In computer news this week, 04/04/2000

Well, the Net applicance was bound to happen, and if you got the Sunday paper, you got part of the story.

Bundled in the Sunday paper was an interesting flyer about the new I-opener netpliance which said:

"It doesn't require computer technical knowhow, setup time, lots of space, accessories, separate modem, separate phone line, knowing anything about the internet or email - it requires one thing - $ 99.00.

For $ 99 you get instant email, web access, news and weather, sports, finance, and online shopping."

Sound too good to be true ? Well of course it is - this is the pc industry.

The facts on this are at www.netpliance.com, which has a clear picture of the product and the concept, along with recent reviews by PC Magazine and others.

The concept here is that millions of people want access to the Internet, but they don't necessarily want to do any computing. So why pay for a computer, when you just want web access.

The fallacy here is that computer illiterate people really can't make intelligent decisions about what they really need, when it comes to a computer intensive application like the Internet. They will go through an educational learning process, and at the end of it will see if they should have a netpliance or a real computer.

The I-opener costs $ 99, normally 199, but if you want a decent mouse that's another $ 20 and of course if you want to print out the great information you find on the web, you'll need their printer, which is another $ 100. Expect to print out a lot of things, you see, because there's no permanent storage with the I-opener..... Once you turn it off, all that information goes bye bye.

Then there's the ongoing monthy fee for internet access, available only through them, for $ 21.95 a month, or at the high end of the price range. Lots of services like Juno are offering all you can eat for $ 9.95 a month, and there's a lot of free internet services too, Juno included. And I-opener gives you only one email account . With America Online, you get 7 email accounts for the same price.

They also offer extended 1 and 2 year warranties for $ 49 or $ 79, and will bill you monthy, quarterly biannualy or annually for their service.

Next there's a very ominous looking sales agreement they show online which features a $ 499 charge to your credit card if you cancel within 90 days, unless you bail out within the first 30 days.

The most interesting part of their site to me was their In The News sections, which includes a recent review of all net appliances by PC Magazine, which says, in summary, not quite there yet.

Although PC Magazine picks I-opener as the best of the first generation of these devices, they point out its downsides of not using a standard web browser, having to use it's proprietary ISP service, and the matter of no storage. Some of the other systems do have hard disk storage.

PC Magazine does say that I-opener does do many things well, and overall better than the others. But the key term is "first generation".

They also mention that "None of the Web appliances we tested were capable of surfing today's most advanced Web sites. The only devices that possessed any multimedia features were the WebTV units".

So in short, this first generation of netappliances can't even do the minimal task they're supposed to do. But just wait, they'll get better.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

3414 E. 30th

Spokane, WA 99223

(509) 245-3736

fdspokane@aol.com