eMachines Mini-e ER1402: all the PC your mother can handle for just $300
By Darren Murph 
posted June 26th 2010 7:44AM
posted June 26th 2010 7:44AM
New eMachines Mini-e Creates the Ideal Home Entertainment Center with a Perfect Balance of Compact Design, Features and Affordability
Looking More Like Modern Art Than Computer, the eMachines Mini-e ER1402 Small Form Factor Desktop is a Great Addition to Any Home
June 25, 2010 08:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time
IRVINE, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--eMachines® today introduced its newest and most radically designed small form factor desktop, the Mini-e Home Entertainment Center. The size, weight and thickness of a small book, the unique glossy black diamond shaped chassis "floats" in a matte silver pedestal, while emitting a soft ambient green glow along the lower edge.
"It's an inconspicuous, streamlined computing solution for any room of the home where consumers want to enjoy movies, photos, music and other online entertainment."
Just 7.1 inches in diameter and weighing just 9 pounds, the slim and compact Mini-e ER1402 provides full HD multimedia entertainment and every day computing capabilities. While it looks great in a main living area, it can also snap to the back of most monitors or TVs, serving as a home entertainment center and streamlining limited work areas.
Simple to set up and enjoy, the Mini-e has built-in 802.11 b/g/n wireless, making it easy to connect to the Internet. The HDMI interface allows it to instantly connect to a big screen TV and an S/PDIF port allows the system to digitally connect to a home audio system. With the included wireless keyboard and mouse, families can easily play popular flash-based social media games, surf the web, view and edit photos, stream video content from Netflix® or Hulu®, or watch HD movies comfortably from the sofa.
"Today's cost-conscious consumer will find style, features and affordability come together beautifully in the low-cost eMachines Mini-e," said Steve Smith, senior business manager, consumer desktops for eMachines. "It's an inconspicuous, streamlined computing solution for any room of the home where consumers want to enjoy movies, photos, music and other online entertainment."
Powered by Microsoft Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit, an AMD Athlon™ II NEO Processor, NVIDIA® GeForce® 9200 graphics and 2GB of memory, the ER1402 is also powerful enough to be used for basic computing tasks, such as word processing, VOIP calls, email, spreadsheets or managing family finances.
Its intelligent design provides excellent airflow around the CPU, while ports and slots arranged around the sides allow quick and easy access and convenient cable management.
The ER1402 includes four USB 2.0 ports, a multi-in-one digital media card reader and a 160GB(1) hard drive. A mounting kit, available as an accessory, enables it to be easily attached to the back of a flat-panel monitor or a big screen TV.
The eMachines ER1402-05 is available now from leading retailers nationwide for $299.99.
Great,....now all I need is to wait for Mother's Day
@Yukidaruma
I was thinking the same thing, but knowing all the processors that have repeatedly fried out in every crappy e-machine my family has ever owned, I don't know if I'd even waste $299 on this thing.
@Schmerzlichtod
Dusting and just general cleaning of your house would help to keep the dust in the computer to a minimum. Cleaning out the fans every once in a while isn't a bad idea.
@the bandit What about for playing something like WoW? I currently play on my MBP hooked up to HD monitor, mouse, speakers, etc. But I'm looking for a computer JUST like this to throw underneath my monitor, and basically have it like a desktop without the giant tower. Really only to play WoW, small web-surfing. Thoughts?
@Schmerzlichtod
It's pretty damn hard to fry a cpu unless its more than 5 yrs old.
@the bandit
I've owned my eMachines since April of 04 and it's still going. It DOES make some weird humming noises sometimes, but I'm not really techy so I don't know what that could possibly mean.
P.S. The original keyboard died long ago, though. Damn it, I miss that thing ...
@Yukidaruma Any one else realize they said 9 pounds? Sounds more like an obese Net-top.
@SteveBaldmer
Thanks for the tip I've been working with computers probably since before you were born, though. The fact of the matter is that they have terrible designs, poor ventilation, and cheap fans - dust isn't the issue.
@the bandit
Processor power isn't a factor here... Actually a *single-core* 3GHz Pentium 4 is pretty damn weak too. ;)
@max1001
I don't think it's something anyone strives for - No one, in their right mind, tries that.
@Schmerzlichtod Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. I have never had a quality issue with emachines. Obviously when you buy a low-cost machine it won't have the same fit and finish as more expensive ones. But as far as function and durability I have not had any problems.
it looks weird if you put it infront of the keyboard, that way.
thought it had a rhombus display
@iHack13
Let's call a spade a spade.
still too pricey for nettop kind of machines.
@htd Clock-for-clock, the athlon II neo is about 50% faster than the atom chips. If this is using the dual core version, it's actually approaching low-end desktop performance. If it's the single core version, it's almost as fast as a dual core atom for a little less money.
With full-on desktop systems available for $300, this isn't the best bang for your buck around, but if you NEED something in a nettop form factor, it probably is.
@htd
It has a decent processor(dual core, I believe) and a decent GPU (GeForce 9200 > ION/Integrated gfx). Along with the form factor, this price is hard to beat, imo.
@EJ A The ION uses a 9400M, better than a 9200m.
9200m: 8 stream processors, 256 or 512MB RAM max, 64-bit bus, 31.2 theoretical GFLOPS.
9400M: 16 stream processors, 256MB system RAM, 128-bit bus,54 GFLOPS.
I'm assuming it's a 9200m because as far as I can tell that's the only kind of 9200m there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_9M_.289xxxM.29_series
@onecallednick
I stand corrected, good sir. What's the speed on this athlon neo?
@onecallednick
Do recall that the ION comes in two variants; one with 8 and one with 16 stream cores.
Looks Good . $299 is also good .
@littlea The dual-core Neo Dell Zino HD w/ bluray player was selling for $284 shipped yesterday.
Granted this is an MSRP price though, so the street price is likely going to be even less at retailers.
@Ducman69 really ? lets me check. thanks anyway.
@Ducman69
Priced as you spec the Neo listed for 599. So that would be more then 50% off. Nice try Dell fanboy!
@lindsaypace Sorry, you were right. That was the deal of the day yesterday and its expired.
Use Dell Home coupon code ?$QNC1?HSKNR9F during checkout. Dell has their Zino HD Mini PC with Windows Vista Home Basic and Blu-Ray combo drive on sale for $378.99. Use online coupon ?$QNC1?HSKNR9F and the price drops to $284.24.
Additional System Specs:
* 1.5GHz AMD Dual Core Athlon X2 3250e Processor
* 3GB DDR2 Memory
* 250GB SATA Hard Drive
* ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics Card
@lindsaypace lol, if lying, why would you think I would invent such a specific price anyway? xD
Hmmmm.. how will the display work what i mean how would you fit your rectangular windows or movie ??
@dj99
that thing in the pic is just the central unit :) no monitor is shown in the pic
@dj99
Lol, thought the same thing at first, but then I noticed that isn't a display. Weird place to put the case on the picture.
how do you use the display? o.O
@boxieblue
silly me...that rhombus thingy isn't the display...it's the computer
this may even make a nice htpc. looks the goods.
@buoy How in the hell would it make a nice HTPC? It can't fit into an entertainment center at all.
@Godfail
Can't fit? Errr.. how about laying it flat?
I bet it's not so pretty when you start to connect a bunch of wires to it like keyboards/mouse RF, ethernet, printer, monitor, camera, backup, etc.
It's meant to be more of a HTPC. It mounts with VESA and connects to a monitor via HDMI. Don't need more than a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (included, I think) and you'd be all set. Fairly clutter-free.
Most people have more vertical desk space than horizontal, so laying it flat wouldn't make much sense.
But the VESA mounts are even better.
I wish they would put inexpensive SSDs in these devices instead of laptop drives. The performance difference is worth it, and its better to store your data on a centralized network storage or server anyway.
Glad to see the Athlon NEO is getting some love. Its still frugal but way outperforms the dual-core Atom processor (at least the 1.6ghz version does). Although technically neither are efficient from a performance to power ratio compared to the latest i3/5/7s, the idle power draw is great for tooling around.
The GPU looks like a pretty weak choice though. Considering the GPU lends a big helping hand for things like flash and HD video, it makes sense IMO for overall performance to go a little more upscale for this, even on a nettop.
And speaking of SSDs if anyone is in the market and wants to swap one in, since the Vertex2 are coming out, Newegg has the Vertex OCZSSD2-1VTX60G for just $105.
TRIM support in W7, 230MB/s read and 135MB/s write. I bought three, heh!
@Ducman69
They don't put SSDs in them because even small SSDs would raise the price by about $100. And sure, a central file server is great, but good luck getting mom to figure that one out. Plus that kind of defeats the purpose of a $300 PC....
@Ducman69
> Most people have more vertical desk space than horizontal, so
> laying it flat wouldn't make much sense.
it's certainly a useful option but not a deal breaker. A machine of this general size fits quite well on a desk if you lay it down flat. This is the basic idea of a Mac Mini or a BookPC.
Sauce for the goose and all of that...
@urza9814 Retail price of that fast SSD is just around $100, and a regular harddrive costs something, so the price difference shouldn't be that much. =)
Heck the little micro 16GB SSDs in the Dell netbooks cost next to nothing. Works well enough for a boot drive.
I wonder how good a media player this would be. If it could handle it ok it'd be nice to just put Boxee in it and use it as my media center.
@tsnstuff
The GPU is kinda crap, and they don't specify which Neo.
Theres a 1.7ghz single core (lame), and dual cores from 1.3ghz-1.7ghz which is like a 25ish % difference in performance span... pretty big.
@Ducman69
That's kinda disappointing. Thank You for the reply :)
@Ducman69 according to the emachines site, it's the single core 1.7Ghz version: http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=ER1402-05
The CPU and GPU are plenty capable for a HTPC (9200 has full hardware decoding), but not much else. The athlon II neo chips are about 50% faster clock-for-clock than the atoms, so this is just about halfway between a single core and dual core atom with ION nettop. The price seems fair (if not spectacular) for what it is.
@Chip Eh, but the 9200 seems considerably weaker than the ION (9400) though IIRC.
If it had the dual-core and 9400, I'd be all over it, or at least one of the two.
@Ducman69
It's pretty simple really.
Either it supports PureVideo/VDPAU B or it doesn't.
That should be something pretty easy to sort out if you could actually get one in your hands. The most interesting question probably remains Flash. Will it stutter and bring this machine to it's knees or not? Do you care?
haha I also thought that thing was the monitor.. It looked like some sort of alien monitor :)
Unfortunately, for a mom & dad computer, it lacks the DVD drive.
That thing must be filled with lead shot if it weighs 9lbs. I have a laptop twice that size that weighs just 6lbs. Maybe 9lbs is the shipping weight? Or is it actually 3.9lbs or something?
@weatherman Like most monitors, the fact that its vertical means they probably do use a cast metal base.
Moot though, as its not like this is meant to travel, and 9lbs isn't going to dent even an Ikea desk.