Only use I see this for in its current iteration would be for people that do not require a lot of stuff or are not power users.

Good idea, not sure about the execution quite yet, not fully sold. But I do applaud them for attempting something a bit different than a desktop OS and for stating a number of times "offline" because that'll remove some concerns initially.

All in all, we're overdue for a computing renaissance. Perhaps this can be tweaked to fulfill more than what we've just seen.

Interesting, but not for me.

Dear lord, pichlo you just reminded me of the days I had to administer WinNT Terminal Server and the terminal clients, as well as my Citrix days too... ugh.

i'd rather just use a plain ol' laptop/desktop/compute stick with local storage and a crashplan subscription.

We're still just repeating a cycle of store local, store remote (mainframe), store local (desktop), store remote (cloud - god i hate that term), ... All it will take is one incident and the shift will be towards pushing NAS or some variation on that more. Especially when 8/10tb start becoming cheaper and more readily available.

I consider myself to be a bit more open minded about tech like this over here, but I really do struggle to find use cases for it.
Could haul it between uni and home for different teamwork assignments. I can't quite see it as a dedicated box to connect your TV compared to the vast amount of devices already out. I could of course do all above, but I already do that with my macbook. It might offer easier connectivity to TV possibly, though I wonder how those Android apps will work on it.

Device itself looks nice is the best I can say.

Well, I am old enough to understand that yes-no arguments based on purely personal opinions on yet released devices on internet forums are rarely fruitful, but I will try Only from my personal point of view, however.


A small, cube-shaped computer? Tick, seen dozens of those.

I have seen many small cube shaped computers also. Never one with newbie programmable touchscreen, however. But yes, there are many of those. And I have seen many of these used in ordinary peoples home. Quite often they are running OS X or windows. I think I might even have seen one Web OS.

A thin client with no storage and all data in the "cloud"? Yawn. Back in the 1970s, those were called "terminals" connected to a "mainframe". In 1990s, they were called "network computers". Nowadays, the same idea is back again. Nothing is new, only the name.

There are also many devices connected to the cloud. There are even OS's like Googles Chrome and several others that yet/still have not that big names that are cloud based OS's. No argument there. I have tried several of them. Never have I seen one in the wild to be used by some random fellow. There are also cloud services that flawlessly integrate to, say, windows 7 for example. Like the Dropbox. So yes, there are many devices, services and applications that are already connected to cloud.

A new company coming up with a lot of hype and hardly any details? Yeah, right, I haven't seen that one before!

I am sorry, was this meant as an argument of mine or in general? Hopefully not as mine as I did not make anything this kind. I see no reason to answer to this even if you pray it from me.


Soooo, in general I seem to agree with you, but yet I think that they might have shot in shaking the foundations and you think they have nothing. Well, we could both be right and wrong, maybe even in the same time. I will try to make my point with short story that I think everyone here will know.

Back in the days I was talking with several Nokia engineers in a room. We were talking about iPhone and I think it were N95 ( someone can check if the years match). I was representing sales and marketing point of view and they the HW. I got crushed. There were absolutely nothing that iPhone could do better besides zooming from their view. Everything the iPhone could do N95 already did and had done. Touchscreen was old news, true internet browser was old news, having great design was old news, technical specs were not anything special.

I had to say yes to all of their arguments. And when I said Yes, but everything put together like this, is what the consumer wants. I was not believed and thankfully it would not have mattered if I were. I would feel really bad now but we were only soldiers and cannon food. My conscience is clear , but we do know how this story goes on.

Consumer success is never "only" about the technical capabilities or about being the First. It is about getting it right for your targeted marked, among other things. I believe that personal computers, operating systems and devices are slowly coming to their next evolutionary step. I have absolutely no idea what it will be. It probably won't be Solu, but there is always the possibility. Their product is different than that of HP, Dell, Apple or their OS as heavily Cloud leaning solution is different than OS X, Windows, general Linux Distro. Also their revenue modeling is somewhat different.

Only from my personal view, that I like to express here, I want to believe in companies and individuals who try something new. Being it totally new from scratch, being it putting together elements other have developed but not tried together, or being it only new kind of philosophy to do ordinary tasks. I personally believe that there is the chance of shaking the foundations.

Just as a note. I don't want to start further argument on this. This was only my POV and others are as good or bad. But I feel that when someone prays for answer everyone needs to answer.

P.S. I am no smart or wise man, but I have sat and listened to many have conversations and arguments. I have also spoken with really old people. Throwing age-card is never a sign of a gentlemen/fine lady, but a sign of poor judgement and arrogant mindset.

Totally agree with you on this one. Imagine it being an inexpensive little box that all students would get on sign in day. Could maybe really give boost to team and group assignments. Probably impossible because of money issues and there are already competing solutions for that.

Some more details on the Solu computer:

• The operating system is Android/AOSP (source).
• The subscription cost is 20EUR/month (source).
• It has 32GB of internal storage.

I have to say I like their business model of selling subscription on Kickstarter. Customers are pretty much buying (for 300-350USD) their way to a walled garden where they have to pay monthly fee to use the device they have bought for the price. It's quite a bold move by the company and I honestly give them props for that. Seeing how they passed 50% of their goal in the first day, it only confirms my feeling from when the campaign started that 200 000USD (~600 subscribers = 12 000EUR/month) is quite a low target which they may later regret.

That was a pure business view. What do I think about it as a potential customer? I will not buy it for obvious reasons (Android, walled garden, cloud, touchscreen as a mouse, etc.), but as their Kickstarter is so low (~600 users), I would be worried about the ecosystem with such a small community, which would also prevent me from buying it at this point.

It looks exactly like OUYA - a powerful Android device with a nice skin on top of AOSP - and I don't think Android is anywhere near to be ready for desktop computing, just as it wasn't ready for gaming in OUYA's case. And just like OUYA, it's biggest problem will be finding software for their store.


We'll see. I really liked their initial video (with the rap poetry), but this product is not for me.

That sounds familiar

This has gimmick writ large all over it.

On a more substantive level of criticism ... not a good choice to base their platform (presumably for the next good while) on 32bit ARMv7. I'm assuming they got a good deal on unsold inventory of Tegra K1 (non-Denver).

I'd be very surprised if Solu is still a thing in 2 years time.

As a portable device, it lacks any sort of 3GPP connectivity (GSM/GPRS/UMTS/LTE) so it's not going to replace your smartphone.

As a desktop, it requires a keyboard and monitor for docking. People that already have these, already have a desktop too with an OS far more capable Android (and in many cases, it will have better hardware too). It remains to be seen what they've done with their OS to set it apart standard Android. Their concept of "projects" sounds like KDE Activities which I still haven't found a use for that suits my work flow.

Outside of the office, desktop computing is practically dead for most ordinary people (non-geeks). This won't make it into the office as it lacks the proprietary software that businesses seem to love. I can't see that it offers anything compelling enough to convince many people to buy one for personal use.

On top of all these problems, they expect users to pay a subscription of €20 a month. If they're lucky, they might find a niche market for this device.

The whole thing smacks of being a vehicle to advance the careers of those concerned ... demonstrating their ability to design and launch a product and software. Not to actually advance said product into a viable ecosystem.

I give it 8-18 months.