Digital Trends

3K mirrors Asus' Eee specs closely with the Longitude 400, but with a matching price tag on a knock-off machine, maybe a little too closely.

Another day, another Asus Eee clone. On Tuesday, the relatively unknown U.S.-based manufacturer 3K Computers released its own shot at a low-cost subnotebook with the Longitude 400 Mini Notebook, featuring specs uncannily similar to its Asus doppelganger.

Like the original Eee, the Longitude 400 weighs a cool two pounds, sports a 7-inch LCD, 4GB of flash storage, and 512MB of RAM. One notable departure: rather than using the same 900MHz Intel Celeron M processor Asus uses in the Eee, 3K picked up a 400MHz processor from Chinese manufacturer Ingenic.

On the software front, the Longitude 400 runs an unidentified version of Linux that 3K claims is “Windows-friendly,” and has a “full-flash” graphic interface. Rather than using the OpenOffice suite, which has become a de factor standard for low-cost Linux notebooks, 3K has installed AbiWord for word processing and GNUMeric for spreadsheets, along with an unnamed e-mail client and PDF reader.

Unfortunately, 3K Computer’s knock-off runs for $399, the same price as the Asus original, not giving consumers much incentive to experiment with the off brand.