Yeah, this doesn't come as a surprise to me either. Alienware's customer support is TERRIBLE. I paid more than I ever thought I would for a computer and it didn't last even a year.

I think it's important to note that they don't usually make the notebooks they sell. They're actually re-branded OEM notebooks made by other manufacturers (like Arima and Clevo). However, as soon as they put their name on it they need to assume responsibility for any issues that arise (which are pretty much guaranteed to happen with an AW machine).

Actually, even if you do eventually spend them you are being ripped off (albeit a micro-ripoff for most). See those extra points sitting in your Live account? Those points represent money you could be earning interest on if it were sitting in your bank account. Instead, its sitting in Microsoft's bank account, and they are receiving interest that should be yours. Now, if they paid out interest on those points that would be another story. Otherwise, you're letting inflation eat away at it as well as the lost opportunity to earn interest as time goes on. It may not be much, but its still money that should be yours.

Ah, I didn't realize that - even better! ;-)

Yeah, I think you guys are missing the point. This is like a Linux for mobile phones (sure you can already find flavors of linux that will run on mobile devices, but this is taking it one step further). Google has done the hard part and laid the foundation, it's going to be up to everyone else to build on it and turn it into something awesome. The idea is that any device that can run this OS can also run anything anybody writes for it.

All you have to do is look to where Linux has come today to see the potential for this open source OS. Google is planting the seed - don't judge the tree on what it's sprout looks like!

It seems like this idea would prove more successful with the proven ad revenue based model, rather than an annual subscription.

I don't think very many people are going to be willing to shell out even $15 every year for something they could do themselves with a more generic tool for free (say Google Spreadsheets or something).

Yet I think they could draw quite the crowd if it were free, and advertisers would eat this up. Talk about targeted advertising! They would know the make/model/year car of every user! Advertisers pay top dollar for well-targeted audiences.

They're really missing out on a huge opportunity here - it's a great idea, but poorly executed.

I think the only point this guy managed to prove is that he himself is a moron that needs to grow up.

@waiownsyou

Because the priority here is for compactness and as little heat generation as possible. A performance graphics chipset would increase the amount of heat generated and wouldn't be as compact, all to gain something that isn't going to be used very often in a car PC.

Seriously, you guys need to grow up . . . it's pathetic.

I think this is great, anyone that's been involved in the car PC building community knows we've been waiting FOREVER for an all-in-one solution. Looks like this notion is finally hitting the mainstream. Infill had a good start, though waay too expensive. It should be interesting to see how this one turns out.

Wow, some of you guys need to grow up. I won't mention names, simply because I think it's obvious who I am talking about.

As for commenting on the article (the ACTUAL purpose of this thread), I think its ridiculous MS doesn't use open tech on the Xbox. At the same time, they don't have much incentive to do so. In fact, they have a tremendous amount of incentive to keep everything as closed as possible.

That beings said, I think it's great that people are making up for what MS is lacking.

.. just my $0.02

meh