Are we looking at nettops the wrong way?
As an individual who uses computers on a daily basis, I found myself quickly tiring of ASUS' Eee Top. After the initial novelty of touchscreen fun, it quickly becomes apparent that this is a system unsuited to my personal everyday needs.
On the other hand, it quickly became evident that there are users who'll instantly fall in love with the Eee Top - my partner being a prime example. Although moderately computer literate, she instantly fell for the Eee Top's cute design and could seemingly never tire of playing Solitaire at the touch of a finger.
Using a traditional desktop - my Core 2 Duo-based PC, for example - she'll check her e-mail and little else. On the Eee Top, she felt the urge to explore what touchscreen had to offer and found herself browsing the web and viewing photos for the fun of it.
That invitation of fun interaction, we feel, will appeal to a whole new audience. Technophobics such as my future father-in-law would quiver at the sight of a traditional keyboard - over 100 keys for a user who doesn't know what "Esc" means must be pretty frightening. For these such users, a touchscreen interface could be just the tool required to get them computing.
ASUS' Eee Top has its shortcomings - and users such as myself are likely to stay away - but there's certainly an audience for such a system, and it's one that may ultimately expand the PC market for many years to come.
Looking into things a little further, it's also worth noting that ASUS' Eee Top is the manufacturer's first nettop system. Cast your memory back and you'll remember that its first netbook was equally unimpressive. Since then, its netbooks have slowly evolved into half-decent ultra portables, and we wouldn't be surprised to see its netbooks evolve into genuinely-viable home computers.
