Asus' ExpressGate 2.0 Instant-On OS Demoed

In April of 2008, Asus' instant-on OS SlashTop was rebranded as "ExpressGate" and almost exactly two years on, we're getting a little sneak-peak at ExpressGate 2.0.

Earlier this month, the technology industry gathered in Germany for CeBit and Asus was there to demo the company's second iteration of ExpressGate. Notebook Italia (via Engadget) captured it all on video.

Everything looks a little sleeker than before, and as Engadget's Donald Melanson points out, Asus seems to have taken a few from Palm and WebOS' cards system. There's also a simple little dock for applications and more customization options, which allow you to change desktop themes and UI. Perhaps most notable is the addition of touchscreen support to accommodate the Eee T91MT and Eee T101MT

Check out the video below.

Asus' Express Gate 2.0

*WebOS Image Credit: TechRadar

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There are 20 Comments. B

Top Comments

21

igot1forya , March 22, 2010 10:05 PM

What they should do is give you the Instant ON feature and while your surfing the WebOS portion the real OS is loading in the background. This way you can opt to jump between when you do want the full blown OS.
11

victomofreality , March 22, 2010 10:17 PM

Igot1foryaWhat they should do is give you the Instant ON feature and while your surfing the WebOS portion the real OS is loading in the background. This way you can opt to jump between when you do want the full blown OS.

See now that would be smart so it's never going to happen...

Other Comments

5

purplerat , March 22, 2010 9:17 PM

I have an ASUS laptop with this feature and I find it completely useless. Love the laptop as a whole but I never use the instant on OS.
9

Tomtompiper , March 22, 2010 9:19 PM

This is going to be an essential on portable systems, and a desirable on desktop systems when you just want to check something quickly.
5

hoof_hearted , March 22, 2010 9:28 PM

Too many vendors are making these custom OSs when you want to "check something quickly". What really sucks about most of these proprietary solutions is their lack of interoperability. In a perfect world, all email, contacts, etc should export and import from CSV for all cellphones, OSes, etc.

Where people really get screwed is when they start depending on these solutions, then when it comes time to upgrade or change to something else, they are stuck because they have no easy way of getting their data out of the device.
1

maestintaolius , March 22, 2010 9:30 PM

purpleratI have an ASUS laptop with this feature and I find it completely useless. Love the laptop as a whole but I never use the instant on OS.

I've never used the one that came with one of my mobos either.
21

igot1forya , March 22, 2010 10:05 PM

What they should do is give you the Instant ON feature and while your surfing the WebOS portion the real OS is loading in the background. This way you can opt to jump between when you do want the full blown OS.
11

victomofreality , March 22, 2010 10:17 PM

Igot1foryaWhat they should do is give you the Instant ON feature and while your surfing the WebOS portion the real OS is loading in the background. This way you can opt to jump between when you do want the full blown OS.

See now that would be smart so it's never going to happen...
0

purplerat , March 22, 2010 10:34 PM

Igot1foryaWhat they should do is give you the Instant ON feature and while your surfing the WebOS portion the real OS is loading in the background. This way you can opt to jump between when you do want the full blown OS.

That's a great idea and actually part of the reason why I don't use the instant on OS on my laptop; 9/10 times that I have tried to use it I end up realizing I wanted to do more than just "jump online for a sec" and then have to boot the full OS anyways. So I eventually just started booting to the full OS anyways because I rarely save anytime with the instant on anyways.
0

hoof_hearted , March 22, 2010 11:02 PM

Maybe that is something Microsoft should consider. Instead of the silly logo and progress bar, have a mini web browser during the bootup process (load a the minimal amount of drivers at startup for this to work). I seem to remember a distro of Linux which had Tetris during the bootup process.
3

JasonAkkerman , March 22, 2010 11:11 PM

Instant on VS. Full-blown Windows on SSD in 20-25 sec....

I think I have the 20 seconds to spare...
0

anonymous@guest , March 22, 2010 11:37 PM

I just think this bootOS is just extending real OS boot time.
I don't want a half crippled OS in my boot sector, I want to boot to a full blown OS as fast as possible, so I can use it for anything I want to.
There are times I don't even know what I'm going to do with my computer, browse the internet? Play games?
This is all good if you're only browsing the internet and watching the weather,
but if you're needing to do anything outside that, you'll probably have to close the OS, and wait until your real OS is booted.

Express gate is nothing but a small version of Linux.
1

jenesuispasbavard , March 22, 2010 11:38 PM

WTF is a sneak-peak? I'm walking along the road, minding my own business, and BOOM... this giant mountain pops up right around the corner?
0

SAL-e , March 22, 2010 11:45 PM

I like idea for instant boot on Netbook, but current solutions are more like bad patch fix for using Windows. Windows is not very well optimized for netbooks, because Windows was never targeted for that kind of devices. I think Google Chrome OS has better approach. Turn the netbook into Internet Appliance and leave the PC to Windows and full distributions of Linux.
0

anonymous@guest , March 23, 2010 12:10 AM

I have disabled Expressgate on both my Asus mobo computers because it actually adds 3-5 seconds to bootup process because you have to press a key if you want to enter Expressgate. Windows 7 boots up in about 30 seconds on both my machines which don't have processors over $100 and non-SSD drives. In another year or two, with computer and HD speeds, an OS such as this will be even more of a moot point...
0

NapoleonDK , March 23, 2010 1:25 AM

jenesuispasbavardWTF is a sneak-peak? I'm walking along the road, minding my own business, and BOOM... this giant mountain pops up right around the corner?
Lolwut?
0

requiemsallure , March 23, 2010 1:27 AM

yea, i have to agree with the first post, i have express gate as well, and i haven't even bothered to set it up, or figure out if it needs to be set up...
0

Camikazi , March 23, 2010 3:32 AM

jenesuispasbavardWTF is a sneak-peak? I'm walking along the road, minding my own business, and BOOM... this giant mountain pops up right around the corner?

You're funny
0

kencolestud69 , March 23, 2010 4:18 AM

Instant-On laptops are great but on desktops at my home I just use sleep/wake button.
0

Honis , March 23, 2010 4:55 AM

Jane, what gives with the WebOS picture? It is no where near instant (although if it was and on a PC/Tablet that would be glorious.)

Windows doesn't allow user interface or networking until the security features have been loaded. Considering it takes 30 seconds for my Windows 7 to boot (log-in screen) I would never use this feature. Adapt it to mobile tech like all these duel screen eBook readers and you may have something.
0

romansky , March 23, 2010 6:25 PM

Igot1foryaWhat they should do is give you the Instant ON feature and while your surfing the WebOS portion the real OS is loading in the background. This way you can opt to jump between when you do want the full blown OS.

I heard about it, its called Multi Tasking isnt it? //*iPhone user*
0

anonymous@guest , August 15, 2010 9:34 PM

Looking around I found the v2 of this OS you can safetly download from:
http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/EeePC/Utility/ExpressGate-V2_2_52_176.zip
As you can see is an asus site, so feel confident.