Pumped-Up Appliance or No-Frills Computer? i-opener a Shortcut to Net

In the world of consumer appliances, love means never having to open an owner’s manual.

Toasters are lovely, so are electric toothbrushes, blow-dryers, rice cookers and even automatic lawn sprinkler systems.

Computers? Please. . . . The Bible is shorter than most Windows instruction manuals.

So, I was a bit surprised when I received a computer a few weeks ago with a manual about the size of a Pokemon comic book. It was a promising sign.

Inside the box was a compact little computer called the i-opener from Austin, Texas-based Netpliance, and there was a good reason its manual was so thin.

The i-opener is the first of what probably will be a wave of stripped-down, plain-Jane, no-frills computers built for just one purpose--in this case, connecting to the Internet. It has no disk drives, no CD-ROM, no computer box, no Microsoft Office and no Microsoft Windows software.

It’s also cheap. The i-opener’s introductory price is $99, at least until June. After that the device will cost $199. Actually, don’t even think of this device as a watered-down computer, but rather, as a pumped-up appliance.

The i-opener is one of the first computing devices I have used that actually comes close to plug-and-play.

Wimpy Little Box Has Surprising Versatility

Hard-core computer users will scoff at this machine as a wimpy, do-nothing box that is just a cut above a coffee maker. In a lot of ways, they are correct.

But despite all the missing doodads, the i-opener packs a surprising punch.

I have been using the i-opener for basic Web surfing and e-mail, but also for listening to the BBC radio broadcast each morning over the Internet, checking stock prices on Yahoo and even trading stocks on ESchwab.

The fact is, you don’t need much of a computer to do some of the most fun and useful activities in computing.

The device is made up of a 10-inch liquid crystal display screen and slightly shrunken keyboard. That’s it. Speakers are built into the LCD screen and a little pointing device, which can be used instead of a mouse, is fitted onto a corner of the keyboard. The actual computing guts are built into the 2-inch-thick monitor.

My first thought was to put the computer in my office. But I realized that the i-opener is so small--a bit smaller than a notebook computer--I didn’t have to set it up in any of the traditional spots.

It could fit on a bedroom night stand or under a kitchen cabinet. I even had it sitting on the breakfast table for a while before I finally settled on putting the i-opener next to my bed so I could wake up to the Web.

Installation in 7 Easy Steps

My first step in installing the i-opener was to toss away the manual. I reached for the i-opener’s quick-start poster, which covered installation in seven easy steps.

Steps 1 through 4 were on how to unpack the computer, so those didn’t count. Step 5 was on how to plug a telephone line into the computer. Step 6 was how to plug the computer into an electrical wall outlet. Step 7 was just there to inform you that the installation process was over.

You get the idea. Even the cables connecting the keyboard and the optional mouse already were connected at the factory.

Then, I turned on the i-opener. The device automatically dialed out to a preset local telephone number and connected itself to the Internet--all before I even realized that it was ready.

Experienced computer users will faint when they see the i-opener’s blue opening menu with just eight circular icons leading to general news, weather, shopping, sports, finance, e-mail, Web browsing and entertainment.

The news items are short articles from Reuters that are automatically downloaded four times a day so the computer always has fairly fresh items waiting for you. There is an online shopping mall where you can buy the usual online products, like books from Amazon.com and clothes from Brooks Bros.

The i-opener makes visiting the channels even easier with a set of buttons on the keyboard preset to jump to shopping, e-mail, weather, news, chat and other sites. Next to the space is a pizza button that sends you to the Papa John’s Pizza Web site so you can order a pizza delivery.

For first-time Web users, these preset channels are convenient, but eventually all users will want to spread their wings and surf the Web on their own terms.

The i-opener’s browser is stripped down, with only a few buttons, including stop, forward, backward, search and favorite sites. But really, those buttons are enough to do just about anything on the Web, even for the most fanatic users.

E-mail is a bit more problematic. You can write and read e-mail, but you can’t view Microsoft Word documents because there is no Word program loaded on the i-opener and you can’t send digital pictures to friends since there is no way to get the picture into the computer.

The lack of a hard drive and CD-ROM also means you can’t play computer games. And for now, you can’t view Internet video clips or use certain types of programs that are designed to be used on the Web.

The inability to use these programs, written in the Java language, is a big omission that means the i-opener can’t use all the small word processors, spreadsheets, games and stock portfolio trackers that were designed to run strictly off the Web.

But with a little ingenuity, the device can accomplish a lot of tasks that normally would need a full-blown computer. For example, from my i-opener, I could use Yahoo to keep track of a portfolio of stocks, Deja.com to read Internet newsgroups, and Yahoo to read files that I save on the Internet so all my computers can share them.

If I want to save any of this information on paper, I have to buy a Canon BubbleJet 2000 printer--because that’s the only kind that works with an i-opener.

The biggest problem with the device is that you are locked into using Netpliance as your Internet service provider forever. At $21.95, Netpliance, which is planning a initial public stock offering next Thursday, charges more than most Internet service providers, but not much more.

These types of locked-in-access deals can feel like blackmail to experienced Web users, but for first-timers, it can be a blessing since everything is preconfigured and ready for connecting.

Access Fee Subsidizes Low Price of Computer

The i-opener is an easy product to recommend to Web newcomers, while advanced Web users will gag over this machine, which was not designed for them anyway.

But the wonderful small size of the i-opener also liberates it from the temple of the home office, where we computer users must crawl each day to worship. Its low cost and simplicity make it a pleasure to use.

If Netpliance ever gave users the freedom to use a different Internet access provider, this little box would become an even hipper accessory. Unfortunately, Netpliance won’t unbundle its $21.95 a month access fee because that’s how the company makes its money. The connection fee subsidizes the artificially low price of the computer.

For an extra $5 a month, the company will provide Internet access for a user’s other computers, although I imagine most people who already have an Internet provider would be hesitant to try this.

But it is only a matter of time before other companies figure out that small, simple and cheap is beautiful not just for basic users, but advanced ones as well.

It has taken computer makers 20 years to realize this seemingly obvious point. Let’s hope it doesn’t take them another 20 years to actually start selling such a device.

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Internet Appliance

i-opener is a low-cost, no-frills computer designed strictly for Web surfing. Its simplicity makes it an easy choice for Web beginners and basic surfers. Its small size makes it an intriguing possibility for Web users who would like to put an extra computer in unusual spots, such as on a shelf in the kitchen. But customers must also pay manufacturer Netpliance $21.95 per month for Internet access, which makes it a much tougher sell to the Web-savvy who already have their own Internet connections on conventional PCs.

* Price: $99 until June, then $199

* Monthly Internet access fee: $21.95

* Processor: Intel Pentium compatible, 180/200 MHz

* Display: 10-inch LCD color screen, 800-by-600 resolution

* Weight: 5 pounds

* Memory: 32 megabytes of RAM

* Modem: 56 kilobits per second; built-in

* Features: Printer port (can be used only with the Canon BubbleJet 2000 printer), built-in speakers, built-in microphone, built-in pointing device, almost full-size keyboard