want within your OS.

In any case, if it came down to it, I'd rather have a computer WITH this, than without.

[Nihility @ May 29th 2008 12:46PM]

No. Every time you come back from hibernation, you boot up the machine and can then go into the quick booting linux OS.

[Bob @ May 29th 2008 12:09PM]

This is not an Apple Fanboy comment as I think this is a great idea for any computer. That said: I would love to have an iPhone-ish OS on a Macbook for instant on of Email, stocks, media, internet, etc.

[Hansi @ May 29th 2008 12:27PM]

What`s the point of this? Every OS boots from sleep in about a second, granted half a second would be better, but I can wait that one second.

[ry @ May 29th 2008 1:52PM]

It's not for when your laptop's asleep, it's for when it's off.

I love this concept, assuming they do it well and you can switch between those apps via alt-tab or something. It would completely replace 95% of what I do with my couch-surfer laptop, and save me booting it out of hibernation every time.
As long as it's firefox and you can save bookmarks.

[Hansi @ May 29th 2008 2:02PM]

Why would you ever put your computer into something else than sleep when you are not using it?

[darkstar @ May 29th 2008 12:34PM]

is it also instant off???

[crow610 @ May 29th 2008 1:02PM]

Well lets just hope it's not Asus bringing back Instant Fun...cause that was boring!

[foe83 @ May 29th 2008 2:00PM]

It would be nice if while you are using the splashtop, it would load the OS in the background and when it's finished an icon would pop up and ask you if you want to go to the OS!

[Reader @ May 29th 2008 2:33PM]

That would actually be... fricken amazing.

[Sam @ May 29th 2008 3:21PM]

In the presentation video at Under the Radar -
http://www.splashtop.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/20/marks-presentation-at-under-the-radar/ - you can see Windows loading in the background as Splashtop is running. Pretty cool

[go seki @ May 29th 2008 5:33PM]

Its just the sort of thing to build into TVs and other appliances - heck even the car.

[DiscoCat5 @ May 30th 2008 5:03AM]

i hate these splashtops, unless you a real light user.