Re: Was Chrome, as an OS still born?
No intention to defend this Google-badged PoS, but...
"Yes. There's nothing like a product only being available on Ebay to inspire confidence."
Yeah, the confidence you get from support you get when you buy from the usual big names is *sooo* much better. Or maybe not.
The idea of "support" from Google is even more ridiculous than the idea of support from Redmond's earthly representatives, or PC World, or Carphone Warehouse.
And has someone forgotten that Windows out of the box hasn't played DVDs for most of its life, for example, and has needed a 3rd party DVD player adding, and will do so again in Windows 8 for those whose system builders haven't added a DVD player before it left the shop (which is what usually happened with XP and previous)?
The low cost alternative doesn't have to be eBay or AliBaba. Those in the UK might like to look at eBuyer for the current incarnation of the Sumvision Cyclone Astro+, a moderately decent ARM/Android box for £80, for example. Obviously not x86 based, of course, and not *much* support (mine won't even run TuneIn Radio out of the box) , but in comparison with this Samsung box...
http://www.sumvision.com.cn/productinfo/cyclonetablet/cyclonetablet_astro.asp
http://www.ebuyer.com/341447-sumvision-cyclone-astro-tablet-pc-sumv-astrocyctab
Or, as others said already, Raspberry Pi (or similar but less hiptrendy ARM alternatives, or whatever follows Raspberry Pi).
Who needs x86 in a box like this? Weird choice, and not in a good way.