I can't speak for any of the others, but I simply ordered my Linutop from their shop and paid with PayPal. It took quite a while to arrive, but that was because I pre-ordered. These days it takes less than a forthnight.

About the experience: I haven't had any (yet), beyond turning it on and see if it boots (which it does; boot is very slow, but the Linutop is meant to be left on). The Linutop was meant to serve as a secondary pc, attached to a flatscreen tv with VGA input, in our new home in Thailand. Due to all sorts of legalities, we're not in our new home (yet), so the Linutop sits on a shelf, collecting dust. I did buy a wireless keyboard-with-trackball that works fine with the Linutop.

The company does follow up on its product and has released several software updates already (see here for more info). I especially like the fact that everything, including the OS, runs off a USB stick; the plan is to give every member of the houshold their own stick, so there's no messing with other people's files (and pr0n!)

is Linutop's OS open source? and/or available to download? or is it just 'standard' Xubuntu?

http://www.linutop.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Get a Zonbu - that's what I did:

http://www.zonbu.com

Even if you buy it outright it is only $249.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA that made my afternoon, thanks buddy

the answer is maybe

i don't know... starting at $279 + hassle free plan of 14.95/mo?

i don't get zonbu plans and what happens if you refuse them? is hardware still usable? they just charge you more?

Interesting concept, certainly in terms of reusability and sustainability, but you do become very dependent on one company, IMO. It's such a close relationship that it brings to mind privacy issues and how far they'll actually go with their replacement policies.

It appears the only "problem" with different distros or OSs is that you have to get them on a bootable USB stick. See here: Debian Etch on Linutop.

So all you need to boot different OSs from a Linutop, is a Linutop boot key, but since you get one with every Linutop, it's more a part of the hardware than the software.

i was curious if Linutop OS can be downloaded to try out, but it seems like it is downloaded once you have Linutop or possible from another linux machine.