A few days ago I highlighted July 3rd as an important one on the netbook calendar. Aldi Süd, an important supermarket chain will have the Alkoya Mini in stock as part of one of their Thursday offers.
MSI-Wind.de now reports that not only Aldi Süd will be carrying the product. Aldi Nord has 2000 shops and will also be offering the device. If that wasn’t enough, Aldi’s Austrian chain, Hofer, will also be carrying the device.
I’m starting to wonder just how many devices are going to be available in each shop. An average of 10, which would be around 40000 units, is probably not going to be enough but even with 10 per shop it seems like quite the production-run challenge. My advise to anyone in Germany is that you’ll need to be among the first through the Aldi door to stand a chance of picking one up. I’ll be in SchwarzeWald on July 3rd and am planning to be in the Freudenstadt (Peace-town!) Aldi just to see what’s going on. I’ll probably pick one up if I see one.
The Akoya advertising is now up on the Aldi Süd website. Image from ComputerBild who have a review of the Akoya Mini
June 27th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Hm, I was thinking about being at my local Aldi 10 minutes before it opens. But with all the advertising going on (Computerbild testing the device certainly won`t lower the demand) it will probably be difficult to get one.
But if you don`t get one you can usually sign in a list, and if they get a new delivery (e.g. because in another region the demand isn`t that big) they call you and reserve it for you.
And I also don`t think that they will evenly distribute them around the country. There are some *cough* regions in Germany where unemployment is high and demand should be next to zero.
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June 27th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Don’t forget, these baby’s have a german qwertz keyboard.
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June 27th, 2008 at 11:53 am
You look at the keys when you’re typing?
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June 27th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@chippy Nah, it’s just that I don’t want to confuse people around me and it somehow looks German, a qwertz keyboard.:p
Also I’m not sure i like this styling more than the original one tone MSI wind.
BTW will this be the 3 cell? Because rumor has it that this could be the 6 cell.
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June 27th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I guess it will be less than 10 laptops per shop. Nevertheless, it means a lot of advertising power for the netbook category.
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June 27th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
So Chippy is the MSI Wind (Akoya or whatever it is called in Germany) your favorite netbook? Do you recommend it over the Acer, HP, Dell and the rest?
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June 27th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Compared to original MSI Wind Bluetooth is not mentioned in any presented material.
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June 27th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
AFAIK. It has no BT but might have the 6-cell.
@tal MSI WInd is not my personal fave. Aspire One and 901 are at the moment.
Im interested in the performance of Atom though so i’ll buy one of these (if possible) and use it for my research. Will also be able to answer all the Wind-related questions!
Steve.
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June 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
No, its a 30cell battery.
http://www.msi-wind.de/2008/06/27/akoya-mini-doch-nur-mit-3-zellen-akku/
“Laut einer Mail von Medion soll der Akoya beim Verkauf nur mit einen 3 Zeller ausgestattet sein”
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June 27th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
ALDI in the Netherlands will also be carrying the device. It looks like MSI will sell several tens of thousands of units in a single day of these netbooks. Incredible.
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June 27th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
hope they will sell this in there irish stores
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June 27th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
A bit off track of this thread but I am still a little uncertain why we need a 7″ UMPCs (even the really lovely m704) when we can get a 8.9″ netbook. If its not pocketable then I am still not sure about the big difference.
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June 27th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
UMPCs like U704 can be used handheld, that would be very uncomfortable with notebook, even with small one like Medion Akoya Mini. Touchscreen makes difference as well.
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June 27th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
@tal. Bed, sofa, car, toilet, coffee shop, leaning back, small bag, under 800gm, fun, camping, undiscovered situations.
Just a thought!
Steve.
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June 27th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
@niles.
Wondering if the UK will carry this too now
Steve
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June 27th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
First of all I know that you are right Chippy and xtonda
Just not sure about their market in general.
Touchscreen … may be the least important item on your pro lists for others but for me it might be the most important one.
So BTW … are there 8.9″ netbooks with a touch screen?
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June 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
if i remember right the Gigabyte M912 should have a touch screen. Any opinion/comment on that compared to the Acer?
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June 27th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
@Steve,
Could be but I am beginning to wonder how MSI has been able to manufacture all those Winds in such a short time. We are looking at 50.000 units and if we add more countries to the list that might rise to 100.000. Either the production problems with Atom never happened (as Intel have always claimed) or supplies will be far more limited than we think.
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June 27th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Not a bad spec but overpriced by about 100 euro. Wait a few months until more UMPCs are available and you’ll get a better deal.
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June 27th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Tal.
Gigabyte M912. Just got off the phone with someone about it.
I will have some official info in a few days. Possibly a sample in three weeks.
8.9″ 1024×600 (or 1280×800) normal netbook build + expresscard/34 + 31wh battery + touchscreen.
Price is said to be ‘very good’, 1.2KG,
Option: Windows XP or Vista or Linux.
OPtion: 4GB flash, 80GB HDD, 160GB HDD.
Nice to see XP on a touchscreen!
Steve.
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June 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
@thorsten.
Maybe Aldi are the reason that there are shortages!!
I’m looking forward to Thursday morning!
Steve!
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June 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Question: For someone who does not want the Windows Virus headaches, and who will be using Ubuntu instead. With this deal thru these outlets… is there a way that you can “get a refund of monay paid for the XP part”, if you don’t use it, will never use it, etc? If so, then how exactly is the refund process done?
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June 27th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Although it’s academic unless they show up in UK aldi stores, am I right in saying that these initial models have the smallest battery? (Ie, there are already models ready for production which will have larger batteries.) Given the number of models and options it’s difficult to keep track.
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June 27th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
There will be no refund process for these if you don’t want XP.
The XP licenses are costing just $30 so it’s not really worth it.
Steve.
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June 27th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I wonder if the M912 will feature full Ubuntu or Ubuntu mobile due to the touch screen. After all having a touch screen will enable it to benefit the rest of the apps designed for umpcs and mids.
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June 27th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
well i read somewhere that it might run the upcoming Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Not sure what to think of the new category from canonical. Is it really needed? why isnt the mobile edition good enough? … very confusing.
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June 27th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
We should take this into the forums!!
I’ve started a thread on the M912.
http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3306&start=0#forumpost18340
Steve.
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June 28th, 2008 at 7:19 am
ok continued there
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June 28th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Not SchwarzeWald^^ Schwarzwald
And Freudenstadt = Joy Town not Peace-town^^
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June 29th, 2008 at 1:24 am
8.9” with touchscreen would be the Fujitsu P1610 or the newer P1620. It’s a mini-tablet and the 1620 has a core2duo cpu… I’d say it still is the best around, even though there are a few very nice features missing, like an embedded 3G and an expresscard…
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