14 DAY TRIAL // The Asustek Eee PC competitor from Everex, the Cloudbook, will arrive a little late on the market than initially promised. As I said in a previous article, the delay is caused by the company having to perform additional software tweaks for the gOS Linux distribution. Moreover, the Chinese New Year will make it impossible for the company to manufacture enough laptops to launch the first wave of products.
It seems like Everex has done more than a few software tweaks for the laptop: it has secretly cooked a set of drivers that will ship with the ultra-mobile PC and will help users with installing Windows XP on their machines.
This does not mean, however, that the company is planning to release Windows-based versions of the notebook, as Asustek did recently with their Eee PC. The drivers are there exclusively for the enthusiasts that will find it challenging to install Microsoft's operating system rather than the gOS.
According to some reports, Everex's US-based director of marketing, Paul Kim mentioned that the Everex Cloudbook PC will never ship officially with pre-installed versions of Windows XP, because of the company's commitment towards the open-source community.
However, the notebook's technical specifications would easily allow the user to install Windows XP instead of its default operating system, or even run both of them in a multi-boot configuration. The $399 Cloudbook comes with the same 7-inch, 800x600 LCD display we have seen on asustek's Eee, and this might be the only shortcoming in running Windows XP, since lower screen resolution will make it somewhat difficult to use.
Unlike the Eee, that features a 4GB solid-state storage, the Cloudbook comes with a 30 GB hard-disk drive, that would let the user install the operating system and everything else they might need. There won't be long until we see the first reports of users running Windows XP, but I expect that many of its buyers will try (and succeed) to install Windows Vista on the tiny UMPC.
The notebook is announced for 15th of February and will come with a a price tag of $399.