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Asus' ExpressGate 2.0 Instant-On OS Demoed

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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.

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*WebOS Image Credit: TechRadar

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20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • purplerat
    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.
    Reply
  • Tomtompiper
    This is going to be an essential on portable systems, and a desirable on desktop systems when you just want to check something quickly.
    Reply
  • hoof_hearted
    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.
    Reply
  • maestintaolius
    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.
    Reply
  • igot1forya
    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.
    Reply
  • victomofreality
    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...
    Reply
  • purplerat
    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.
    Reply
  • hoof_hearted
    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.
    Reply
  • JasonAkkerman
    Instant on VS. Full-blown Windows on SSD in 20-25 sec....

    I think I have the 20 seconds to spare...
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply