Zonbu: The Update On Affordable Eco-Computing

Photo by permission of Zonbu

After I posted my article on the Zonbu Desktop Mini and Notebook, I received an email from Grégoire Gentil, CEO of Zonbu, about some questions that I still had.

Just to give a short recap, the Zonbu Mini and Notebook are energy efficient, green, and affordable. The Desktop Mini is priced at $99 and with a two year maintenance plan of $14.95 per month.

The 60 GB Notebook is priced at $279 with a two year maintenance plan of $14.95 per month. (Note, both Notebook and Desktop Mini’s prices increase if you buy them without the maintenance plan.) The Desktop Mini was the first EPEAT Gold certified consumer desktop based upon meeting stringent environmental criteria and compliant with ENERGY STAR 4 and RoHS standards (Reduction of Hazardous Substances). The Notebook obtained the EPEAT Silver status.

Both the Mini and Notebook comes with 20 open source free software applications. The Notebook is a 60GB computer and the Mini is a 4 GB desktop computer. The maintenance program provides 50G of online storage for both the Mini and Notebook. However, if you wish to add an additional chuck of 50G online storage, the maintenance plan increases to $24.45 per month.

What happens if you only want the Mini or the Notebook without the monthly maintenance plan? How much storage space does the applications take up? Gentil told me that the operating system is only 1 GB for 20 applications. Comparing it to Microsoft’s Office Basic 2007 version at a hogging 1.5 GB¹, the Zonbu is definitely on the Jenny Craig diet with Valerie Bertinelli leaving 59 GB of local cache space for your heart’s desire.

I complained to Gentil that the 15.5 inch screen was not big enough for us baby boomers who now have to wear ~~g-d awful~~, okay, stylish glasses just to read something. He replied, “As for the over 40 crowd, you can put the icon and text in big size – should be highly visible.” Gosh, I hope so. For those who are younger, just wait …

The folks at Green Lounge actually sent me a shout-out to read Ben Hall’s article on the website called “Watts Up with Zonbu?” He tested the Zonbu to verify if in fact the Zonbu Mini only consumed 15 watts as claimed by the Company. Boys and their toys, hmmm. (The Green Lounge “brings you all the latest news in the fast-growing area of green computing.”). Take a look at what Ben found:

[youtube] For a more detailed overview of the Zonbu Desktop Mini and Notebook, see my original article, which has some great comments from Green Talk’s readers.

As to any new developments down the road? Well, Gentil was hush about it. I guess I just will have to wait and see. I am sure it will be so very eco-efficient.
Source:

¹Microsoft Office:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/HA101668651033.aspx#2(Note: Microsoft states “a portion of this disk space will be freed after installation if the original download package is removed from the hard drive.”)