I'm a green geek although that might sound a bit of an oxymoron. I don't upgrade at every opportunity, and I take the reuse and recyle to heart when it comes to technology. I take great joy into getting every last ounce of performance out of my current kit before buying new gear, and I'm a big believer in donating old equipment or using Freecycle. But I'm also thinking of ways to cut down the power I use, which is why a new PC caught my eye today.
WalMart in the US may not be the first name when you think of green, but they are selling a new computer from budget PC specialist Everex that is touting its green credentials. On average the PC only uses 2 Watts, a fraction of the power of most desktop PCs. But while it may sip from the socket, I wonder if they couldn't have done more to shrink its size and therefore not only its desktop but also carbon footprint. If you cracked open the case, you'd notice that there's plenty of room to spare. The guts of this computer aren't much bigger than a can of Coke (or insert your favourite drink here). As Jonathan Schlaffer notes, WalMart commissioned some research on what its customers expected from a PC:
That research said a majority of Walmart shoppers equate the size of a system to its capabilities and as Gadget Lab says people that shop there are "that unsophisticated" which is a much more polite term that I would have used but it fits.
How do we change consumer attitudes so that they don't think that size matters when it comes to computers? Are there are other ways in which consumer attitudes or expectations mean that we miss opportunities to go green or make greener choices?
