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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Tuesday, September 23, 2003
15:18 - Like No Other
http://www.go-l.com/home/index.htm

(top) link
Boy, these guys are something else.

"L" is apparently the brand name-- and they've evidently started up an ad campaign called "Like no other". Using a site design that's directly cribbed from Apple's, right down to the product-photos-against-white, the row of shiny tab/buttons at the top (except these are carefully designed to look like WinXP widgets, rather than Aqua ones), and the cutesy slogan captions everywhere. Of course they forgot the part about "don't make it so garish it hurts your eyes", but for the most part they followed the book quite faithfully.

Look at these monitors. "Cinerama Displays", they call 'em. (Now that's original. And isn't "Cinerama" copyrighted?) Three- and four-panel LCD banks, for that reeeeally widescreen feel.

And then there's this laptop: the Hollywood. 17". Widescreen. The "most spectacular, desirable, fastest, and full featured PC super-notebook ever built".

For a meager $2199-$5909 price range.

Here's Kris' take on its specs:
Dimensions
(H)x(W)x(D): 1.7"x15.4"x10.8"
"remarkably small frame at only 1.7" thin. " - quote
Weight
7.9lbs w/o Battery and Bay options
without the battery..... without the battery OR bay options... so loaded would be 10lbs?
Processor
Intel® P4 3.2GHz
Hyper-Threading
battery would last, what? Maybe 2 minutes.
3.5 Floppy Drive
Built-in 3-Mode
a must for this century
Video Out
High-resolution S-Video Out with independent image settings controls
no DVI?
Networking
10/100 Ethernet LAN PCI Controller
gigabit - a bit too far?
Cooling
Ultra-high performance air duct and FreeFlow™ architecture.
Variable speed-fan digital microprocessor control with multiple temperature sensing points.
High-density Multi-stage Methanol Copper Heatpipe CPU heatsink design with precision pressure plates.
Oversized double-blade Q-Fan architecture with adaptive vibration cancelling technology.
Independent Chipset/ Graphics Adapter and critical component Multi-distribution side heatsinks.
HD, DDR, and power supply electrical components independent air ducts.
which means it blows... and, uh, sucks...
CacheFlow ™Technology *
Upgradeable** or Built-in
from you to them?

Don't miss the tables where they explain how they beat the G5 in SPECfp and SPECint tests-- and not just that, but the Intel CPUs that Apple reported with scores of 646 and 693 show up here turning in a 1201 and a 1053. Fascinating. (I wonder what happened to the word "dual" in those scores.)

Even the background image shown on the screens of these machines and displays is a ripoff of the Mac OS X default screen. Oh, and they expect lots of disgruntled Mac users to come swooping down upon the site, because right at the top is this note:
Mac users only: You may experience linking errors when using the main navegation bar above, with both the Internet Explorer and Safari Browsers. We are looking into the issue and correcting it as soon as the technical issues have been identified. PC users are not affected by this.

Yeah, well, some companies don't seem to have trouble programming "navegation" bars.

(Did I mention that these guys' desktop machines start at $2999 and go up to $6369? Such a deal.)

No other PC in its category you compare it with, comes even closes. Nothing. Period. Truly, like no other.

Yeah, well... can you do this? <twirls around, does a handstand>

Criminy.

UPDATE: Chris points out that the discrepancy in the P4/Xeon SPEC numbers between what L and Apple claim probably stems from the much-publicized decision on Apple's part to use a non-optimized GCC; whereas L almost certainly used Intel's own compiler, which was probably hyperthreading-enabled. Thing is, the non-optimized GCC is intended to match the real world (PC software vendors couldn't exactly get away with shipping hyperthreading-optimized software to their whole customer base, where it wouldn't work at all).

Underhanded? Yeah. Likely? Who knows. But considering the number of typos and sloppy layout and deliberately misleading sleaze all over L's site, from which it becomes all but a self-parody, I have a hard time believing that their SPEC numbers-- alone in the site-- are trustworthy.

UPDATE: Jay Random writes with the following:

go-l.com is, of course, a hoax. Not an unamusing one, mind you. There is no such chip as the 3.8 GHz P4 they advertise on their top-end desktop; most of the other specs are faked, subtly or not so subtly, to make the weenies drool without actually being possible. The so-called -35ºC cooling system is a particular hoot. So is the 57" 'Cinerama Display' (but the trademark holders for Cinerama are reportedly not amused). The '3-D LCD' for the laptops is pure demented genius. Have you got your 3-D glasses ready, kids? Didn't think so.

The clincher: If you try to actually buy anything from their 'store', you will be absolutely defeated. The 'Store' button on the 'navegation' bar either takes you to the News page, or does nothing. If you click the text link at the bottom of the page, you reach an ostensible 'Store' page, but if you click any of the buttons to buy a product, the server ignores you. Your browser will tell you it's loading a page, but the page never loads -- & you never get a 404 error either. Also, the Visa, MC & Amex logos on the Store page are fake, a sure sign that 'l' has no merchant account with any of them & doesn't want them to sue.

I am told that the dummy corporation has been traced & the hoaxers identified. Enjoy the joke while it lasts.

Awww! I wanted a Grand Canyon display! I had $18,000 just burning a hole in my pocket!

That's one elaborate hoax, though. I'm particularly impressed by the careful engineering of the specs to make them both droolworthy and mockable at the same time. I suppose all the typos and miscoded JavaScript are also all part of the act?

Wow.


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© Brian Tiemann